On Kings & the Fatherless
I wrote this in July when we visited our team in Thailand. We currently serve hundreds of families on the border with Myanmar, and have a small emergency shelter with several children for whom we've been unable to find a family...these are my thoughts from that visit.
Kings don’t flummox me.
I’m not frightened or intimidated by what they could or could not do to me. It is abundantly clear that they have no power over my life or future. The worst they could do is make my life harder here on earth. They don’t even have the authority to cut my life short. There’s not a person on this earth that has the capacity to force me home before my Savior decides to call my name. No one.
I’m not scared of challenging their authority. Perhaps this is naive, but I feel fairly sure I could (and might) march up to whomever with boldness and confidence. I certainly would be kind and respectful in hopes of winning even these, but I also would have no problem saying: you have nothing on MY King. Nothing. This earthly fortune you’ve amassed, this power you think you hold tightly, this kingdom in which you find so much pride, you think you accomplished any of this? You think you actually hold any of this in your hands? It is my King who decides who rules and reigns.
Your kingdom will come to an end, and His has barely begun.
But the eyes of a fatherless boy in our care? Who just gave his life to Jesus? When he looks at me, I have far fewer words and confidence. I tell him that Jesus only gets better and sweeter with time. That He is kinder and stronger than he can imagine at present.
But then I come back to my hotel room and cry. It’s not the tired response of being so thankful for what I have here on earth and being embarrassed that others lives with so much less and are so happy (barf).
(I couldn’t care less about that. But while we’re here, Jesus didn’t make other people poor so you can feel more grateful about your life. That’s not a thing.)
It’s my actual heart that breaks. It really feels that way. Like my actual heart might forget how to beat any second.
What am I supposed to tell this boy? We’ve literally done the best we can and it’s not enough.
He came to us through the social welfare system. I’m not on our case management team, so I don’t know the gory details. What I do know is that his family is somewhere in Myanmar. I know that he remembers them. I also know he’s scared to say their names out loud. He’s been with us for many years. He became a teenager, now a young man while in our care.
Think of those years in a little boy’s life. They’re supposed to be full of climbing trees and chasing siblings. These are the years of gradually getting grumpier and smellier by the day. The days of a mother wondering how her mama’s boy turned into someone who smells like a trash can. Of learning to roll your eyes afresh and yet still needing your dad to practice catch. The days of not wanting to be told what to do, yet needing your mom to catch your eye across the room and occasionally sit on the couch and scratch your back.
I know this for sure. We have loved him well. But we weren’t able to find him a family.
He transitioned to a partner of ours this year. We’re making moves across our shelters to prepare our older children for independent living and he’ll be joining a program where young men are taught vocational skills and mentored by really Godly friends. They really do flourish in this program and this young man understands.
But I keep asking myself this: how does he prepare for independent living when he never got to live a dependent childhood?
Those stinky years? They’re designed to be the years where your confidence begins to peel itself away from your safe place in small increments. As your body changes and stretches, your mind too is learning what it is capable of creating. You learn to leave and return, leave and return. In this, your brain learns it is safe. Safe to stretch and bend and reach and even fail.
And you learn that you always get to come home. That as stinky as you might get, there is a safe place to fall. Despite the attitude, despite the failures, that your mom will always be at home ready for you.
So how does he learn to detach when he never could attach?
How do you learn to fall if you’ve not had a safe space to land?
As I write this, the sun is beginning to peak over the mountains and through my hotel curtains. My tea sits besides me. My Bible is open as my heart is broken.
And all the things I know to be true flood through my mind just as He promised they would.
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all of the days of my life.
I remain confident of this, that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Two things I know to be true of the Lord, that He is good and He is strong.
A bruised reed He will not break and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out.
I will not abandon you, forsake you, or in any way leave you without support. I will not, I will not, I will not.
Is it enough to say this to our young man?
I find myself asking the Lord this today. Does He really care about these days here on the earth? Or are they merely a foretaste of what’s to come at best? Or at worst designed to be miserable to somehow cause our hearts to turn to the eternal?
I tell the Lord I really am confident that nothing of earth’s shadows will diminish the joy of Heaven. I somehow know that for certain. I don’t remember how I learned it, but I know it for sure. Earth will not bleed into Heaven except to somehow be redeemed. I know it for sure.
My heart wonders if Heaven can bleed into earth. I know it did once. I know what it meant for Jesus to come and put on humanity and wear it in all its flimsy weakness. I know He literally came and bled into earth. He shed His actual blood here on this actual earth. I know it.
But does He care that this little boy will never have a dad?
Strike that. I know He does. But does He plan to fix it? Or is there something in the mysterious sovereignty of God that somehow makes it okay?
It’s the same question I ask myself on long lonely nights. Am I asking Jesus for people to come alongside me? Am I asking (again) for a husband, a partner to live life with? Someone to just observe the little moments of my life that matter to me but pass by unrecognized by the world at large. Or am I asking that He would stretch my faith so that He alone is enough?
