A Glorious Inheritance

NIKKI BONHAM | GUEST Our family is in the middle of a move. Again. But only across town this time. The house we’ve been living in had been sitting empty for years when we moved in, and it had major maintenance issues, which we won’t miss.  The new house was recently built, so I’m thankful to leave behind the leaky pipes, mold, and broken floors. But my favorite part of the new place is the view. It overlooks the Colombian countryside, and I am convinced that a few minutes on the back porch with a strong cup of Colombian coffee will cure almost anything that ails you. But apart from the view, the biggest difference between the two has been the shift from living in a house that had been left empty and deteriorating to one where every detail of the construction and maintenance has been painstakingly considered.  Our previous landlord had been ready to rid himself of the burden for years. Our new landlord built the house himself and put his literal blood, sweat, and tears into its completion.  The difference is striking. And there’s only one reason for it; the new landlord is guarding and maintaining his own inheritance. Someone Else’s Inheritance On our first visit to the house, the owner proudly pointed out each tiny detail. My husband commented, “I can tell that your whole heart has gone into this project.” “Well, it’s my father’s land,” the owner told us, “But he let me build on it now. He’s already promised me this portion. I’ve given all I have to this house. But it’s our future, so it’s worth it.” Moving into a home that is someone else’s literal inheritance comes with a little extra pressure, especially with a house full of boys. Every day I think, “There is no way we are giving this house back in the same condition we received it.”  But mostly, it feels like yet another gospel image the Lord has built around me for me to live in (literally, this time!) that lifts my eyes to the greater reality of what He is doing on an eternal scale. As I sit on this porch and drink my coffee in someone else’s future inheritance, I am reminded of the covenant promises of inheritance that are already mine in Christ...

A Glorious Inheritance2023-12-18T15:03:59+00:00

A Worthy Inheritance

NIKKI BONHAM | GUEST “If the Lord takes me before I’m old, I hope that our boys will still carry with them a love for old hymns, good books, adoption, missions, the beauty of marriage, and a delight in God’s Word. At least those things,” I said to my husband as we sat under the twinkly lights on our patio. He sat silent for a moment, thoughtful. “I think that’s a worthy inheritance,” he replied. A Significant Heritage We were fresh off a trip back to the US for my father’s funeral after his unexpected and sudden passing, and these types of conversations were frequent. My dad had died young at the age of 63, and only 10 days before I was due to see him again. When you live a continent away, those 10 days are a hard pill to swallow, and I was still deep in processing all the fresh grief. Heavier pieces of it would come in waves, and one of the bigger ones that kept rolling in and out of my mind was the idea of heritage. What are the pieces of him that I have inherited, that I carry on and pass along to my children? How did my father’s influence mark me as his daughter?  What are the values and preferences that he unknowingly formed in me as he loved me for all those years? What do I love, just because he also loved it? Just because he loved me? The significance of that heritage grows even deeper as I consider that he wasn’t my biological father; I don’t carry his blood in my veins, but I have carried his name and the privilege of being called his daughter for all but the first few years of my life. Through the way the Lord shaped the very structure of my family, He built a gospel image around me for me to live in. After he died, I sat in his closet, surrounded by all his things, and carefully chose small mementos that I could pack inside my suitcase to take back to Colombia with me. I looked at each little knick-knack on his dresser, the same ones that were there from when I was a little girl, and I remembered the stories tied to them. Most of them came from his own father and grandfather. They were stories that I was grafted into, a heritage and shared history that somehow became fully mine....

A Worthy Inheritance2023-10-12T15:20:34+00:00

Three Things Foster Parents Want You To Know

SHEA PATRICK|GUEST My family has been fostering for the last eight years now, and we have adopted two children out of foster care. I will be the first to tell you that I’m not an expert, nor do I have some official badge that allows me to speak on behalf of all foster parents. Every family’s situation and experience are vastly different. However, as I have been in foster parent groups or interacted with other parents who foster, I have heard common themes. I’ve heard similar stories. I’ve heard foster parents say things that the church needs to hear. Three Things Foster Parents Want You to Know We are not “good people.”  This statement is one of the things that I most often hear when people find out that we are foster parents. While it is a very sincere sentiment, it is not correct. In fact, fostering many times reveals more sin in my own heart — just like marriage and the parenting of biological children does. It is a truly sanctifying experience. We are sinners in need of a Savior just like the children that come into our home. We are not THE Savior and not THEIR Savior. Fostering is entering into brokenness, knowing that we are all broken by the effects of the Fall and our own sin. In fact, fostering is choosing to step into someone’s brokenness. Foster and adoption care is counter cultural in that you are choosing something that will break your heart and choosing not to protect yourself. Fostering is pointing these children to the only hope that any of us have in this life — Jesus Christ. So why do we do it? Because we know that Jesus will show up in power in these broken places, even as we seek to be the hands and feet of Jesus to these children (Matthew 25:40). We get attached (and that is a healthy thing.)...

Three Things Foster Parents Want You To Know2023-03-24T18:20:22+00:00

A Letter to My Daughter’s Birth Mother

In a world of seven and a half billion people, it seems impossible that my words will ever find you. Still, they've been on my heart for years now and today I feel compelled to send them out wherever they may go. Maybe they will find someone else who needs to hear them, or maybe, the same sovereign hand that brought a precious baby to me will bring these words back to the one who bore her. So I send them out and trust that God will do with them whatever He sees fit. You have sent out and trusted in far more unimaginable and enormous ways than I can ever comprehend.This is why I write. She is playing on the floor beside me, the one who has your eyes and your smile, and your laugh. I don't know your name, and you don't know mine, but those small pieces of you I do know—I know them so very well. They are memorized like a piece of my own heart now.You must be so beautiful, because she is. My husband sometimes says that there is an empty seat at our table, meaning maybe there is still another child out there for our family. He does this to be funny, in truth. But I admit to sometimes noticing that empty chair. Except it's not a child who is missing, in my mind. No matter how much she smiles, your empty chair in her world will always be there.Loss is like a haunting. It's a vital cord being cut, the ends left loose, never to be retied again this side of eternity. That cord searches for its other end nevertheless, with a gaping openness where there should be closure. Sometimes it looks like seeing a face in a crowd that isn't there. I remember searching for my own mother's face when she left this earth too early, and I have to wonder: are you on the other side of the world today haunted by the absence of a little girl? Do you see an empty chair too and wonder?...

A Letter to My Daughter’s Birth Mother2022-05-07T23:18:43+00:00
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