In freely releasing me to go away for four days, Jacob was also signing up to take care of Owen for that entire time. Jacob’s dad decided to fly up for the occasion, so they ended up having a boy’s weekend at home. Jacob did lots of work around the house getting it ready to go on the market and other than that they had all sorts of adventures.

One morning the three boys went to Longwood Gardens. They explored almost the whole place and Owen discovered a few previously unknown-to-him wonders of Longwood. First, he found the tree houses. Longwood has three different treehouses that you can explore. Each is a very different style, but to a two year old boy all of the treehouses are fascinating. This is a picture of Owen and Gaffer in one of the treehouses. They are yelling “Hey you guys!” into what is kind of like a megaphone directed at the forest.

The other thing Owen discovered was the Chimes Tower. The Chimes Tower rings the hour and quarter hours. There are also occasionally performances on the chimes. In the first picture here you can see Owen and Gaffer looking up at the tower. In the second picture Owen is having a great time ringing a bell at the top of the tower.

And here are just two more pictures from their visit to Longwood. The first is of Gaffer himself. What a great picture of him! The second picture is just Owen and Gaffer walking in the conservatory.

I think the boys really enjoyed their boy time. But it seemed like everyone was happy when I got home!

This poem comes from a recent meditation of mine on Psalm 16.

The Lord himself above the trials ahead,

Before the anxieties of man,
Larger than the looming wave,
Deeper than the gaping land,

He is my portion, chosen as precious above all else,
He, above all else, is my inheritance and delight:

This world will change its clothes,
This body will decay,
These eyes will fade in sight,
This dust be blown away.

Yet he is the beauty to be desired,
A fountain eternally beautiful and flowing,
Rushing over basin edge
Never faltering or drying.

The Lord exceeds it all,

As mountains to pebbles,
As Niagara to a faucet,
As Andromeda to a night light,
As a hurricane to my breathing.

He, ever self-replenishing
Eager gracious giving,
Is ultimate joy, ultimate rest.
Indeed, in Him, beautiful, everlasting inheritance.

In her piece, one of Mrs. Gilmore’s points is that adoptions happen, from either side, because of heartbreak. The mother is taken advantage of by a boyfriend and left with the decision of this child – or she uses the child to get money and security at the adoptee-parent’s expense. The grandparents will never know the child their daughter gives up. The adoptive parents will never know the personal experience of giving birth to their own child. And then there’s the child itself. How do you quantify the potential explosions of heartbreak for them?

Her story resonates with our experience and struggles in some measure – we’ve walked the road of infertility and adoption questions. However, it’s this reality of heartbreak that she brings out in the adoption process that connected for me with the Biblical vision of adoption. Point in fact, in the Bible, adoption only happens because of heartbreak.

We see this early on when God himself, knowing where Adam and Eve have gone, asks, “Where are you?” God’s heart is broken by their deceit and disobedience. These first children of his, made in his own image to rule over his creation in his stead, whom he strolled with through the flowers in the spring of the world, have left God.

We see this again when God sends his prophets to call his people, Israel – here called Ephraim – with a yearning heart:

God yearns to have mercy on his sinful people because of his broken heart over their condition. They are his children that need to be adopted into his grace anew.

But mercy always comes at a cost. Somebody has to cover over the bite of justice with grace. Somebody has to experience a broken heart for redemption to occur.

Which leads us to consider the ultimate broken heart for the ultimate adoption.

Israel and the Gentiles (the non-Jewish nations) were perpetually at war – a culture war of culture wars – and with the death and resurrection of Christ, a new thing happened: they were adopted into the family of God. Suddenly, both Jews and Gentiles were one people. The Apostle Paul opens this up in Galatians 4:

Paul’s point is rather simple: Both Jews and Gentiles were enslaved to the Devil by nature, just like we are, and they were only adopted into the family of God by the death of Christ for that which made them enslaved to the Devil – their sin. We are adopted into God’s family – made to have full access and “Yes” to all the promises of God – because Christ lived and died in our place.

Now we have to ask, what did it cost Christ to do this? Paul addressed this just a few verses earlier: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:13-14).

When Christ died for us on the cross, he was cursed by God. It was intentional – God killed his Son to make us sons of God. Isaiah tells us that Christ “poured out his soul to death” so that “out of the anguish of his soul he should see and be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:11-12) – that is, see us adopted into the life of God’s family by the death of God’s Son. In Hebrews 12:2 the writer says that Jesus, “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.” One of the things set before him was our adoption.

The point is this:

Jesus died of a broken heart for the joy of our adoption.

Adoption always happens by heartbreak. God knows this reality most starkly. His heart was broken by our rebellion, and the fact that we needed to be adopted. His heart was broken because of our alienation from life in him because of our rebellion. His heart was broken when the Son of God took on human flesh to die under the wrath of God the Father to redeem us from our enslavement to sin. And the Son of God’s heart was broken – broken to death – for love. Love to his Father to glorify him by saving us – love to us by saving us from the death of our sin to adopt us into his Father’s family. Adoption broke Jesus heart, but he did it willingly out of love.

Over the past ten years I have been pursuing clarity on the question of calling into pastoral ministry. The last six of those years have been as a member of Covenant Fellowship Church. After much consideration, prayer and evaluation, the pastors of CFC have decided to send us to Sovereign Grace Ministries‘ Pastors College this fall. We will move to Louisville, Kentucky this September to attend the PC for 9 months, and then will do an internship at another Sovereign Grace church. You can read more about what this looks like for us and what’s involved on our Who We Are and Donate pages.

