Inspiring Adoption Advocates

John and Kelly Rosati have adopted four children through foster care. They’ve traveled an incredible road, full of challenges and joys. They don’t sugarcoat the difficulties, nor do they despair. They are inspiring advocates for orphan care, and you can listen to their story right here.

 

Reflections

Beautiful view - and time to think - at 12,000 feet on top of Bowers Peak in Seguache County, Colorado.

Where’ve you been?

In the past month I’ve been to Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC, and Dallas, Texas. I had a few days at home to recover and prep between several of those trips, although during one particularly busy season I was home for only 12 hours before heading again to the airport. I kept a suitcase at-the-ready for the past several weeks!

I’m grateful for God’s grace while gone so much: For safety and patience in traveling, for keeping me healthy despite all the airplanes and running, productive meetings and conversations, and that my wife and children somehow survived the grueling schedule and my absence.

In the midst of that hectic pace, I did have quiet moments for reflection and prayer. I thought about life, relationships, priorities. I prayed for my family, co-workers, friends and for myself, too. Most of that quieter time took place far, far away from airports and hotels.

Just a week ago Saturday my second son, Seth (that’s him in the picture) enjoyed some peace and refreshment in a spectacular setting. Along with some friends, we had gotten up at 4:30 or so to hike to the top of Bowers Peak, a mountain surrounded by tremendous expanses and scenery. As we watched three moose in a meadow below us, the sun came up and we sat quietly for almost an hour, not really speaking, just drinking in the glorious beauty of God’s creation. It was a special shared moment, one I won’t soon forget.

It is good to be still. I don’t stop long enough, usually, to listen to the sounds of the wind and wildlife. To absorb the sunshine and enjoy its warmth and brightness. To feel my fingers get a bit numb from the cold and to thank God for the way He designed our bodies – and for warm gloves. To be away from electronics and the distractions of calendars and email.

Somehow last week we slowed down enough to be be still and to know that He is God. And it was very, very good to do so.

As we leave autumn behind and head into the busy Thanksgiving and then Christmas seasons, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure I capture some of the same “down time” we experienced in the mountains. I think it makes me a better husband, father and man. In fact, I’ve already penciled in a few days of out-of-office time so I can keep the right perspective on life.

Let me encourage you to do likewise.

Choose The Good Path

In Colorado, where our family makes its home, there are fifty-four “14ers” (mountains 14,000 feet or higher). Some outdoor enthusiasts make it a goal to climb all fifty-four. I recently heard about one man who was climbing Mount Princeton with his son.

As they neared the summit and the father scanned the trail, the boy shouted out from behind,

“Choose the good path, Dad; I’m coming right behind you!”

That little fellow was instinctively reminding his dad to live the words of Proverbs 22:6:

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (ESV).

Or consider the apostle Paul’s blunt admonition to the members of the church at Ephesus:

“Fathers,” he said, “do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4 ESV).

Isn’t that the whole point? You don’t want to be a good father just for the sake of being a good father. You want to be a good father because you want to teach your son how to be a good man!

As I’ve worked at being an intentional, engaged dad, one of the more effective tools I’ve used is a milestone event to mark the various passages of life.

When my boys hit age eleven or so, I took them off for a special weekend to get ready for the turbulence of the adolescent years. We enjoyed some great guy time, with outdoor adventures, good food and some special times of father-son instruction.

Dena and I commemorated their 14th birthdays with a adults-only special dinner. Spending the evening with a few select couples, enjoying some great steaks and conversation, I charged them to be men of God. It was a casual – and quite Christian – adaptation of a bar mitzvah.

At 18 we celebrated high school graduation and the official start to their adult lives. I read some Scriptures, we gave them some small gifts, and we all turned the corner to their journey on the road of life.

If you strive to be a good model for your kids, and if you want to really make their transition to adulthood meaningful – and memorable – there are some great resources. A new book, Rite of Passage, written by Jim McBride, caught my attention. Jim is the executive producer of the films released by Sherwood Pictures (he pastors at Sherwood Baptist Church). Their newest project, Courageous, is in theaters September 30.

Father to four children, Jim has lived out a powerful approach to setting his kids on a right path. A good path.

What I liked about Rite of Passage is the way it records Jim’s dedication to his daughters and son, and to his God. He planned and then held ceremonies to mark the maturing of his kids, and to help them know God’s intent for their lives, as they became adults. He worked hard, and succeeded in bringing together memories messages involving significant people in his children’s lives.

The book is easy to read, full of personal anecdotes and quotes. Jim includes practical suggestions, and even tackles some common challenges in setting out to mark your child’s road to adulthood.