Maybe it’s sufficient to say this: I don’t know.
So, my friend, I’ve tried all morning to know what to say to you.
It’s perhaps an arrogant assumption that I need the answer. After all, I can’t speak your heart language at all. We have spoken the language of play together, you and I. And I watched you look up with eagerness last night. I told you all that I couldn’t wait to learn about Jesus from you some day. That all that is ahead for you in Chris is valuable and beautiful. And I watched as your eyes lit up when my feeble encouragement was translated for you.
You spoke up a few minutes later and asked for prayer to become someone who could communicate about Jesus well. And you caught my eye.
Your eyes tried to read my face. It feels so dumb to just try to smile and hold your gaze in those moments. Somehow I want you to know that I know. That while I will never understand the pain that haunts you, I want you to know I see you.
So here’s what I’d tell you if I could. Jesus will somehow be enough. He really will. If your life turns out at all like mine, there will be dips and valleys that will feel like they might just shatter you. You’ll have nights where the tears will not stop. Oh how I wish this wasn’t true, but it is. You’ll dream dreams and you’ll fall in love. Unfortunately, these lonely days won’t magically end. You probably haven’t seen the last of the abandonment you’ve already endured.
And yet. You will also know a love that is stronger and mightier than you can imagine. I have been cared for by an earthly mother and father. I have memories that you didn’t get to have. And yet. Jesus is the most faithful friend I know. On the darkest of those nights, I can promise you, you will not be alone. You really won’t. He will be there. You won’t always know it. You will often lack the capacity to reach for Him. But oh my dear, He never lacks capacity to find you. Never.
Somehow it feels like we needed a win for you to assure you of this truth. It feels like a really unkind magic trick. Like we’re asking you to believe again when He hasn’t answered your childhood cry for so many years. I understand. These are years that have been stolen from you, and you are right to feel like they can never be restored or redeemed. I have years like that too.
And yet. Here’s what I know for sure. One day, we will sit with this Jesus. Like Thomas, we’ll get to ask to see the wounds and scars that purchased our salvation. It’s okay to ask for this, little one. When the awe of Heaven sets in and our King pulls us aside one by one, it’s okay to ask. It’s okay to ask Him to show you His scars again. In fact, it’s okay to ask Him this today. He has promised that one day He will wipe every tear from our eyes. Every single one. You’ve shed a lot of tears alone, and He hasn’t missed any of them.
So it’s okay to ask. It’s okay to say all the things to Him. In fact, it’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to grieve.
Just don’t run away. That road will look appealing, but it won’t work. The only path I know for certain is the one my weary feet have taken. Over and over again to the feet of Jesus and the heart of the Father. I only know that He has been endlessly kind to me, dear one. He really has.
As you develop your friendship with Him, you’ll have hundreds, if not thousands of memories that only you and He share. You’ll have the same opportunity to look up in a crowded room and meet His eyes. There will be moments in your life where He feels so close, you won’t believe your own living self and body that there isn’t actually another person in the room with you. He’ll hold your heart and He’ll speak to you. He has powerful, important work He wants you to do with Him. There is hope and a future for your life.
And then someday, your body will finish its service here on the earth and you will go home. I haven’t done this part yet, but here’s what we know.
He’ll call your name. Your real name. And you’ll hear His voice. You’ll leave behind this world and all its failures and you’ll get to go home. To His actual house. We don’t know a lot about what this looks like, but He promised He’s already there preparing a place for you. And it’s not in the shelter of Heaven, it’s in His house-your Father’s house. You’ll get to sit at His table as a son for the rest of eternity. I recently heard a sermon that said we’ll get to sit next to Moses and Paul and all the other heroes of the Bible. I feel like you and Joshua will have so much to talk about. And I know you’ll make them all laugh the same way you make us all laugh.
And I don’t know how this will work, friend, but somehow…somehow all of that will wipe all of this away. And it will be longer and truer and richer and more real than all of the pain you have faced here. I know it for sure. I know it for sure.
So here today. I want you to know I’m sorry. I’m really sorry we couldn’t find you a family here.
But my friend, you are family. You are my family. Oh I am so proud you are my brother. Please cling to Jesus. Please don’t run away. Please grow into the mighty man of God we know you are created to be. Come work with us some day. Go off to school and learn all the things and come back braver and smarter than all of us combined and help us fight for better ways than what you endured. Or go be a painter or a lawyer or a teacher or a pastor.
It doesn’t have to be fancy or important, but let it be full.
Take our Jesus up on His offer to make your life full. I’m right next to you, face wet with the sorrow of lost years, but I’m asking Him again to come and make this life, this broken and weary life full. He said He would. So I’m standing with you. I’m bearing the weight of your years with you.
I’m standing with you watching for the sun to rise.