What Christmas Means to Our Family!

Here is a letter we recenlty sent to our family and some close friends.  Steven made a bad choice that has now caused him some legal problems and we have been in a time these last few days of deciding how to handle things, praying over this and seeking some help from those involved now. We have been amazed at God's love for us and for our son. These are our thoughts today. What a timely Christmas gift.
Russ, Lisa and boys

Okay so here is how God is working in this situation this week! This is so cool! Wanted to share it with you!

Russ and I had been talking earlier in the month about teen selfishness and gift giving, etc. We were trying to think about ways that we could teach our boys about God's gift to the world at Christmas. We had tried explaining to them that a "gift" is something that is given freely, not demanded. It didn't seem to be getting through so we both prayed for an opportunity to show them about what a gift really means. Well...we got it!

Our first reaction(as is any human beings) to Steven's choices  lately is to want to take away Steven's Christmas gifts and "make him pay" for how he hurt us as his parents. We wanted him to sit and watch Jason(who is doing really well right now)get his gifts. (I'm just being honest...crucify me if you want! hehe)We just wanted him to pay! It didn't matter at the moment that he was only 16, he is impulsive and his brain was harmed at birth by his birth mother smoking,drinking and doing drugs during her pregnancy!

We got to talking about this with our therapist and she reminded us that we had been wondering how to teach these boys about God's unconditional love for them and about what a "gift" really means! Russ and I then came up with a plan to not say anything to Steven(he is still squirming about getting ANYTHING right now), buy him a gift and not bring it out till last on Christmas morning. We are going to use that opportunity to tell him that we will always love him, no matter what he does to us or anyone else, we will never reject him, although others might, and that because we love him, we wanted to get him a gift to show our love for him.  No matter what his reaction is, whether he "gets it "or not, we have to do the right thing as parents because ALL parents are called to teach their children the right thing, aren't we? Even when they mess up, even when they betray us, even when they keep doing it. . Russ and I are Christ followers which means we do what is right because of our love for Christ despite our feelings at the moment. We, as  parents,(no matter how you become a parent)are called to be "Christ, with skin on" to our children.

There is a verse in the Bible that says, "God demonstrated his love for us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" Romans 5:8. We are to be like God with our son right now in this "moment" in time when he has messed up royally and will have consequences for quite a while from many places. We must "demonstrate" our love for him.

As our family and friends, we want to ask you to pray for Russ and I, not out of pity for what a hard time we have with our boys, but for wisdom to do the right thing, that will build our boys up and not tear them down. They had enough of that as babies and little kids. God sent them to us to be built up and restored to "health".  We need our hearts to continually be filled with compassion and strength to love our boys unconditionally through their struggles. The things they struggle with are hard, they are deeply engrained in their psyche, some of it is so deep it is genetic. It is going to take years, maybe a lifetime to remove those old tapes and habits. But none of it is impossible with God. That is what the angel said to Mary when she was told she was pregnant as a virgin. Nothing is impossible with God.

We plan to move forward and take things as they come with his consequences and keep teaching him to do the right thing. We surely can't MAKE him do the right thing, but we can surely keep instilling in him what he didn't get before and love him through thick and thin. Thanks for your prayers and love for our family. We are "strong" (as some have said lately)not because of our own strength. We are strong because of Christ in our hearts. Nothing else. We chose to follow Christ in this calling to adopt these sweet boys and we will be with them through thick and thin!

We love you all very much and thank you for sticking with us through thick and thin.  BTW, there is a great story in Luke 15 about loving a son despite what he did to the father.

Merry Christmas!

The Rose Family