I was really glad to read this book right now because in our family we’ll celebrate yet another 16th birthday in just a few months. Our fourth child, a beloved daughter, will hit “Sweet Sixteen,” and we want to make sure we celebrate richly. Even though in previous years we’ve marked the occasion for her three older siblings, or perhaps because we have done so, this girl needs something really special. Jim McBride has given me some great ideas to incorporate as we begin planning!

Dad, you love your kids. You long to model “the good path” for your kids. Get a dose of inspiration from out Courageous – and Rite of Passage.

And, if you’re a new father, grab the free download of chapter one from my book, First Time Dad, from the sidebar on the right. Maybe it’ll encourage you in these early days of parenting.

Help For Blended Families

Blended families present husbands, wives, moms, dads, and children – regardless of age – special opportunities and difficulties. A lot of angst, emotion…and special graces can be seen in the “mashing together” of individuals into a family.  At the Focus Marriage Forum, the most active conversation centers around blended families, kids and priorities.

Today’s Focus radio program addresses blended families. Our guests, Danny and Rayna Ortlie, speak openly about the joys – and challenges – of their rather unique situation. By the way, Danny’s book, Mommy Paints The Sky, is a tender account of his the marriage to and loss of his first wife, and how God graciously brought Rayna into his life.

Struggling with tough issues in your family? You’ll find a helpful list of trusted resources here. If you’d prefer to talk with someone, Focus on the Family Help Center counselors are here to listen and pray with you. You can arrange to speak with a licensed Christian counselor at no cost by calling 1-855-771-HELP (4357) Monday through Friday between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. Mountain time. Last year this compassionate team helped 66,000 individuals – so be aware that you’ll probably need to leave your name and number for a counselor to return your call.

Parents: Show Up

I had to read the letter published in the paper a second time. Had I gotten that right?

Really?

“Dear Abby: I am a 12 year-old girl who is dating a senior boy in high school. One night, we went to a party and then back to his place. His parents and sister were out of town, and he was really drunk. As soon as we got to his house, he started drinking again. That led to a big fight. I was literally walking out the door when he grabbed me and told me if I ever leave him, he’ll hunt me down and kill me!” Scared in NC

I have a 12 year-old daughter. I cannot fathom allowing her to be dating, let alone handing her off to some 17 or 18 year-old guy. I hoped Abby’s reply would reflect a bit of my anger…and it did just that.

“Dear Scared, Tell your parents or guardian about the young man’s threat. You are too young to deal with this yourself and to be dating a boy that much older than you. He clearly has problems and not enough supervision – and the same is true of you.”

That’s a disturbing letter, and while it was in the newspaper back a few years ago, it reflects a trend in parenting that I find appalling. Maybe we should call it “not showing up” parenting.

What in the world are that poor girl’s parents thinking? Why in the world would they let her “date” a guy five or six years older than her? Why is she even dating at age 12? What’s going on?

We live in a world in which parents are disengaged and hands-off. We live in a world in which kids have more freedoms – and face more dangerous influences – than ever before. We live in a world in which cultural pressures abound, influencing our parenting decisions and necessarily influencing the kinds of adults our children will become.

My friend, Janet Parshall, speaking to a crowd of concerned parents, said that their clear responsibility – a mandate from God – is to train their children. In essence, she said:

If you don’t work to pass along your values to your children, the culture will!

There’s a lot of truth in Janet’s clarion call to latch onto and own the responsibility to raise our kids with intentionality. As parents we MUST be active – relentless, really – in the spiritual training of our children.

We are responsible to pass along a passion for God to our children, and we are to be intentional about that process, as Deuteronomy 6: 6-7 clearly indicates:

“These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

Impress.

Talk.

Walk.

Lie down, get up.

Note that there are a lot of verbs in these two verses.

This is action-oriented stuff. This isn’t an optional, work-it-into-your-busy-schedule-if-you-can suggestion. This isn’t a call to be a passive parent. Instead, it is a charge to have an on going, continual, interaction with your child about your God.

What are you doing – today – to ensure that your kids are going to have a constant exposure to your faith, and to learn about God? What’s one thing you can do this very day to make sure that your values are being communicated to – and grabbed onto by – your child?

As a parent, are you going to show up today?

Fatherhood Lost

The program earlier this week about how men are affected by abortion touched many listeners. Here’s the summary from one of our phone reps of a particularly poignant comment:

An anonymous caller shared that she was touched greatly by the broadcast “Fatherhood Lost.” She always had a hardened heart against women who had had an abortion because she has struggled with trying to conceive unsuccessfully. Now she sees it from another view. With tears streaming, her heart has now been softened by what these women go through as a result of their mistake.

Another caller said that

he has been affected by abortion several times throughout his life, and appreciates (the broadcast).

Listen here.

