But instead of just feeling sad about hard circumstances, it is important to eventually guide our kids to take action on behalf of the people and causes they care about. Whether it be through a school project, a fund- or awareness-raising event, or through prayer, we can assure them that God uses each effort in a powerful way.
We can also incorporate their work into our family lives. Pitch in to help when they’ve chosen a cause or a person to support. Build a culture of compassion in your own home, and it will reach far past your family as your children grow up.
My own family has been drawn to the issue of orphanhood globally because of my work in child welfare. An estimated 5.4 million children live in orphanages around the world. But most of these children are not actually orphans; they have parents or even other family members who could care for them if given support to do so.
It would be easy for me to separate my children from the horrible thought that millions of children around the world have no one to answer their cries in the middle of the night when they have a nightmare. But every orphan in the stories we read and the movies we watch represents a chance to build my family’s empathy for children in that situation. Every time we confront the tragedy of orphanhood together, it’s an opportunity to feel their pain, and to eventually find ways to be involved in efforts to make a difference.
For instance, you can support—or get directly involved with—ministries that help children return to families whenever possible, or help them join loving, stable foster and adoptive families when it isn’t. This mission is central to my own life, and to my family’s life. And it has enriched and directed our lives in uncountable ways.
I’ve learned to love more people, better. My kids have, too; so will any children involved in the work. And that love will change the world, no matter where it grows.
As we read in Ephesians 2:10, “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” God’s work, the good work of empathizing with and seeking to uplift those in challenging situations, might seem like the opposite of worldly success. It doesn’t feel or look like “flourishing” in a material sense.
But it is flourishing in its deepest and most profound sense. It is success as God has defined it. And God has prepared this work for us, and for our children.
It’s time to prepare our children—and ourselves—for the work.
