Showing posts with label adoption adopt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adoption adopt. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

AN ADOPTION PRAYER, by Lorilyn Roberts




An Adoption Prayer
By Lorilyn Roberts



Jesus said in John 14:18, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” According to the U.N., there are approximately 145 million orphans in the world today.

Can we be like Jesus, opening our beating hearts and stretching our empty arms across the oceans to help destitute orphans who need our love?  Can we not risk a little to sacrificially give these little ones the knowledge of the Real Hope Giver? Can we not love until it hurts? Can we not remove ourselves from our comfort zone of blackberries, iPhones, plasma TV screens, and Starbucks Lattes to feel an orphan’s pain and hear his stifled cries for love? If only for a moment, can we enter into the movement of the Spirit of God and allow Him to stir our hearts and move us in ways not our own and give us a longing to love one more precious child? 

But not for the grace of God, go I. Without Jesus, we are all orphans. Let’s show the world that Christians are indeed known by their love—enough to change the world one life at a time.

Pray that God would lead you to adopt. Pray that He would prompt you to open your wallet to help. Pray that He would show you how to get involved. Let Him touch your heart as He whispers to your soul. Someday, when you stand before the Heavenly Father’s throne when all else has been left behind but the souls for which Jesus died on a cruel Roman cross, you will be able to say, “I surrendered my heart and mind to the endless possibilities You gave me, Lord Jesus. I saved a child out of hopelessness, just as You saved me.”

Don’t let it be, if only. 

“I was moved by Lorilyn’s story of her going to the ends of the earth to find her daughters.” Jerry B. Jenkins, Novelist & Biographer, owner, Christian Writers Guild.









Sunday, October 16, 2011

CHILDREN OF DREAMS AND THE GOD OF HOPE: Devotional by Lorilyn Roberts






When I took the introductory class for my Master’s in Creative Writing, one of the books I had to read was Writing for Story by Jon Franklin. The fourth chapter in the book, “Stalking the True Short Story,” was based on two famous stories he wrote, one of which was his Pulitzer Prize-winning entry, “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster.”

Because everybody would love to win a Pulitzer Prize, his comments are worth noting. To quote Jon Franklin on page 81: “One of the best ways to teach positive lessons while entertaining at the same time is to write stories about how people successfully cope with the world, endure, and even sometimes win.”

I have thought a lot about that. Much of what I report as a television captioner is mundane news to a world that hardly blinks an eye at the everyday, run-of-the-mill, shoot ‘em up, rob-him blind, dope-addicted, shoddy moral, or over-spending bureaucratic figure news story which people scoff and ignore if it doesn’t affect them directly.


In contrast, Jon Franklin dug deep for the motivations, the conflicts, the resolutions, and the redemptive endings in his books and articles. 

In the same vein, when I wrote Children of Dreams, I wanted to share a part of me that no one else knew. I risked being vulnerable, revealing traits and values that I knew some would not understand. I am not perfect, and did I really want to reveal my failures, confess my doubts, and admit my flaws?

Our lives, particularly if we are memoir authors, must be real, or we will come across every bit like the superficial news stories that I alluded to above—irrelevant to the reader. Too much of our time is lived at a frenzied pace with quick posts on Facebook and Twitter, or text messages written in code, risking little, and only recognizable enough to make us feel we have value in the world of cyberspace.

If you have been forsaken by your family, hurt by others, stuck in a job you hate, gone through a divorce, experienced major health issues, sacrificed your own lost dreams, or struggled in your 
Christian walk, I share unabashedly with profound honesty how God helped me through these tragedies. 

This is the “true story” within the story in Children of Dreams. There is no superficiality—only raw emotion and truth. I had to get permission from my kids and family. There are still open wounds that God will have to heal. There was a price to pay and I am still dealing with it now. Do I regret it? No. I know God will eventually redeem all which is broken.

The typical reader, much like a typical reporter, will see Children of Dreams as another adoption story; give it a cursory glance, and move on. The sensate reader, who reads for deeper meaning, will experience God’s profound love and redemptive hope, knowing without any doubt, that God is the fulfiller of dreams.

My desire is that the reader will be stirred—emotionally renewed and batteries charged, believing if God can do the impossible for me, he can do the same for him. God can heal infected wounds, redeem broken dreams, and convince the skeptic to believe in miracles. None of us should live as though we have no hope, and Children of Dreams is a testimony to God’s grace, reassuring the reader that where there is God, there is always hope.

Lorilyn
grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and currently lives in Gainesville, Florida. She is pursuing her Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Perelandra College.

Lorilyn
is a media professional, providing broadcast captioning for television, but makes time to pursue her passion for creative writing.


She has homeschooled her daughters for the past fifteen years.  
Lorilyn has published two books, The Donkey and the King and Children of Dreams; is president of the Gainesville, Florida, Word Weavers Chapter; and the founder of the John 316 Marketing Network.

Lorilyn's
personal website can be found at http://lorilynroberts.com