November

I rode my bike with my siblings up and down these country roads on Thanksgiving day (You'll note from the picture that I got the awfully puny bike until Ben chivalrously swapped with me). The sun had begun its descent in the West, and the breeze, even colder than showers in Haiti, stung my skin and burned my throat.

Slowly, slowly and very slowly, I am realizing the beauty of the Michigan landscape once more. In November, the color brown dominates. When this brown welcomed me home, it at first seemed to me to make everything so terribly and awfully deadened. Lifeless and devoid of blessing. Contrasting so sharply with the lush tropical blossoms and deep green mountainsides and stunning nightly sunsets that I miss each day.

Yet once again, my eyes are becoming attuned to the softer and more mellow beauty in Michigan. Southeast Michigan in November. The trees, bared completely now of leaves, silhouette themselves in patterns – intricate yet austere, impossible to duplicate. The sun sinks lower, a mellow and hazy orb that casts a fuzzy glow over the chilled scenery. The colors of the sky during this twilight hour are not rich, unspeakably vibrant and majestic, but these skies do also declare God's glory.

November is national adoption month. A time set aside to advocate for these precious children, a time to find them homes, a time to remember them and pray for them. Each month of each year should be adoption month. For religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress...

What does that mean for you today?

I went on a walk this afternoon, trying again to see the beauty in this corner of the world. Bundled in three layers and still cold, I walked briskly in a vain attempt to ward off the chills. I remembered that there is goodness in seeing the sun intensified as it reflects off of the ice of our backyard pond. I remembered that while there is goodness in charging up mountainsides alongside waterfalls with lush greenery, there is also goodness in leaping over burbling brooks and shimmying over fallen logs in the forest. 

And while there is much goodness and blessing in holding sweet babies tightly against your chest and singing to them of the love of the Lord, there is also much goodness in hearing the silence of this afternoon in the country broken by the shouts of two boys, both very special to you, who are running around the barn and across the yard, engaged in an airsoft war. Most of the time you forget that they were adopted, carried safely home from that far land of Vietnam, for so seamlessly are they woven into the tapestry of your family, but in moments like these, you remember, and you rejoice.

Tomorrow I have a play date with one of my best friends, a five year-old, adopted from China. He is like my brother, indeed I cannot imagine life without him, and I praise God for the redemptive work evidenced so profoundly in his life. In the lives of all who are restored to a family. Whose status changes from orphan to son. From forgotten by all but the Father to beloved by many. God doesn't call everyone to adopt, but consider seriously if He would have you step out in faith and open your homes and your hearts to just one of the millions of children waiting and ready to be loved. The massive disparity of wealth here in relation to the need of the world is like a heavy weight. The scales do not measure up. Especially because there is awareness to the disparity. November is national adoption month. What would God have you do today, me do today, the church do today, to answer His imperative to care for the orphan? It's a question that's been asked time and time again, but we must continue to ask it and answer the call until the end when all things are made new.

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 
John 14:18

Zoey is almost six years old, weighs less than ten pounds, and is waiting for a family. Read more about her here. Take just a few minutes of your day to pray for her and pray that someone answers the call to bring her home soon.