December 2nd, 2007

That was the day I got baptized. I cried so hard I could barely get the words out.

I wanted to say that in order to say this: I was saved on the Alpha program, an Anglican Christian education course (started Anglican, but really just fine in any church setting I think) that was run at my then-church.

And I wanted to say that in order to say this: Sometimes things stick in my mind from that course (I took it twice, after all, and then led a group the third time) and one of those things was a story.

Here's the story, as I remember it. A man (I believe Nicky Gumbel, but I might be mistaken, it's been years) who is a Christian, loses his father and is unsure whether the father had turned to Christ before he dies. This bothers the man a lot, and he keeps praying to God to show him where his father is. God, in the meantime, keeps placing the same verse in front of the man all day. The verse escapes me (I've just spent an unprofitable time Googling it) but it is along the lines of God not forsaking those who turn to Him. The point, for the purposes of my telling, is that the same verse keeps appearing, on billboards and bus shelters and newspapers, until the man notices, and realizes God has been answering him all the time.

And I've told you that story to tell you this.

Two weeks ago David and I were flipping through the local news and came across an ad outlining an information session for foster parents. In the past few weeks I have met a woman whose mother was a social worker placing orphans in foster homes and another woman whose two children were adopted into her family from foster care. I started wondering if the third bedroom, currently used as a storage room, couldn't possibly be cleared out to be made into a third bedroom or an office again and once I thought of this a friend called me and asked me if I could help her give her house a big Fall cleaning, and she would reciprocate for me, helping me to clean out that third bedroom. Well, the room is too ugly to be used and anyway, I don't have an extra bed. Except that my landlord called today to tell me I could paint if I liked and when we were walking today we discovered a set of small bunkbeds on sale at the used furniture store.

And then I log online and look at my favourite blogs and lo and behold there's this post about Missy attending an adoption conference and this post from Megan discussing the churches role for orphans. Both posts mention the verse Isaiah 1:17: defending the fatherless.

And I guess I've told you all of that to say this: I was Fatherless, and He defended me.

I think perhaps God is asking me to listen right now.