A Beautiful Mosaic

Sometimes love is a lot of work.  I wish I could tell you that 90 percent of what I am able to do in our home is sit down for life-changing heart-to-hearts with the girls and help them come to amazing realizations about their inherent worth and the love of a God of grace.  And I wish that when I opened the door to the Barton Home on the night of these girls' arrivals that those would be the kind of things that naturally happened in the course of our relationship.  However, it takes a lot of time and a lot of work before these culminations have even a chance of being our reality.  Sometimes love just takes a lot of work. Before I ever find myself in a heart-to-heart, I must first be the limit-setter, the boundary-enforcer, the disciplinarian, because strangely, it is through these things (among others) that I am able to earn trust.  Before I can impart any kind of idea about value or faith, I must first live it out and humbly be ready to admit my own failu...

I found out a little late to get anything organized, but there is a national prayer vigil from May 20 - 27, 2012 for children in the United States foster care system.  You can find out all about it and a lot of interesting information about the pressing needs of kids in foster care and worldwide orphans here: www.cryoftheorphan.org   Check it out! Instead of organizing a location, I thought I would just use this opportunity to urge any and all readers of my blog to specifically pray along with me during this time.  Pray for these children.  A population that once was simply a familiar concept to me has come alive in my own life in the last few years.  Alive, breathing, hurting. Children who are so afraid of love they beg you to hate.  Children who cannot correctly identify what safety or healthy feels like.  Children who are alone and can only think about the family they had to leave.  Children who are broken and breaking everyday....