A God of second chances

It has been my dream for many years to provide a warm home for foster children. My heart goes out to God’s little ones and their parents who are not in a position to provide a healthy environment to raise their offspring. Oftentimes, these parents have been marginalized growing up themselves and are not equipped to care for these precious little ones.

Generally, children come into foster care terrified from being yanked out of their familiar surroundings. Many have been traumatized or at least have suffered developmentally. Recently, I came upon a book called “Changes that Heal” by Henry Cloud. He and Dr. John Townsend wrote the best selling book “Boundaries.”

What I love about these two psychologists is that they put a spiritual spin on emotional healing. Their study of people who have emotional problems leads them to believe that the root cause is often a certain stage of development not fully realized in a person due to emotional trauma. The key to healing such a deficiency lies in reestablishing three key Biblical elements missing in that person’s life: grace/love, truth and time to heal.

What is wonderful about this book is that Dr. Cloud recognizes that our God is a God of second choices. A person can actually go back and reclaim the developmental stages that are essential to emotional growth. Through loving a person in a positive way (grace/love) and giving the needed structure (truth) over time that person (or child) can heal and become whole and emotionally sound.

That’s why AA works. You are given the acceptance (grace/love) to be who you are – a struggling person; the structure needed (the 12 steps – truth); and meetings (time) to heal through the grace and mercy of a Higher Power (AKA God).

Today at Mass, the children’s choir in their angelic sweet voices sang: “Come Lord Jesus, dwell with your people, renew the face of the earth.” If we ask God to come and be a part of our lives, he does dwell and transform his people, giving us second chances to help him renew the face of the earth.

So now I ask a favor. Please pray that the Lord of mercy will open the necessary doors so that I can be in a position to apply what I have learned caring for children who deserve a second chance. Once they have grace/love, truth (structure) and time, they can heal and grow into parents who are capable of providing the same healthy environment for their children. Renewing the face of the earth! Through the grace of God the generational destructive parenting styles can be transformed over time into ones of love and truth, and these innocent children will grasp why faith matters! Let’s pray for homes for these children and that God will renew the face of the earth by the way we raise our future generations.

Jesus said: “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me (Mark 9:37).”