proof

Saturday morning, the state paid for us to see the movie "Sound of Hope : The Story of Possum Trot", the true story of a pastor and his wife in Texas who led their church in the adoption of 77 children from the foster system...every last child who needed a home within 100 miles. 

Angel Studios made the film, and I am surprised still that the state, and many states, have paid for foster families to see SUCH a Gospel-centered, Gospel-preaching film. I praise the LORD for how the Gospel has thus been preached, and powerfully so, to MANY these last months, and how the government and CPS has made it possible!? 

Aside from that shock...

I'm also wrecked, and I don't use that word dramatically.  I bawled for two hours with Lily, Sofie and a friend.  Then, I dropped them off for a day with one of their sacrificial youth pastors, called Matt, and bawled the whole way home. I bawled another hour once I got home, and spent the day spinning in my mind and heart. 

I am not just wrecked, still, for the many many children is desperate situations who are WAITING on the church to be there for them....to show them a love that does not fail, a love that is patient and kind and HIS and forever. 

I was wrecked by the many powerful reminders that if we are NOT looking an awful lot like the one we are following, then we don't really know Him. And Matthew 7 painfully states that if we don't know Him, He most certainly will proclaim on that day that He didn't know us.

And, as the pastor in the film reminded his exhausted and struggling congregation...families to some of the most broken and abused and traumatized children on earth...CLING to Jesus, come alongside one another, and take up your cross.  

The cross is worn in this culture FAR more often as shiny jewelry than it is as battered and bloody. JESUS WORE IT. Jesus carried it. Jesus DIED on it...and He is who I am following.

I've grown far too comfortable. 

My love often echoes as clanging cymbals over action and truth. 

The church in Possum Trot didn't have a heart for foster ministry.  They had a heart for Jesus. And they loved those He loved, from His love. 

I didn't just feel broken over those children....the children RIGHT HERE around me. I feel broken over my own complacency, my own idols of safety and comfort and security and careful. 

If the one I am following took up His cross...am I?

I have been so frustrated with and disappointed by and despairing over the system this past three years of loving and hemming in bonus children from the state that I don't want to have anything to do with it ever again.

So is it CPS I work for then? Am I wiling, IF HE IS ASKING ME TO?

Are we church t-shirt bearers? Or CROSS bearers? 

Are the orphans waiting on the church, or is the church waiting on the orphans?  

The first precious and hurting child the church of Possum Trot hemmed in was greeted on Sunday with : "The Lord saw you, and heard you. He sees you, and I am your family now."

Are MY actions and words SAYING to people, "THE LORD SEES YOU. I am PROOF. How I am living, what you see here, THIS is your physical proof of GOD's LOVE. Of God seeing you." ???

What a BOLD statement, I thought during that scene. To say to someone: I am proof that the Lord heard and saw you.

And how convicting, today, that I thought that was a gutsy claim. 

My EVERY day I should be boldly able to proclaim : The Lord sees you and heard you and here HE is, in ME! The One I am following, I look like! The One I am following, I sound like! The One I am following, I OBEY.

You know just a few weeks after we hemmed in our bonus girls, a total stranger wrote me a letter and said, "I heard what you're doing, and I'm IN. I'm going to start keeping your children one night a week so that you can spend three hours a week one-on-one in rotation date nights with all the kids."

You know just a few weeks after we hemmed in our girls, someone said, "What do you need?" and we said, "seatbelts!" and there is a fifteen passenger party bus we did NOT pay for sitting in my driveway?

Matt and I, and our children, SAW God answer our prayers through these women.

I obviously am still wrecked and have lots to think and pray through...you'll be hearing from me on this again :)

This is all I'm saying. We're supposed to be MORE than this, American Christians. Our churches are supposed to be FAR MORE than stages and programs and fun for our children and some decent worship. 

I will forever have an image in my mind from the movie of the church growing more and more weary and discouraged over impossibly hard situations at home and massive needs, and all coming forward to the cross behind the pulpit to cling to one another and to the cross, bringing their burdens to Jesus and refusing to quit. Out of nowhere, the pastor's wife started to sing, "Satan, we are going to tear your kingdom down", and THAT, friends, is it. 

Kind Christians don't tear Satan's kingdom down.  Abandoned and obedient ones do. 

Our faith is supposed to be FAR MORE than being nice and honest in a not-nice, confused world. Far more light and salt than a few FB posts and church attendance. The pains and wounds and struggles and costs of obedience are not to teach me to be more safe and more careful. They are to identify me more with Christ.

The one I am following.