Day 16 - Madonna's Child

This is day 16 day of our Thanksgiving experiment. Last month Madonna was in the news as there was an uproar about her adoption of a 1 year old Malawian boy named Daniel. Daniel's father is a poor farmer who could not care for him after the death of his mother so he put him in an orphanage with 500 other children. Whether you agree with celebrities like Madonna, Mia Farrow, Ewan McGregor, and Angelina Jolie fast tracking the adoption process, there is a great need.

Then a couple of days ago I got an email from Kathy Jorgensen, a friend and member here at The Fellowship. She was inviting me to be a part of something special this month, something I didn't even know about ... National Adoption Awareness month, here's a Link check it out. Mark and Kathy have a special place in their hearts for this issue, their two children are adopted. They are especially aware of the plight of the fatherless and the motherless and in light of scriptural teaching on the matter ... well, it's on my spiritual radar screen as well. Check out Voice of the Orphans Link for the latest statistics. It's hard to imagine that over 150 million children world wide have no parents, that's staggering and painful.

I was S.O.A.P.ing up this morning in the book of James. In James 1:27 it reads, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James reminds us that our faith is demonstrated by our care for the least of these. In the Old Testament it was the practice of God's people to leave food, shelter and provision for the fatherless, the widow and the stranger.

The plight of the orphan, this painful reality in our world, reminds me of the spiritual reality that at some time in our lives we are all orphans spiritually. Then we come to know Christ and we are adopted into his family. (see Ephesians 1:4-6) We have the opportunity to offer unconditional love to those in need, who have no family and hopefully open the door for them to discover their eternal family. I am so thankful that God knows each child and he longs for each one of them have a family, if not in this life, then in the life to come, knowing him as their heavenly father for all eternity.