This little cough is beginning to get the best of me, and as a result I may have taken a little over the recommended dosage of my hard core cough syrup.
This syrup and I have had a love/hate relationship for years. You see, twice a year, like clockwork, I come down with this massive coughing thing, and the only remedy that seems to help is this serious prescription cough medicine.
I love this stuff because for just a moment, I leave this world and feel like I'm going to drift off into this deep blissful sleep. It's a fun moment. I also love it because I stop coughing.
I hate this stuff because within minutes I realize I can't sleep because the hallucinations have started. Hence, I'm up at 1:30 for the second morning in a row. So there's quite a chance this post will make absolutely no sense.
Tonight I knew the hallucinations had hit when Daniel was tapping me on my shoulder, whispering for me to look at him. I told him I was looking at him and asked him how he was able to get on the ceiling. For though he was by my beside, I was dreaming of my son in his Spiderman PJ's climbing my ceiling wall.
As Daniel continued to tap me and I continued to watch what I thought was him on the ceiling, I realized something...
Spiderman was an orphan. Fatherless.
Batman was an orphan. Fatherless.
Robin, as the one portrayed in most recent Batman film, grew up in the foster care system and aged out in a group home. He was an orphan. Fatherless.
Superman was an orphan. Fatherless.
Anakin Skywalker was essentially fatherless, pursued and raised by Jedi knights.
Luke Skywalker, as we all know, had a not so hot absent father.
(Can you tell I'm married to someone who can quote the Empire Strikes Back, sound effects and all?)
But really, our society has a fascination with the fatherless. Though we are wading through current generations that are plagued by lack of fatherhood, it's something we recognize in our culture as a significantly impacting factor, just look at the heroes our children dress as.
Tonight, we attended a party where we knew few people. As we introduced ourselves in the small talk, the conversation turned repeatedly as people learned of our family circumstances.
Really? Wow. How does that work?
As I stared at the ceiling tonight, I've been thinking about how fascinated our American culture, even our church culture, is with the orphan, the fatherless, the adoption, the foster care.
Why is it that a culture and the established church within it are so fixated on a group of people like this, but slow to answer the need?
Granted, it's been a week of very little sleep so my connections are jumpy. But the truth is, we were all made for a perfect Father. That is an ache established in our hearts before time. Not just a perfect Father, but a Father who crafted us in His image, pursues us, disciplines us with love, rejoices over us.
We were all made for that.
As someone reminded me last week, all orphan care is out of brokenness. It was never meant to be. The call to care for the orphan, the widow, the destitute is a command because we were all made for more, yet in the fallen state of man, the reality of that relationship is shattered.
We are all fascinated, because we all know deep within our souls, there is something there.
The difference is the church has the answer. This body of Christ knows there is a Father who longs for this shattered ones. We know there is no difference between us, except of the Savior we know.
We remain fascinated, when we, because of Him who abides within us, have the ability to love where love has been lost, and soothe where hearts have been broken.
Let's not settle for fascination. Let's get dirty and messy. Let's be those superheroes of faith because of the One who abides within us.
So now, I'm gonna work on having hallucinations about that for a while.
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