For the last few centuries, churches and Christians across the world have been working hard at caring for the orphan and widow. Many have invested a lifetime’s work to love and serve those who have experienced horrific traumas both before and after birth. The fruit of the Spirit has been made palpable through an abundance of love and patience in the lives of countless orphaned and vulnerable children. For the last 200 years, churches’ Sunday Schools have reached millions of families with the hope of the gospel thus preventing countless instances of abuse and family separation.
James 1:27 tells us that if we have true religion we will care for the orphan and the widow. Interestingly enough, James is not commanding us to care for the widow, rather he is stating the fact that if we have been changed by the gospel, the effects will be both seen and felt by others. Just as no one commands a fire to have heat, it is just the natural course of events.
Over the past half-century, we have learned so much about the brain and trauma’s effect on its development. Science has opened our eyes to the wonders of God’s creation inside our own body and mind. While Christians will accuse secular society of focusing exclusively on the temporal to the neglect of the spiritual and eternal, they would in turn accuse Christian charities of neglecting the discoveries of science in regards to orphan care. While that is surely not the case with everyone, we must be vigilant as God has called us to love Him with all of our heart, soul and mind.
After helping start two churches, my wife and I worked at and eventually became directors of a beautiful orphanage in Paraguay. We were seated at a table late one morning talking with a fellow orphan care worker when he posed a strange question. He asked, “what would happen to your four biological daughters if you both die?” We replied, with a puzzled look, that we have prepared for them to go live with family. He then supposed that those family members also died and asked, “who’s next?” After massacring our entire family tree he drove his point home by saying, “How interesting that you never mentioned the orphanage as an option for them.”
Psalm 68 tells us that God is a Father to the fatherless and defender of widows. I think that is a truth that anyone who has been in church knows. However, in the context of caring for the orphan, the very next verse says that God sets the solitary in FAMILY.
There is a movement across the world to move back to these verses in Psalms where God hints at what James 1:27 should look like. A movement that hopes to strengthen the care children receive in orphanages, children’s villages, and institutions, but that also prioritizes the care of children in families. Whether it is foster care in Paraguay, Cambodia or your city, children everywhere belong in families where they can know their heavenly Father and reach their God-given potential."
- Brian McCobb