a bit of everything

OK, i wanted to write a quick post to report on my first day of school. i know first days of school are not really exciting once you're on your third year of graduate school, but it's exciting to me because this is my last semester of divinity school. thank God this is about to end. i've planned myself a nice little semester:

church history, part 1
intermediate greek readings (i'm obsessed with my greek new testament)
africa and the bible (this probably won't be as exciting as it sounds)
pastoral response to trauma and addiction

...plus my dreaded senior project aka master's thesis that i'm a little behind on. despite the fact that i'm still hacking up my lungs and woke up this morning feeling like i'd been run over by a train because i couldn't go to sleep last night due to said cough, i had a really good first day at school. it reminded me of why i came to divinity school and why i chose wake. people don't judge you there. you can say whatever you need to say, ask any question you want to ask, express any sort of doubt you feel, and people don't look at you like you've got 10 heads. i had a conversation with a classmate today about hospital chaplaincy and about doing things out of line with your theology simply because it's what a grieving family member who has just lost a loved one needs. let's be honest, sometimes theology and doctrine get in the way of christians just being real, genuine people who show the love of christ to others. but i say all that also to say that while i value being a part of a community where people are free to think and doubt and question, i value equally being apart of a community where people unashamedly seek truth and aren't afraid to speak up for it even if that means rebuking a brother or sister in christ when he or she has strayed too far from the truth of the gospel. we had our second home fellowship group last night, and i'm so incredibly excited about this new group of people in my life. we unanimously agreed to read tim keller's the reason for God and discuss it each week while sharing a meal together. jamie and i have been wanting to read this book for awhile, so i was excited we finally had a reason to buy it :)

also, i plug books on here all the time, so it should be no surprise that i'm plugging another one. as the mother-to-be of 2 adopted children, i kind of see it as my new job to always be advocating for adoption. i believe adoption is gospel. i believe we are literally seeing the worst orphan crisis in history. and i believe that if adoption is gospel, it is the answer for millions of children who do not have families to care for them, love them, keep them safe, and provide a hopeful future for them. i'm not ashamed to admit that i think all christians should at least consider adoption. i know someone out there is thinking that it must be easy for me to say since i've already decided to adopt. let me be clear: i'm not trying to mount a moral high horse here. i'm just pleading with people to consider adoption. to see that if these children are not adopted, they will not live. no, they might not physically die, but they will not live the abundant life jesus came to give us. maybe this would be easier to hear coming from me if i said that though deciding to adopt was easy for me, deciding to adopt from africa was not. to be honest, i was quite closed to african adoption for sometime because the thought of 2 white people raising a black child freaked the heck out of me. but God called us to africa. God changed my heart. and i now cannot imagine anticipating 2 babies from any other country but ethiopia.

maybe the first step to consideration would be this book, adopted for life: the priority of adoption for christian families & churches. i've only read the first few pages, but i'm already hooked. let me share:

jesus reconciles us to God and to each other. as we love our God, we love our neighbor; as we love our neighbor, we love our God. we believe jesus in heavenly things -- our adoption in Christ; so we follow him in earthly things -- the adoption of children. without the theological aspect, the emphasis on adoption too easily is seen as mere charity. without the missional aspect, the doctrine of adoption too easily is seen as mere metaphor. but adoption is contested, both in its cosmic and missional aspects. the scriptures tell us there are unseen beings in the air around us who would rather we not think about what it means to be who we are in christ. these rulers of this age would rather we ignore both the eternal reality and the earthly icon of it. they would rather we find our identity, our inheritance, and our mission according to what we can see and verify as ours -- according to what the bible calls 'the flesh' -- rather than according to the veiled rhythms of the spirit of life. that's why adoption isn't charity -- it's war.