Here’s to Hope & Healing in 2022
As we get ready to ring in a new year, I can’t help but sit back and look at my babies and the blessings that God has bestowed on me. I see how my husband is involved in every waking moment of our children’s lives and how he sows truth into them, loves them so deeply, and how he would lay down his life to protect them. It occurred to me that I myself am finding healing in a safe and loving family. God has used my husband to restore my understanding of what a father means. How could I not see this before? The connection in my own journey of spiritual healing and the work that we do here.
So speaking not only as an individual who works everyday to fight for vulnerable children to be placed in families (or even as someone with my bachelors degree in early childhood education and inventions for children who have experienced early childhood trauma) but as someone who has personally felt the devastation caused by a family member who was supposed to love and not harm - the work that is being done here is nothing short of changing lives.
When you experience hurt in a relationship, where you find healing is through safe and healthy relationships. Can you imagine being a small child who has experienced a devastating trauma in your “safe space” and trying to process that without a safe family to lean on or really any recollection of what a safe and loving family actually means? Even as an adult who is able to better process my emotion and separate that “his actions are not my actions”, I still found myself reeling from the trauma and truly questioning everything, especially God. After a 25 year relationship with Jesus, I wasn’t sure if what I knew to be true was just that - is He really truth, love, a protector?? What kind of God doesn’t intervene in situations like this? Everything I once knew about a loving father seemingly was a lie and quite possibly never existed. I struggled to understand how to now see God as my Father when that relationship was severed and no longer made sense to me. In the depths of my soul I felt that a father no longer equaled truth, love, … protection. When I thought of a “Heavenly Father” I could no longer draw a parallel to my own life. … Until sweet little babies showed up at my door, who needed me, who needed Colin - a safe and loving family.
It wasn’t until recently when I realized that the way that Colin loves me and our babies not only is paving a path for them but restoring a path for me. I am living proof of how God uses safe and loving families for healing and restoration.
So yes, “his actions are not my actions” and God’s actions are not his actions... Our Heavenly Father is what a father should be. He IS truth. He IS love. He IS protection. And as someone who has to walk this path for only a fraction of my life, as an adult and not a first hand victim - I can tell you that the work being done here is powerful and goes so far beyond physical, mental, and emotional healing. The work here goes far beyond ensuring that children are loved unconditionally in a safe family. The work being done here is eternal. We are planting a seed in the hearts of broken relationships and cultivating healing for future relationships and safe relationships - including that of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
So when you wonder why we’re so passionate about changing how the World cares for orphaned and vulnerable children. Or why children should be in families and not institutions, just know that breaking generational trauma and restoring healthy relationships begins within safe and loving families. That finding truth in how God loves us is found in safe and loving families. That it’s not just something we say because it sounds nice. We truly believe that every child deserves nothing less than a safe and loving family - on earth and in heaven.
So here is to hope and healing in 2022.
God let your people stand up and stand in the gap, so that no child is left waiting or wondering how deeply they are loved and cherished. God let us be a generation that seeks to restore safe and loving families and fight for the best interests of Your Children.
Amen.
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