With this in view, let me explain the blog. The new blog is designed to be a running newsletter. It’s a way for us to keep in contact with the folks at Covenant Fellowship and our family all in the same place. It will allow us to keep people up to date with what we’re doing and ministry developments. We also hope it will be a way for people to be stirred to love Jesus more!

The blog will have several updates each week. I will be posting devotional content twice a week, along with the occasional third post on ministry updates. Michelle will be posting at least once a week with family updates – which means pictures of Owen, what you really want anyways.

As we’re getting this blog up and running, please bear with me as I get the bugs worked out. There are a few glitches here and there, but I’ll be working those out in the next few weeks. If you see any issues that you want to make sure I deal with, please use the Contact page to make sure I know about them.

We had a beautiful Saturday morning for the Covenant Fellowship Church Community Easter Egg Hunt. The morning began with a magic show. Owen was transfixed and sat still for all 45 minutes of the show. He especially enjoyed seeing the magician’s white rabbit. After the magic show was over the kids were grouped by age. Owen was in the four and under category. This was his first year at the Easter Egg Hunt and he did great. He really got the hang of picking up the eggs and putting them in his bucket. He ended up with quite a stash of eggs. He was even more excited when he opened them and discovered the previously unknown to him delight of chocolate candy.

Owen still loves flowers just as much as he did last year. This year he learned that Daddy’s favorite flowers are daffodils and Mommy’s favorite flowers are tulips. Thanks to several trips to Longwood Gardens, Owen has decided that his favorite flowers are daisies. He also enjoys picking all the yellow dandelion flowers he can find.

Owen recently enjoyed a special visit from his Gaffer. I will write about Gaffer’s visit and include more great pictures in another post!

Sovereign Grace has made the announcement that CJ will be transitioning out of his post as President in SGM effective April 12. They have made his official announcement available at the blog here, and the SGM Board’s thoughts are available here. Rightfully so, there should be a deep note of gratitude for CJ’s labors to this point and his example through these last years. It is a mark of faithfulness to partnering together in the Gospel that though CJ is stepping out of leadership, he is continuing to press in to SGM for our mission together in the future. I think the ratification of the polity will issue in exciting days ahead for SGM, especially for men like me who are just beginning their lives in pastoral ministry. The polity isn’t the final solution, but it sure is a good one, and I think it sets us up for future progress together as a family of churches that’s exciting. I couldn’t imagine a better time to be in SGM pursuing pastoral learning the lessons we’re learning. CJ is an example of a man looking to steward the Gospel well, looking to the future together to humble participate in whatever capacities God has called him to.

I took this first picture about fifteen minutes after Owen woke up one morning. He is still in his jammies and, as you can see, he is sitting on the floor surrounded by books. Owen is still a great lover of books. He loves exploring them himself and also loves being read to. On this particular morning he was going through all of his Dr. Seuss books and reading them to himself silently. At the moment I took this picture he was reading The Cat in the Hat.

In addition to reading books at home, trips to the local library are a major part of our routine. Most weeks we go once a week on Wednesdays to check out more books and to attend the 2 year old storytime. Owen loves storytime. When we are there he is often pretty shy about singing and moving along to the songs, but at home if I ask him what we do at storytime he will start singing the songs. As we have gone more he has gotten more comfortable with the songs and will even do some of the motions. When we come home from the library we promptly sit down on the couch and read each new book we brought home.

In this second picture you see Owen and I sitting at the table coloring. Owen received some crayons as a Christmas gift and they have been a great success. Most days he asks to color. Usually when we are coloring he is scribbling something himself, while also dictating to me what he wants me to draw. His favorite requests are apple trees, train tracks, Thomas and Percy, Mommy and Daddy, flowers, etc.

Coloring with a two year old makes me especially thankful for the existence of washable crayons. We had our first crayon on the wall incident this week and thanks to the combination of washable crayons and non-flat wall paint it easily wiped off without leaving a mark.

In these pictures Owen is standing on a chair in the kitchen, eating peanut butter out of the jar by the spoonful. Owen loves peanut butter. I think he would live off of only peanut butter if we allowed him to eat it at will. It’s also incredibly cute to hear him say “peanut butter.” Owen also loves pulling a chair up to the kitchen counter, either to eat peanut butter or to watch Mommy cook (and sometimes to “help”).

Finally, this picture gives you a glimpse into Owen’s imaginative side. Lately Owen has been really into imaginative play. In this picture he and Jacob are knights in shining armor. They have their capes on and their swords in hand.

In addition to playing knights, Owen also loves to pretend he is riding a motorcycle, helicopter, car, magic school bus, train, anything you can think of with wheels. This typically involves Mommy or Daddy having a white blanket over them in a certain way depending on the vehicle of choice. Owen then positions himself over, on, or under the blanket depending on if he is in the front or back and if he is the pilot or co-pilot.

The main thing these pictures fail to capture about Owen is just how much he is talking now. He talks all the time and is constantly picking up new words and phrases. We love listening to him!

Pictures are such a blessing to have. I’m glad we were able to get this photo shoot in while everyone was in the same place at the same time.

Maybe every kid wouldn’t be as interested in

it all as Owen was, but Owen loved it. And did I mention it’s free?

Owen thoroughly enjoyed having lots of time to run around and play and do all the sorts of things a two year old boy would like to do: look at the tractor and the four wheeler, talk to the horses, play with Daddy’s old Tonka trucks and Radio Flyer wagon, and so forth. I’ll let the pictures do the talking for you:

I’ve still got more posts coming from our trip, so stay tuned!