Adopted

(Me and my buddy back in the day. Just met his awesome fiance. Congrats Griggles!!!)

Warmth! I'm so excited about living at the beach here in the next 6 months, mostly because I can be in the warmth of the Sun and be working at the same time. I just spent the other morning putting together a hangout in the basement of a beach house that is bound to see many an epic game of ping pong or Foosball, and lots of naps while watching movies after coming off the beach. This is my job! I befriend teenage folks and do things like this while fighting for their spiritual well-being. So, what does hanging out have to do with the soul?

I've had this conversation with a couple of people lately: what's so important about hanging out? The simple answer is, that through hanging out, people just realize they can be themselves with one another. In the movie "Meet Joe Black" the character Quince describes what Love is to Death. He says it's when his wife knows "the worst thing about me and its okay." Knowing someone at their worst and accepting them in spite of that...sounds like a pretty accurate definition from a human perspective. Letting yourself be loved includes knowing the you that is being accepted. I think of my kid: will they grow into a confusion about who they are? Will it tear them up that they don't know what their birth parents look like? Will they search for fulfillment in where they came from? I think of the dead ends that I have spent time looking for fulfillment in: status, pleasure, comfort, etc. Will they look there as well?

Regardless, there will inevitably come a point, sooner or later, that they will question their identity and feel unable to look to me for an answer. I was raised by my birth parents, know the culture I was born into, and am not from where my kid will be from. But what I will tell them is what binds all of us together: we have all been orphans. Some of us don't know our birth parents. We all know what it's like to not have a spiritual Dad to turn to. Even for those of us who have cried out like children to our loving Father, none of us have yet seen His face. Even with all of us being very different, we are very much the same when it comes to this.
My kid will actually have an advantage. They will see that their adopted dad is their real dad. They will know that their real home is not the place they were born, it is the place they are going. My hope is that they will know, much more than I can, that their Heavenly Father waits for them with the expectation that I do now; expectation that only a real dad could have.

Ephesians 1:4-6 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Favorite food: green bean casserole
Favorite song: Lullaby by the Dixie Chicks
Favorite rapper ever: still Ice Cube