Day 37

 

Adoption

 

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

 

Romans 8:23

 

 

When Cathy and I were married we both knew that her having children was probably out of the question. First of all her heart was damaged from chemo therapy and having a baby would be too stressful for it. Secondly we were not even sure she could have children. The chemo had not only damaged her heart but her kidneys as well and for all we knew her reproductive organs.

 

We both loved kids so we planned to adopt. We were young and naïve and did not have a clue about the difficulty and the cost of adoption. After we had been married a few years we began to look into adoption and were shocked at what we learned.

 

We learned that we had several things going against us. One was her health. We were not sure an adoption agency would think she was healthy enough to raise a child. A second problem was my age. I was in my mid thirties by then and the window of opportunity for most adoption agencies, at that time,  was forty. That meant we had to find one that would take us as quickly as possible.

 

But the biggest hurdle for us was the money. Back then it was going to cost around $10,000. That was approximately $10,000 more than we had. I was a youth minister and that was close to half of what I made in a year. As a nurse she would have made more money than I did but she was sick so often and unable to work that she didn't make that much either.

 

Despite all that I had faith it would work out. We picked an adoption agency, did all the paperwork and had a home visit. I was at youth camp with my youth group when I got a call from Cathy telling me I had to be home the next day because the adoption agency was coming to tell us if we had been accepted or not. I drove home the next day and my faith was rewarded. We were in.

 

There was still the issue about the money though. Where would it come from? I kept reassuring Cathy that we wouldn't have made it as far as we had if God wasn't going to provide the money.

 

My Dad's mom had to be put in a nursing home about that time. My father had to start managing her financial affairs. He was an only child and my grandmother had a brother and a sister who had no children that she inherited from so my father was in line to inherit from 3 estates. As part of managing the estates before he inherited my father had to reduce the estate to keep from paying inheritance tax. There was a law that said that for tax purposes that you could give a certain amount of money away each year to reduce the inheritance liability. Do you want to guess what the amount you could give away to each person was back then? That's right, $10,000.

 

God had demonstrated to us that he was in control and could accomplish what he wanted to accomplish. What we didn't know at the time was that the adoption agency would have to freeze the adoption process because there were not enough babies being put up for adoption. We also didn't know that Cathy's health would deteriorate so much that survival was the main issue, not adoption. And most of all we did not know that God had something even more spectacular in mind.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Romans 8:14-17

 

• What does the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life indicate?
• What does being God's children make us?
• What do we and what will we share with Christ?

Day 36

 

It Is Not Your Fault

 

His disciples asked him, "Rabbi who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

 

John 9:2

 

 

I was in a big hospital room that had 4 beds, though only 3 were occupied. It was a cancer hospital and it was the floor that had teenagers as patients. Some of the kids were there for weeks at a time and their parents might live out of town or for some other reason not be able to be there with their child all the time. My wife, who had been a patient on that floor, was now a nurse on that floor and had asked me to come to the hospital to spend some time with a boy, barely in his teens, who was lonely.

 

So, I was there in the room playing video games with the boy when a group came in to visit another boy in the room. As the boy was explaining to me how to get free lives on Mario Brothers there was a much different conversation going on across the room.

 

The other boy was having surgery the next day. He was telling his visitors there was a good possibility he would lose his leg. That would have been bad enough for a young boy to face but what these people told him could only make it worse.

 

"If you have enough faith," they told him, "you will be well."

 

I don't care what your theology is, how can you say that to a kid? He was being told that the success of his surgery was up to him. If he didn't beat cancer it was now his fault. I was sick and I was furious.

 

What I wanted to do was walk over there and grab one of them by the ankles and dangle them out the 6th story window and say, "If you have enough faith the fall won't  kill ya."

 

I wanted to but I didn't. I know they meant well and they were visiting folks in the hospital and not many people do that. Still, any good intentions they had paled in comparison  to the harmful thing they had said.

 

What they had told the boy was nothing new; people were saying that sort of thing in Bible times. The Jews in New Testament days though if you were sick it was because you had sinned. Sometimes that is true. If you are an alcoholic and your liver goes skunky then there is a good chance it is your fault. But for most of the time if you are sick it is not your fault.

 

Jesus was asked by his disciples why a man was born blind. They wanted to know if it was some sin the blind man had committed or perhaps something his parents had done. The answer, Jesus told them, was that neither one of them was to blame. The man's blindness was an opportunity  for God's power to be displayed as Jesus healed the  man.

