2 Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree.....the 12 days of Christmas from December 25 onward.....
On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me....two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.
The 2 turtle doves are said to mean the Old and New Testaments of the bible. I have been a Christian for as far back as I can remember and I am pretty familiar with both the Old and the New Testaments of the bible. That said, I am no bible scholar. My summary is that the Old testament tells the stories of the beginning of our faith.....from the first people God created, to the establishment of his people, to the wars and the successes and failures of humanity. In my humble opinion, God gave His people every chance with free will....and quite possibly determined that we are weak, and flawed and hopeless.....without a savior. The New Testament is the story of Jesus and how he was born into the world to be the answer to our hopelessness. God wants us to be reconciled to Him so badly that he sent a son to humanity to understand us and to save us......and the New Testament gives us so many promises and lessons on how to live and how to love. It is in the New Testament that I claim my work in the world.....to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (James 1:27)
Tomorrow we have our third and final home study for our foster care license. Please do pray, if you are reading, that all goes well. Pray that we have done what we need to do to be a safe home, and to be prepared to open our home and show hospitality to children who need us. Home study visits are stressful. We not only have to clean and sort and lock up and organize everything but we also have to face our weaknesses and our flaws because we are being judged and evaluated. The things we are good at here are not measurable by a checklist or an online training video.....or by an alarm on the door our a lock on the medicine cabinet. Yet and still we are doing all of that because it is required to help the children we feel called to help......the child we were asked to help.
Helping hurting children is really scary. Even after 18 plus years of parenting, and surviving many long and hard days....it is scary to think that what lies ahead for us may be hard......the family we have now is wonderful, and anointed by God, and also hard....and we are opening the gates of our family home to say yes. Scary. Hard.
I know from reading my bible, in both the old and the new Testaments, that God is for opening the gates to help hurting people. I know it is not easy and I know it is not pleasing to the world. Our call is to help and care for children and women and to not be polluted or pulled away by the world......to face our messy closets and our dusty curtains and our torn wall paper in the entry way.....because it is torn by children who were waiting for the bus to come and were maybe nervous or bored and began to pick and tear at it, preparing to walk down the steps and go out into the day and onto the bus to do their work for the day.......and we do not have the time or the gumption or the money to fix the wallpaper....but we do have the time and the gumption and with God's blessing, the money to help fix the hurting children and women in our world........
Read your bibles. You may receive a biblical mandate different than mine. You may be called to go out as a missionary and preach the gospel to the nations. You may be called to Marketplace Christianity and bless others with money and time and resources. You may be called to lots of different ways to serve Jesus......but unless you are willing to dig into the Word, you cannot know if it is from Him or from the World.
Watch for the 2 turtle doves......
The 2 turtle doves are said to mean the Old and New Testaments of the bible. I have been a Christian for as far back as I can remember and I am pretty familiar with both the Old and the New Testaments of the bible. That said, I am no bible scholar. My summary is that the Old testament tells the stories of the beginning of our faith.....from the first people God created, to the establishment of his people, to the wars and the successes and failures of humanity. In my humble opinion, God gave His people every chance with free will....and quite possibly determined that we are weak, and flawed and hopeless.....without a savior. The New Testament is the story of Jesus and how he was born into the world to be the answer to our hopelessness. God wants us to be reconciled to Him so badly that he sent a son to humanity to understand us and to save us......and the New Testament gives us so many promises and lessons on how to live and how to love. It is in the New Testament that I claim my work in the world.....to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (James 1:27)
Tomorrow we have our third and final home study for our foster care license. Please do pray, if you are reading, that all goes well. Pray that we have done what we need to do to be a safe home, and to be prepared to open our home and show hospitality to children who need us. Home study visits are stressful. We not only have to clean and sort and lock up and organize everything but we also have to face our weaknesses and our flaws because we are being judged and evaluated. The things we are good at here are not measurable by a checklist or an online training video.....or by an alarm on the door our a lock on the medicine cabinet. Yet and still we are doing all of that because it is required to help the children we feel called to help......the child we were asked to help.
Helping hurting children is really scary. Even after 18 plus years of parenting, and surviving many long and hard days....it is scary to think that what lies ahead for us may be hard......the family we have now is wonderful, and anointed by God, and also hard....and we are opening the gates of our family home to say yes. Scary. Hard.
I know from reading my bible, in both the old and the new Testaments, that God is for opening the gates to help hurting people. I know it is not easy and I know it is not pleasing to the world. Our call is to help and care for children and women and to not be polluted or pulled away by the world......to face our messy closets and our dusty curtains and our torn wall paper in the entry way.....because it is torn by children who were waiting for the bus to come and were maybe nervous or bored and began to pick and tear at it, preparing to walk down the steps and go out into the day and onto the bus to do their work for the day.......and we do not have the time or the gumption or the money to fix the wallpaper....but we do have the time and the gumption and with God's blessing, the money to help fix the hurting children and women in our world........
Read your bibles. You may receive a biblical mandate different than mine. You may be called to go out as a missionary and preach the gospel to the nations. You may be called to Marketplace Christianity and bless others with money and time and resources. You may be called to lots of different ways to serve Jesus......but unless you are willing to dig into the Word, you cannot know if it is from Him or from the World.
Watch for the 2 turtle doves......
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