Connecting With Focus

“Why am I here? Because Focus on the Family has been part of my life for the past 20 years. You’ve helped me in my marriage and in raising my kids. I’m grateful for all Focus has done, and it just seemed like I had to be here today!”

It is something we hear frequently. Focus on the Family is indeed a special ministry, and God has enabled us to really connect with people in many deep ways. That comment was from a woman I met while in Vancouver, BC last weekend for the dedication of a new headquarters for Focus on the Family Canada.

The new building – paid for at move-in! – is phenomenal in every way, but as I told FOF Canada president Terence Rolston, what really makes the place special is the staff. Energetic, enthusiastic, dedicated to the mission and obviously appreciative of and affectionate toward each other, the folks who make up Focus Canada are a terrific group.

During Friday’s ribbon cutting ceremony, a private banquet that evening and then during Saturday’s open house, I met some wonderful friends of the ministry. There were some folks who flew across the country to participate in the events. One family we greeted drove 10 hours to the Vancouver area. A woman I met said she made a four hour drive to join the festivities. Along the way there were many similar reminders of the doors God has opened for Focus to speak into the lives of men and women, boys and girls.

Why do folks feel such a connection to Focus? I believe it is God’s doing, a response to our prayers that He use our efforts in significant ways. We ask Him often to touch lives through what we do.

Every day we hear reports and stories about just that – ways in which Focus has been used by God to make a lasting impact on someone.Here’s a particularly poignant account of a life changed:

“I am one of Focus on the Family’s silent supporters. I’m silent in the sense that you don’t know that I’m here, but I am. I first heard your program on the radio when I was an eighteen-year-old runaway. Your broadcast, and others like it, helped me to return to my faith and family. I am now reconciled with my family (which I thank God came about before my father’s sudden death), happily married, and expecting our first child. Your wisdom and guidance have been invaluable to me over the years. As I have struggled to reestablish my faith, you have provided a refreshing guide to ‘practical’ Christianity that I have desperately needed.”

If God has used Focus in YOUR life, would you please let us know? Make a comment below. Visit our Facebook page and leave a story (or at the least, “Like” us). Call us (800-232-6459). Or drop a note to Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs, CO 80995. (if you are in Canada, our contact info is here).

Finally, as this is really a spiritual effort, would you please pray with us? We have specific ways you can pray for Focus on the Family here.

Thanks again to the talented, hard-working staff in our Canada office, to the many who participated in the events last week, and most of all, to God for His on-going goodness and work.

Running The (Special Needs) Race

In God’s wisdom He thought it would be good for me to run a couple of marathons. That’s all I can conclude. Let me explain by way of a personal illustration.

Almost 15 years ago I took on a challenge of immense proportions: to run a marathon. Coaxed on by a friend, I finally decided that I could do it, I could learn to run more than 26 miles in a stretch! After a rigorous training schedule, I put my feet to the test, and ran the Steamboat Springs Marathon.

I was absolutely exhausted by the end. In fact, a co-worker who was there – and finished well before me – snapped a photograph of me as I crossed the finish line. About that picture, someone observed about, “You don’t look so good.”

Of course I didn’t look so good – I had just spent more than three and a half hours running my legs off!

The next year I ran the Chicago Marathon. Once again, it wasn’t a pretty ending. Dragging myself across the finish line, I declined the offer for food and drink, preferring instead to lay down on a stack of discarded boxes. A race worker approached me and with good intentions asked if I was okay?

“I’m alright,” I wheezed as I closed my eyes and caught my breath.

Those were good days, although hard. I’m grateful for my friend’s urging. Not many people get to run distance races. I’m also glad for my wife’s patience as I trained, because sometimes I went out for a three-hour run on Saturday mornings. She would have preferred I stayed home!

Today my knees creak and squeak, and I’ve given up running for exercise that is easier on the joints. Still, I’ve reflected often on lessons  learned as I trained and ran.

Among those lessons was this little nugget: A steady pace can help me finish even a long distance run. It is all about pacing.  Start off too fast, and you’re likely to burn out halfway through, or even before.

That’s a principle I need to keep in mind as we parent a child with special needs. Pace. Keep the end in mind. Persevere through the pain and press on toward the end.

I’ve needed that principle for the past six years now, since we first learned our youngest son has autism. Our first reaction was numbness, then we sprung into action. The pace since then has been rather relentless. The many on-going therapies, medical visits, special trips to bring home a troubled child, social outbursts, strains on our other children, expenditures, insurance calls, piles of paperwork, explanations (apologies, really) to other parents…have left us tired. In fact, to this point the race has drained us, particularly emotionally, although we have not given up.

Along this journey we’ve seen God’s remarkable, sustaining presence and power. He has touched our boy in some significant ways, and there has been tremendous progress on all fronts.

