JohnnyBGamer

From Across the Net – “Praying for a President Is Not that Radical: Platt, Prayer, and Polarization”

Had meant to share this article by Ed Stetzer the other day. Man, this has been a long week already.

Furthermore, we can and must recognize that many hold different views and see things in different ways. Where some see praying for a president, others see a celebration of values they do not hold. We can acknowledge that people can and will experience such moments differently in the body of Christ.

Yet, the degree of ire directed towards Platt reveals that at times we can allow the same polarization and fear to grip our hearts in failing to extend grace to those with differening views. Likewise, the attempts to use Platt to endorse Trump fail to grasp the nuances of his prayer and inject meaning he was careful to avoid.

You can read more here

On My Radar – Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield Trailer

I know a kid who is dying to get his hands on this game… but has to settle for Let’s Go, Pikachu in the meantime.

When A Family Goes Supernova

As I announced last week (“Whichever Shoe Fits“), Tabitha and I are looking to adopt through the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. Adopting through the State means that we step in after parental rights have been terminated. Whatever family that existed before has been legally dissolved due to failure of court appointed plans being followed or individual situations calling for removal. The goal of Child Protective Services (CPS) is family reunification. This means that CPS and the State give parents every opportunity to be reunified with their children. Tabitha and I are stepping in because reunification has failed and these children now need a home.

Can you imagine the family you grew up in no longer existing? I can’t. Tabitha and I both come from stable homes. Homes where we were provided with food, clothing, and a loving environment to grow up in. The thought of being taken away from my parents, at any age, and put into foster care is the stuff of nightmares.

As adoptive parents, we are stepping into a world of:

Hurt
Loss
Anger
Instability

From the beginning, I have told Tabitha that if anything, we can provide stability. A stable home where we can work through the roots of a family dissolved and grow into something new.

I wonder why I have days where I question why I feel overwhelmed by the adoption path we are on. And then I write something like this and am reminded of the brokenness these children have experienced. If you were to ask me: Are you excited over adoption? I’d tell you yes. But I temper my excitement knowing that a family has to go supernova before they can be welcomed into mine.

Your Calling Doesn’t Equal Career

Ivan Mesa, writing for The Gospel Coalition, wrote a fantastic article titled “3 Things Your Calling Is Not“.

This might sound like an obvious point, but part of my angst has been due to the assumption I had to grab hold of my calling or else it would slip away. I’d be lost, I feared, wasting my life because I hadn’t been decisive or clear-eyed enough to know what God had called me to.

For a long time, the Church preached to men that your calling equaled your career. I personally found this line of thought to be hurtful and confusing. The night before college graduation, I remember breaking down and crying. I had no clue where God was calling me, no clue what a career might look like. Tears running down my face, I prayed that He would make a career path clear to me. That He would provide for me a job/career so that I could make ALL the money and further His Kingdom.

Looking back, I can see how I took the preaching I had heard for years to heart. How when God didn’t immediately answer my career/job prayer, I took His silence and withdrew into anger, resentment, and bitterness.

Through His grace, God has nudged me over the years–He is a slow and patient teacher to my stubbornness–. Teaching me that He calls me where I am. He calls me at:

Church
Home
And Work

He reminds me that I do not have to set out on a mystical spiritual quest to figure out His will. Thank God for that.

If there is one lesson God has taught me over the years, it is this:

When I focus too much on myself, life becomes depressing. When I step out of myself and focus on/serve others, I find life and joy.

Which stirs up and boils down to this:

Embrace where you are called.

Whichever Shoe Fits

Back in February, Tabitha and I were sitting in the auditorium at church listening to a guest speaker. I was having trouble paying attention, my mind wandering, until the speaker started talking about the Stages of Hurt:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

God spoke to Tabitha and I in that moment. We both realized that we had been cycling through those stages for years. Years. Not always in that exact stage order but something quite like it. You see, we have been trying to have another child for about 9 years now. Seeing what ultimately are the Stages of Grief, written down on the conference handout we were attending, did something. I could finally see the bigger picture. I could see how a friend’s baby announcement would suddenly shoot me into anger or even bargaining over not being able to have more children; I could see why, at times, I’ve been depressed.

In that moment of epiphany, Tab and I both felt that God was calling us to step out of those stages. We felt Him calling us to more.

So we talked and met with wise counsel at church. My church’s youth pastor and his wife sat down with us over dinner. They listened to our story and shared their own (I can’t put into words how much this meant to us). We learned that we weren’t alone in our experience. After meeting with them, we decided to contact the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. We attended an informational meeting (which was awesome). Soon after, we signed up to take adoption certification classes (PRIDE) which lasted a few weeks. We have since finished up:

Turning in financial information
FBI Database fingerprinting
Having a fire inspection of our home

We have a:

Health Inspection for the house
And an Home Study/Interview left before we are certified to adopt. We are almost there!

If you think about my family, as we move forward in this process, we are asking for:

Prayer (if you are not the praying sort, positive thoughts then)
Discernment
Wisdom
That God would lead our adoption caseworker to the child He wants

Excited to finally share this news with ya’ll. More to come.