Is something awful really that bad?
His name is Russ. We met a month ago in a Zoom meeting. Imposing is a not I word I would have used if you’d have asked me what he was like during that online meeting. Instead, I would have used words like thoughtful, measured, and professional.
This past Tuesday night at the Kalahari Resort Center in the Poconos, I met Russ in person. Imposing is a word I would not use to describe him. I am 5’10”. Russ is not 6’10” but his towering presence seemed powerful. He had authority around him, clout.
We met at the Statewide Adoption Network’s annual matching event. This event brings all the agencies across the commonwealth together to show prospective adoptive parents some of the children and youth who may be eligible for adoption here in Pennsylvania.
There were more than 60 tables at this event. Each table creatively displayed at least five or six photographs of children in the foster care program. In the weekly vlog I create to introduce the upcoming scripture, I shared if anyone imagines this is a heartwarming event, then they are heading in the wrong direction. If they think this is a heartbreaking event, then they begin to understand what it’s like to look at the photographs of the youth and children at each table.
It was awful. Ugly. Weird. And deeply sad. Feel free to disagree, but behind the smiles I saw broken lives in these photographed faces. The amount of sorrow and hardship behind the smiles is not measurable.
As a dad who adopted five children last June and is fostering my children’s full sibling who is now 14 months old, I was invited to be the keynote speaker at this event. This is we had that Zoom meeting a month ago.
I told prospective parents how proud I was of them for being there. I also shared how awful I felt when I was there five years ago looking to adopt children.
Russ and I met shortly after my time on stage. I won’t forget what he said at that time. “If you have a better way to do this, I’m listening.”
I want us—all of us—to hear Russ. Together, let’s find a better way to do this.
I have a location. I am a pastor. My voice isn’t really my voice at the pulpit. It’s scripture that I hear and speak from. I am a vessel for God’s word. This may sound weird, off-putting, upsetting, blasphemous or whatever word or words you’d like to use here. But I live in and work from scripture. In the vlog I mentioned a moment ago, I spoke of Jacob’s son, Joseph. The text I was called to this past Sunday was Genesis 37, which begins the story of Joseph, the Dreamer. These verses unfold the story of inherited family disfunction. I don’t have room for the details here, but Joseph, who has been thrown into an empty cistern by his brothers, is like these eligible children for adoption in that he has been severed from his family. At this point in his story, his future is unclear except to say that he is powerless, voiceless, and likely scared.
Is something awful really that bad? Maybe.
But maybe not.
I can’t do what I do (and this includes being a father to six) without leaning into and speaking from text that reveals who and how God is. Joseph learns to love deeper and better through more hardships than just his time in the well. How does he love deeper and better? The answer is God. No one can go through what he went through and come out godly in that he is both loving and forgiving of his brothers. Joseph feeds his brothers not just with love but food.
Joseph teaches us that something awful really isn’t that bad. I am out of space here this week yet leave you with these two things. Think with me and Russ (who, by the way, is great) about how to improve the foster care system. Russ agrees this can and should be done. Also, lean into scripture, preaching and teaching. Religion, like the foster care system, is imperfect but does more than inspire. It equips.
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