I believe I've mentioned it before, but here is a good book on the topic of adoption. Jamey and I read this book together while overseas, sometimes finding a nice and quiet spot to sit and enjoy. On not just a few occassions we would just cry and cry over its contents. The Lord is good.

It's pretty much official: We are in the process of adopting. Hooray! Our hope, with the help of the Lord, is to bring home two children from Ethiopia. By his grace, we will do this. And it will be for his glory. Please pray for us as we walk this journey. Below is a wonderful video describing the theological basis for adoption.

Be blessed.

Lost from AsiaLink HistoryMaker on Vimeo.

Well, on the same day Amazon announced the release of its new kindle models, I placed my pre-order for the Kindle Touch with special offers. At $99 this is the steal of the century. Mine should arrive in the mail the first week of December. Hooray! Pre-order yours today. Thank you, our beloved gospel community group, for your generosity toward us in this matter. We love you so much!

Here is a good video on my 29th birthday. As a youngster, I had many questions about the goodness and mercy of God in the midst of my own, albeit smaller-scale, sufferings. Truly the Lord is good.

In response to his God-honoring post. Dear Mr. Anderson, We’ve never met, and there’s a decent chance we never will this side of heaven. Yet after reading about Baby Violet and what you’ve learned about God through her being born blind, I felt a strong leading from the Lord to respond—as one who himself was born blind and who also through that blindness has learned much about God—in order that you, as the parent of a child affected by eye issues, might be encouraged in your faith and emboldened as a father. Here are four things I’ve learned about God through my personal experience with blindness.

1. God welcomes the blind. I was born with cataracts and later diagnosed with glaucoma at age eight. Today at 28 years old and still legally blind, I cannot remember a single instance in my life when my parents belittled or bemoaned me for my eye problems. Despite the numerous necessary trips to the eye doctor over the years, the multitude of meetings with teachers and IEP specialists, and in spite of also having several other children to attend to (one of whom also shares a similar eye condition), my parents did everything they could, and more, to show how much they loved and welcomed me. This extravagant mercy my father and mother imaged forth—both of them are lovers of the Lord Jesus—in time pointed me to the love and mercy of a heavenly Father who in Christ welcomed me into his family despite my sin and spiritual blindness.
2. God is near during my hurt. I can still vividly remember, as a grade-schooler, the day of my first glaucoma surgery. I was nervous, scared, and a zillion other emotions. And of course, I didn’t wish to proceed with the surgery, and I told my mother so. But rather than letting me avoid the surgery (which was ultimately for my good) and the discomfort that it brings, my mom simply reassured me that she would be close by. At that moment, it seemed like all my fears, even if only for a second, were swept away—for no matter where those nurses wheeled me and no matter how terrible a surgeon’s knife seemed, somewhere in that hospital was a mother who cared deeply for her son and would do anything for him, and that greatly comforted me. Years later I would come to realize that in the past God did spare the knife for one son (Isaac) but did not spare his own Son, to save me from something far worse than an eye disease (namely, death and hell), so as to draw me near to him, that he might never leave me nor forsake me, even in the midst of difficult trials.
3. God often works in ways unseen. After nearly three decades of various eye issues, I still don’t know exactly why God chose to make my eyes this way. Of course, the obvious answer is that he did it for his own glory. But why this way? Is it so that I can somehow better relate to those to whom I’m trying to minister? Probably. Is it so that I might feel a deeper compassion toward those who are suffering in ways I could never imagine? I’m sure. Is it so that a proud person like myself will learn humility even as I learn to depend upon him more, even as I live overseas and hike up muddy mountains and navigate new places? Perhaps. In truth, I may never know all of the mysteries of God’s ways. Yet I will continue to trust him.
4. God is more concerned that we see him than he is that we see every bit of his creation. God made my eyes. He knows that I cannot see the particulars of leaves on trees and scales on fish and a myriad of other wonderful details that are crafted by his hand. Yet I am reminded that there are also ten million times ten million things on this planet and in this universe that even people with 20/20 will never be able to see, and God will still get his due glory for those things. And for that reason, the very fact that we even have glasses and contact lenses and microscopes and telescopes ought to tell us that there is something wholly and totally beyond ourselves, namely, God. And this awesome Creator, who formed the sky and fashioned the stars, who made you and me, we who are made up of muscles and molecules, this almighty God is worthy of all glory and honor and power and might. Make no mistake: Above all else, God wants me to seek and strive to see him, even more than the things I can see with my own two physical eyes.