A Whole New Generation

Several years ago, when blogging was a new phenomenon, I started a blog I called Bart's Whole New World.  It was a time when all of our ten, eventually twelve, children were still "home," so I used it as a venue to reflect on my experience as an adoptive parent of older children. Those were years when our children were growing into their teenage years (at that time they were ages 19 - 9), and in time it became too emotionally difficult to continue blogging my experiences.  Our children are now ages 26 - 14, and they and I, are in different stages of life.

In one of my final 2011 blog postings, I reflected that in the dark mists of parenting challenging children through a perilous period in their lives, new hope was beginning to shine as I experienced the joys of becoming a grandfather.  Snuggling infant Isaac (our second grandson) warmed my heart to the possibility of hope once again.

Isaac will soon be three.  Our granddaughter Gabby will be four this December.  Our grandson Aiden celebrated his first birthday this past June.  Our newest grandson, Silas, will soon be three months.  My "whole new world" is now more focused on a "whole new generation," and I believe it is time for me to blog again on a regular basis.

If you know about our adoption journey, you know that it has been one inspired by and sustained by our deep and abiding faith in a loving God.  From the first moments that Claudia and I ever talked about foster care and adoption, our conversations have been encased in our biblical understanding that God stands with the stranger, the widow and the orphan.  Christian faith teaches that through Jesus Christ we are adopted into God's family, and that we ought to share that connection with those who, for whatever reasons, are disconnected.  This is the path we have chosen to walk, and it provides many opportunities for deep spiritual reflection.

You may wonder why the address for my new blog is "1000th Generation."  It derives from a reference in the Hebrew Scriptures, in which Moses recounts the promise of God:

I the LORD your God am a jealous God, ... showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Deuteronomy 5:9-10)

I have been an adoptive parent for nearly seventeen years.  Those years have been filled with joy and sorrow, gratitude and regret, fulfillment and diminishment, unrest and peace, discontentment and contentment.  I have often had a hard time making sense of the experience on several levels -- emotionally, psychologically, spiritually.

I have been a grandparent for nearly four years.  I am coming to a new understanding that perhaps adoption is as critical for the next generation -- maybe even more critical -- than for the first.  And that's what I will be exploring in this blog.