In this “race” God has used Zane to pull us to Himself, to show us His grace, to say things I would not have otherwise heard.

And so we’ll continue on in this parenting journey, step by step, mile after mile. We’ll keep at it with our eyes on the finish line, endeavoring to help our son grow and gain the tools he needs to thrive.

So: pace. We’ll do our best to maintain a steady pace as we run, so we can go the distance. A steady pace that keeps the legs moving, keeps the face forward, keeps the goal in mind.

It hasn’t been easy, this “special needs race.”  It has taken everything we’ve got. We’ve gone further down this path than we could have ever envisioned. We’ve been stretched beyond anything we thought possible. And through it all, God has been close. He’s been the One we’ve leaned upon, and Who has provided the needed grace.

I suspect one day we’ll push past the finish line and collapse in a heap, exhausted totally out of breath. And it’ll be worth every bit of the effort, focus, discipline, sweat and even the pain.

I also suspect Zane would agree.

Choose The Good Path

In Colorado, where our family makes its home, there are fifty-four “14ers” (mountains 14,000 feet or higher). Some outdoor enthusiasts make it a goal to climb all fifty-four.

I recently heard about one man who was climbing Mount Princeton with his son. As they neared the summit and the father scanned the trail, the boy shouted out from behind, “Choose the good path, Dad; I’m coming right behind you!”

That little fellow was instinctively reminding his dad to live the words of Proverbs 22:6:

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (ESV).

I won’t go deeply into the principles in this proverb, but I do want to note that it is just that – a principle. The verse isn’t a promise that “if you do just such and such, your child will turn out just fine and you won’t have any troubles.” As “wisdom literature,” there is a take-away nugget of truth, not a guarantee.

No parent can be certain their child will make good choices throughout life. But every parent can pray and hope that what we pass along to that child will, at the least, one day make sense and become a heartfelt conviction to them.

For the Christian parent, isn’t that the whole point of our effort to raise our kids? To train them to walk with God?

The truth is that you and I are leading our kids up a mountain. The journey is a walk of devotion to our God, and we have to personally choose the ‘good path” — because those children are right behind, following closely at our feet.

What path are you choosing today?

Run Well

The recent deaths of four U.S. citizens at the hands of Somali pirates were a mere blip in the news scene. Things in the Mid East, notably the uprising in Libya, have eclipsed coverage of a hijacking at sea and the murder of four. Even in the limited reports I’ve seen, there’s something that has only been rather overlooked: the deeper reason that one of the couples sailed the seas.

Scott Adam had lived a successful life in Hollywood, and in recent years discovered a passion for the Scripture. He and his wife Jean decided a few years ago to take God’s Word to the unreached, sailing to foreign lands to hand out the Scriptures. They sold their homes and spent six months a year on their yacht, which was loaded with Bibles.

Jean Adam explained,

“Anytime we have workers on the boat or come into the dock and have an opportunity to talk to people we find more homes for our Bibles.”

Living with a greater purpose, the Adams were surely fulfilled and grateful for all God did through them. But their good works were no guarantee of a happy life, and their deaths were violent and untimely. Their yacht was hijacked last week by 19 pirates off the coast of Somalia, and also taken captive were Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle. On Tuesday the pirates killed their hostages, despite negotiations for their release, and then engaged in a skirmish with U.S. forces.

I’d assume that Scott and Jean Adams lived out their faith to the end, witnessing through word and deed to their captors. They probably tried to share the Scriptures with the men who ultimately took their lives. And perhaps in their very deaths the Adams spoke loudest. We’ll never know, but it seems likely that this couple was faithful to the end.

There will be second-guessing about the wisdom of sailing through pirate-inhabited waters. Some will say that the Adams should have known better. Others will suggest that their faith shouldn’t have put them in harm’s way. Many will wrestle with deeper matters…things for which we don’t have answers. We’ll never know just why God allowed this kind of fate for people who were devoted to telling others about Him and His Word. There are no easy answers we can offer their family and friends. There are no platitudes to make the pain of their violent deaths lessened.

At times like this I take comfort in the promises of God’s Word. He assures us that He is sovereign, and that we have nothing to fear. “Oh death, where is your sting?” “Perfect love casts out all fear.” “All things work together for good for those who are called according to His purposes.” The Scripture is filled with reminders that this life is temporary, we are aliens in this world, we are destined for life everlasting with our God – all this despite, or even because of, earthly difficulties and struggles.

For those who know Christ there’s hope in an eternity with Him and many rich rewards for what we did in His name. These dear folks have been taken, but gloriously to heaven and their Savior. They fought the good fight. They lived well, and with passion. They didn’t coast into the King’s presence…they ran.

I guess that’s the lesson I want to take away from this couple.

Lord, let me run well today.

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