The who. I was raised in a small Missouri town. My parents divorced when my siblings and I were young. Having an abusive step father and with my dad not in the picture I cabbaged on to my uncle and our towns small Methodist church for love, guidance, and acceptance. Both of these parts of my family laid a firm foundation of who I am today and who it is that God asks me to minister to. They lead me to figure out the answers to all my questions.
The what becomes important to me because it forms the rest of the who. As a child in a dysfunctional family I turned to humor to be my escape. So I found myself as a class clown. It provided me with two important things acceptance and attention from my classmates and more importantly the teachers who have inspired and molded my inner self. Again the who plus the what are the mathematical equation forming the answer for why.
The answer is why? As a married couple both working with special needs people; it didn't take long for the longing of a family to grip onto my wife and I. Skip ahead to the years of doctors and fertility treatments and my wife and I felt lead by God to become foster parents. While fostering we found our first son among our first half dozen foster kids and God's love shown to us by conceiving our second with the last half dozen foster children. Still with our two sons, the desire my wife and I still have to be able to serve and help children have become the who, what and why of our way of showing God's love of us to others.
If I were to ask for prayer it would be this. That every child finds a loving caring family. The Lord knows in our area there are hundreds of children needing it. I try my best daily to show the Christ kind of love to the hundreds of students that I get to see. As our God does to us, I love all of them. I don't judge them and if needed would accept them all into my family. As that little guy growing up I longed for acceptance, love, and belonging and I found it through my God, wife, and family. My last question when? When will enough be enough? Never, as long as God needs me to I will lend my services to all children looking for that which God helped me find; his unfailing love and acceptance as a child in his family.
The what becomes important to me because it forms the rest of the who. As a child in a dysfunctional family I turned to humor to be my escape. So I found myself as a class clown. It provided me with two important things acceptance and attention from my classmates and more importantly the teachers who have inspired and molded my inner self. Again the who plus the what are the mathematical equation forming the answer for why.
The answer is why? As a married couple both working with special needs people; it didn't take long for the longing of a family to grip onto my wife and I. Skip ahead to the years of doctors and fertility treatments and my wife and I felt lead by God to become foster parents. While fostering we found our first son among our first half dozen foster kids and God's love shown to us by conceiving our second with the last half dozen foster children. Still with our two sons, the desire my wife and I still have to be able to serve and help children have become the who, what and why of our way of showing God's love of us to others.
If I were to ask for prayer it would be this. That every child finds a loving caring family. The Lord knows in our area there are hundreds of children needing it. I try my best daily to show the Christ kind of love to the hundreds of students that I get to see. As our God does to us, I love all of them. I don't judge them and if needed would accept them all into my family. As that little guy growing up I longed for acceptance, love, and belonging and I found it through my God, wife, and family. My last question when? When will enough be enough? Never, as long as God needs me to I will lend my services to all children looking for that which God helped me find; his unfailing love and acceptance as a child in his family.