Scripture Reading:
ESTHER 2
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
JAMES 1:27
CHRISTOPHER OWENS studied the faces looking back at him. They were all foster kids—children abandoned or neglected or taken away from their parents. Their week at Second Chances Summer Camp each July was probably the highlight of the year for most of them. He drew a deep breath. “My message for you is simple. No matter how it feels right now, God has a plan for your life.”
Then he allowed himself to go back twenty-plus years to the summer when he was six years old. He had been an only child, the son of a drug-dealer father and an alcoholic mother. The shady dealings of his parents and the strange people who came and went from his house had seemed like a normal life.
Yes, once in a while he would watch his father push his mother around or slap her in the face. Sometimes his parents talked about getting rid of him. And sometimes his crying mother would pull him onto her lap and rock him. “I’m sorry, Christopher. I’ve told Jesus I’m sorry. This isn’t any kind of life for a little boy. God forgive me.”
Then things got out of hand. His father fired a gun at a mean guy who stopped by the house. And somehow his mother got in the way of the bullets. She fell down a few feet from Christopher and never got up again.
“Mommy!” Christopher could still feel the way the words felt in his heart and on his lips that day. “Mommy, wake up! Please, Mommy!”
The whole time, his daddy sat at the table with his head in his hands, crying and mumbling something about his life being over.
Police officers rushed through the door, then an ambulance pulled up outside his house. He never saw either of his parents again. The social worker explained the situation to him that night after he was taken to a big house. His mommy was dead, gone to be with Jesus. His father had gone to jail.
And Christopher would stay with the nice family in the big house—at least for now, until the social services department could find someone to adopt Christopher and make him their very own—his forever family.
The Owens family was wonderful. But Christopher didn’t dare hope the family might one day be his own. His social worker told him from the beginning that the situation was only temporary.
That summer, the Owenses sent him to the Second Chance Summer Camp in Kansas City, Missouri. By then, Christopher was desperately afraid and lonely. He wanted his mother in the worst way. Things had been bad back then, but at least he’d had a family, a home to call his own.
“Christopher,” Mrs. Owens said, “God has a plan for your life. While you’re at camp, pray that God will make that plan clear to all of us.”
It was at camp that Christopher learned the message of God’s love and his second chances for all people. For the first time in his life, Christopher wasn’t afraid or lonely or anxious. Jesus was on his side, looking out for him, walking beside him. Maybe everything would be all right, after all.
Before he left, he got down on his knees. The counselor had told him to ask Jesus for the best dreams in his heart. He gulped twice and began the most important prayer he’d ever prayed. “Please, God, let the Owens family be my forever family.”
When Christopher came home, balloons filled the front yard and ribbons were strung between the trees. On the house was a banner that read: “Welcome to your forever home, Christopher!”
Christopher looked from Mrs. Owens to Mr. Owens, his little heart racing within him. “What does it mean?”
“We’ve been trying to adopt you.” Mr. Owens put his arm around Christopher.
Christopher held his breath, afraid he might wake up and find he was only dreaming.
“While you were gone, the paperwork came through.” Mrs. Owens kissed him on the forehead. “Would you like to be our son forever, Christopher?”
He wanted to shout to the heavens, “Yes!” But tears blurred his eyes and his words stuck in his throat. His heart was happier than it had ever been, even if the words wouldn’t come. And so he threw his arms around Mrs. Owens’s neck, and then Mr. Owens’s neck.
Christopher’s life was forever changed. His faith in God grew, and there seemed to be truth in everything the camp counselor had said. Jesus did hear his prayers; he did care about a lost little boy who didn’t have a home or a hope in the world.
The years found Christopher growing in the grace of God with every year. He was always top of his class, an athlete with a kind, compassionate heart and an enormous love for his family. As he set off for college, his adopted parents told him he could become whatever he dreamed of becoming.
Christopher’s goal never wavered once through college. He was hired a few months after his graduation to be a counselor at the Second Chance Summer Camp. Today, Christopher runs the camp and every summer he shares with hopeless, lonely little boys the same message someone once shared with him.
His words were strong as he finished his talk that afternoon. “And so, boys, believe it more than you’ve ever believed anything in your life. God has a plan for you, a good plan to give you a hope and a future. The same way he had a plan for me.”
The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground.
1 SAMUEL 3:19