40 Faces, 40 Places: A Devotional JourneySample

Catherine from Somerset

Sometimes whole-life discipleship looks like reflecting God’s love in your own home.

My frontline is actually in my own home, with my children, who are adopted. I get to partner with God to help my daughters overcome their early-life trauma and live abundant lives. I find opportunities to show God’s love to my children every day. I also find opportunities to meet with other adoptive parents in their struggles, sharing my experience and expertise with them and praying for them and their little ones.

Sometimes, it can be hard to deal with judgment from people who don’t know us. Children who have early-life trauma can present in ways that society deems unacceptable. I feel incredible pressure to protect my child from this and ensure she sees herself as God sees her. Fearfully and wonderfully made.

I see God’s grace at work in my daughter’s attitude to her birth parents. We recently met with my daughter’s birth dad, and I saw God working grace through how my daughter accepted this man who had previously caused her harm. There was unconditional love, forgiveness, and acceptance there for him, and he was astonished, blessed, and changed because of it. I see God’s grace at work in the everyday achievements of my little girl.

Reflection

There’s no hiding or let up when our frontline is our home and family! We’re still called to live out the 6Ms of fruitfulness: modeling godly character, doing good work, ministering grace and love, molding the culture of our homes, being mouthpieces for truth and justice, and messengers of the gospel.

There are unique challenges and opportunities when our frontline is family. For Catherine, being a godly parent means tackling tough interactions with those who don’t understand her daughters. Still, it also means she sees God’s incredible faithfulness as he works through her daughter, ministering grace to her birth father. Just like Paul writing to the Philippians, Catherine celebrates her daughter’s progress and looks forward, with confidence, to greater good work to come.

The call for all of us, wherever we are, is to show the difference God makes in our lives in a way that helpfully points others to Jesus.

Prayer

Lord, thank You for Catherine’s story. Thank You for those I can share my daily struggles with, those who understand and can share expertise, and those who will back me up with prayer. Help me to be that person for others. I pray for everyone whose frontline is their home today. And thank You that, like Catherine, I get to partner with You, right where I am.