Children Belong in Families
Imagine having no control over anything in your life. You don’t get to choose where you live, when you sleep, what you eat, or even what do you do with your day? You don’t have to imagine too hard if you’ve ever been a child.
Children are the most vulnerable human beings on the face of the earth regardless of their family’s social status. From the child in an affluent suburb in the United States to a child living in a trash heap in South America, what every child has in common is that they fully depend on the adult caregivers in their life.
The vulnerability we all had when we were children exposes us to potentially innumerable wounds, even in the care of emotionally healthy, loving parents. Now imagine being a child left in the care of paid staff. What’s it like to have your day ruled by someone who is not your family? What’s it like to have to answer to someone who you’re not even sure likes you? What’s it like to be corrected by someone who gets paid to do so rather than doing it out of love?
God made us in THEIR image (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), and so every human being is designed to be in a family
“God sets the lonely in families…” Psalm 68:6
Many well-meaning organizations have set up orphanages and residential facilities for children who don’t have a family to care for them. These institutions have a place in our society to temporarily care for the fatherless in their time of crisis. The mistake the Church has made over time is that we have allowed children to languish in these facilities and in systems that do not provide family for them the way God designed.
Our Father in Heaven is holy, and He has set a part of people on the earth to imitate Him. God’s people, the Church, is set apart to receive the fatherless that He sets in families. Though not every godly family is called to receive a child in their home, every family that serves the Lord is called to do something for the fatherless.
Is God calling you to receive a child into your family? If not, will you support a family that has?
