hold fast

When I was about 14 I was told by my Religious Studies teacher that I was "too black and white". This is basically the story of my life. I feel too much. I think too much. I argue too much. I am maturing though, and I'm finally coming to realise that there are things that are not worth fighting over. But there are things that are. --- Teenage girls are infuriating, but they're also my favourite. (Because I was one.) Watching them let Jesus take the wheel of all those blazing hormones raging around their bodies - well it makes life worth living. And here's the thing - Jesus is awesome. Like crazy awesome. And He can handle teenage girls. (I say all this like our 20th birthday is the day the crazy dies. Clearly how it works.) You know who cannot handle teenage girls? Us . And so we say to them that they need to do this, or that, or the other - because that is what Jesus would do. That's what Jesus wants. But the truth is that what we r

This post isn't about one child. It isn't even really about me. It's about people all over the world, joined together by a pain, by a longing, an aching. People who have loved children unconditionally, children who were not theirs. Children who were not theirs, but who felt like theirs. Who they chose to love like they were theirs, who they chose to love like this wasn't a short term thing. Even though they were warned over and over not to do it. You see, though we come from different countries, though we speak different languages - we ache the same. We ache for children who are no longer ours. Maybe we're still in their lives, maybe we're not. Maybe we're happy with the life they have now, maybe we're not. Each of our situations are different, but they hurt the same. But here's the interesting thing, it's an ache we wouldn't give up. An ache we wouldn't give away. Because what that child got in return, well that's w