 

Sickness and tragedies can happen to anyone, the good, the bad, the ugly, the faithless and the faithful. The majority of the time it is not your fault and you are not being punished. It is not God's fault either. Sin and wickedness entered the world through mankind's actions not God's design. God does allow things to happen and what he wants to do is use your difficulty to work something good in your life.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read John 9:1-27

• Who did the former blind man first tell about how he was cured?
• What were the former blind man's parents afraid of?
• What was the "one thing" the cured blind man knew?
• What offer did the cured blind man make to the Pharisees?   

 

Day 35

 

The Shopping Trip

 

Again the LORD called, "Samuel!" And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me?"  "My son," Eli said, "I did not call; go back and lie down."

 

1 Samuel 3:6

 

Cathy and I had just been married a short while when we went on a shopping trip to the mall. The purpose of the trip was to buy her a new dress. Having sold shoes in shopping malls, working my way through school, a trip to the mall was not the onerous task for me that it is for a lot of men. I actually enjoyed shopping at the mall. I was about to learn that shopping at the mall once you are married is totally different.

 

We went to store after store and Cathy tried on dresses. There were several I thought were fine and I told her so. For some reason I couldn't fathom we kept looking. I would see another that looked okay and would say something like, "That one is pretty good. I like that." But the search continued.

We finally had been to just about every store in the mall and a dress had not been purchased and I did not understand why. Then I saw another store we had not tried. I said, "We haven't tried that store!"

 

Cathy's reply to me was, "Do you think I am fat?"

 

The shopping trip ended and we went home with out a purchase. Later on when I summed up enough courage to ask what had happened I was informed the store was a Lane Bryant store and that it was a store for plus sized women. I had no idea that was the case.

 

Once the dust settled on that I asked how come she hadn't picked out a dress. I was informed that was my fault too. She was not looking for me to say, "That one is nice" or "That looks okay." What she wanted to hear was, "Stop right here! We have got to get that dress. Alert the media! Where is my camera? We have got to get that dress!"

 

Okay, maybe she didn't want me to be that dramatic but to be fair she could have waited a long, long time before I gave her the "Wow!" answer she was looking for. It wasn't that I didn't think my wife was pretty it's just that like a lot of men my "wows" were reserved for the NFL or the NBA.

 

It was a communication problem. I was not communicating with her how I felt about her. She was not communicating with me what she needed from me. She was hoping I would figure it out on my own but I confess that it probably never would have happened. While I am confessing I have to admit that even though I am aware of that sort of thing now it still often times zips by me without my noticing.

 

In one of my favorite stories in the Bible, God is calling Samuel and Samuel thinks that it is Eli talking. Eli has enough sense to figure out it is God talking to Samuel. Once Samuel understands that God is speaking to him he listens to what God has to say. From then on, through out 1 Samuel, we see Samuel and God communicating.

 

I believe God still speaks to us. Like young Samuel we miss what he is saying sometimes. To give us help God has a lot of it written down for us; it is called the Bible. The Holy Spirit can help us understand what God is saying to us inside and outside of his word. And we know that God will never tell us something that contradicts his word.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read 1 Samuel 3:1-21

 

• When Samuel came to understand it was God speaking to him what did he say to God?
• As he grew up how much attention did Samuel pay to God's words?
• How did God continue to reveal himself to Samuel?



 

Day 34

The Taming of The Tongue

 

"But no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison."

 

James 3:8

 

 

In the novel Love Story, the author has one of his main characters say, "Love means never having to say you are sorry." Eric Segal should apologize for writing something so stupid. I have found (as most sane people have) that love means that you have to say your sorry on numerous occasions.

 

I know because I was apologizing while still on my honeymoon. Apparently, "You look good in the dark" does not mean the same thing as, "You look lovely this evening." And apparently it is not a good thing to say on your wedding night. And yes, I really said, "You look good in the dark." Technically and grammatically looking good in the dark and looking lovely this evening mean about the same thing but somehow they don't have the same emotional impact.

 

So, I apologized. It was the first of many apologies. I am capable of saying clever, cruel and just plain stupid things. I learned, when I was in Jr. High and the smallest kid in the school, that my mouth was my best defensive weapon. It was also, often times, the reason I needed to defend myself.

 

I had not intended to offend my wife of a few hours but I had. Words can cut and infect a heart and poison relationships. Because our words can do so much damage we must be careful how we use them. James says, "No man can tame the tongue." That is why we need supernatural help. We need to rely on the Holy Spirit that dwells in us to help us do the things we cannot.

 

One other thing: "You asphyxiate me" and "you take my breath away" do not count as the same thing either.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read James 3:1-12

 

• What objects does James compare the tongue to?
• Though the tongue is a "restless evil" can it be used to do good?
• Where do the words our tongues speak flow from?