Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
"The word affliction jumps out at me. It pops up from the page and grabs me by the throat, because I see it in my son. When a child loses his family due to the immense brokenness of the world, that child will be afflicted. He will inherit an enormous, shattering amount of pain. And that affliction–that pain–will not be contained to him. It will go somewhere. It will be passed along to others in one way or another. Why? Because it has to.
We are finding the special joy that comes from sharing in the sufferings of Christ, in sacrificing for the good of another. Adoption represents the gospel because chosen suffering is necessary for it to happen. And chosen suffering is exactly the road Jesus walked for us. He willingly got up on that cross and bore every ounce of our affliction.
The gospel is not a painless story. Walking through this process has allowed us to see that more clearly than ever."
--LifeSongsForOrphans
"The word affliction jumps out at me. It pops up from the page and grabs me by the throat, because I see it in my son. When a child loses his family due to the immense brokenness of the world, that child will be afflicted. He will inherit an enormous, shattering amount of pain. And that affliction–that pain–will not be contained to him. It will go somewhere. It will be passed along to others in one way or another. Why? Because it has to.
We are finding the special joy that comes from sharing in the sufferings of Christ, in sacrificing for the good of another. Adoption represents the gospel because chosen suffering is necessary for it to happen. And chosen suffering is exactly the road Jesus walked for us. He willingly got up on that cross and bore every ounce of our affliction.
The gospel is not a painless story. Walking through this process has allowed us to see that more clearly than ever."
--LifeSongsForOrphans
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