I want to be more like my son

I love to hear about people who put their faith into action.  People who don’t just sit in church and listen to stories about God and read books and study the Bible.  Jesus called us to be people of action–not just hearers of the Word, but DOERS!  Here are a few people groups that I LOVE:

Foster parents (personal heroes of mine)

People who feed the hungry in our country, especially children

People who feed the hungry and sponsor kids in third-world countries (a loud shout out to World Vision!)

People who use their own money to travel to poor countries to help with medical and feeding needs

Adoptive parents (the Gospel is all about being adopted into God’s family)

My youngest son, Liam (he’s 21) is one of these “doers.”  He recently gave his life to Jesus and became a radically different person.  His life now is marked by love and devotion to God–the exact opposite of his former life.  God has used my son to bring me closer to Him on many occasions.

One of those occasions was last year, shortly after Liam was hired as a barista at a coffee shop in Salem.  I came home one day to the washing machine doing its thing, and a large garbage bag sitting on the floor of the laundry room.  I looked inside the bag and saw a blanket covered in grass and dirt and assumed it had come out of his or his girlfriend’s trunk–from their last visit to the park.  I said, “hey, looks like you cleaned out your trunk” and he replied, “actually, there’s this homeless guy who comes in to the coffee shop every day and we give him coffee.  He doesn’t have any place to do his laundry, so I offered to do it for him.  Is that okay?”  I can’t really express the love and admiration I felt for my son at that moment and how thrilled I was that he was putting his faith into action.  I said, “of course it’s okay” (but I admit I WAS wondering just how long he was thinking we’d do the guy’s laundry).

The next day there was more laundry….and a ripped coat.  Liam had offered to sew his only coat for him.  (Not wanting to thwart Liam’s plans, I did sew the coat myself, as I wasn’t sure if my sewing machine would get ruined in the process–and Liam did seem relieved!)  He also told me that another barista, Justin, was letting Jere, the homeless man, sleep in a tent in his yard for a few weeks!

I don’t like labels.  One I especially dislike is that young people are ALL [fill in the blank with something negative–lazy, self-centered, etc.]  No, they’re not.  I know MANY amazing, compassionate, generous young people, and Liam and Justin are two of them.