This morning I’ve been thinking about my past collections. When I was 5 years old I began collecting rocks that I found to be interesting. I carried my rock collection around in an empty Coca-Cola 24-pack box. My prized possession of my rock collection was the fossilized trilobite that my dad brought home one day.

I hauled that box of rocks everywhere I went. One day I forgot my box o’ rocks outside on the porch of our house and I remembered leaving it just as I was laying down for bed. I told my mom that I needed to go grab it to bring it inside and she said it would be just fine out there until morning. It was gone when I woke up. It was crushing to find that someone had stolen my collection that I had worked so hard to build. I’ve still got a little conspiracy theory in the back of my mind that maybe, just maybe…it wasn’t stolen at all. When I get to heaven…I’m asking.

From there I moved on to the next thrill of stickers. After stickers, it was baseball cards. Baseball cards led to basketball cards and comic cards. Comic cards got me obsessed with actual comic books. Comic books led me to graphic novels and an unhealthy R.L. Stine addiction.

Even at a very early age, it was clear that simple allowances or chores couldn’t provide the cash needed to fulfill my extreme desire to “complete” the collection. Whatever it was…I needed all of them. Every one of them must be mine. I wouldn’t even read the comic books, but I needed the next 10 issues. And so I came up with small businesses.

The first attempt was when I was around 6 or 7. I created “snack boxes” that were filled with everyone’s favorite junk foods to put in local mechanics shops. Mechanics love snacks you know. And so do auto-body guys. After a couple of weeks in a few locations I had to close my business due to lack of profits. From there I moved on to “Sour Mix”. This was actually a real money-maker. 1 package of Kool-Aid + 1 cup of sugar = $2.00 from some unsuspecting 3rd graders.

Soon after that I would develop nothing less than a 12-step worthy addiction to POGS and slammers. To support my habit, I began selling pogs and slammers on the street playground for profit. I found a place at the mall that sold a handful of pogs for 3 dollars…as many as you could hold with one hand. I developed a method after much practice that could yield no less than $25 worth of pogs in a single handful. I’d then turn those over and feed the beast what it needed…milkcaps.

From pogs, there were poker chips, and then playing cards, and then coins, and then stamps, and then little annoying toys that made strange noises when you shook them. The rules were simple…find something that you can collect. Get all of them. Lose interest and move on to something else. Later in life, bigger collections began to form, such as music and movies. At one point I had over a thousand CDs and more than 350 DVDs along with ancillary collections of Yo-Yos and cameras. Antique cameras were a big deal…and so were fish. I started collected saltwater fish and corals and blew so much money it hurts to think about it all.

Some of my collection can be found here:

http://www.ryebread.smugmug.com/gallery/15268_UUzQF#505491_VjMZ2

I’d move from hobby to hobby as well: Dirt bikes, Bowling, R/C cars, Photography, etc…

Fads that I could throw myself completely into.

Later in life I’d find myself in some seriously dark places due to my addictive tendencies. Pornography; to “collect” women, theft; to quench my needs, lying; to cover up my obsessions. It’s easy to see how things can quickly spiral out of control.

And then this Jesus shows up. And He fulfills my need to collect and complete and to have it all. And He’s not a hobby, and He’s not a fad. Thank You Lord. Thank You for everything.

In the bible, there’s a passage that reads:

“Religion that God the Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

Some would brush right over verse 27 in the first chapter of James, while others’ lives would be completely altered. Steve and Liz have not been the same since reading James 1:27.

So many of us take for granted the gift of conception. We assume that we will be able to “get pregnant” once the time is right, or even if it happens unplanned…we get excited anyway. We don’t realize the crushing blow that comes to some with each new congratulations, with each disappointment of not becoming what they truly want to be; parents.

I’ve been friends with Steve and Liz for a while now. We’ve prayed for them countless times. We’ve layed hands on them for the gift to be released that they are longing for. Last year, I put together a video storytelling for them:

As told in the video, Steve and Liz weren’t going to give up on the dream of having a family, especially with all of the orphans out there aching for the same dream. That’s where these two come in:

Samuel (Aleksey) // 2 and a half

Rowan (Vladimir) // 1 and a half

These Russian brothers are being adopted by my friends, Steve and Liz. The process is running a mile a minute and you can see what’s cooking on their blog, http://www.bringingsamuelhome.blogspot.com/

Although this process is completely draining, extremely expensive, and downright difficult…it’s worth it. God has given a vision of a family to these two and they won’t be just two for long.

I posted some time back about not forgetting the widows…this post is devoted to the orphan. Please, please consider donating towards the process of bringing Samuel and Rowan home. I cannot think of a better investment than that of giving a loving family to those who have been cast aside.

You can donate to Steve and Liz Myers’ Adoption Fund by clicking —>HERE

Or by clicking on the “donate” button on their blog, http://www.bringingsamuelhome.blogspot.com/

Love Wins.

Hypothetically…let’s just say you get a large energy bill in the mail last month. Hypothetically it’s so outrageously expensive that you KNOW the energy company has made a massive mistake and you KNOW that they’ll have it corrected on your next bill. Hypothetically let’s say the bill was for $6,400.

Hypothetically, your current energy bill shows up at your house a few days back. A bill that would hypothetically be corrected at this point…but it wasn’t. Hypothetically…let’s say your new energy bill is $8,040. Hypothetically, this would require a call to the energy company with a stern talkin’ to. You would assume that the energy company would agree with you that this is asinine.

Hypothetically, the energy company asks you if you’ve installed a tanning bed lately or a hot tub. Hypothetically, you start to freak out a bit as the energy company tells you that this is actually not a problem on their end and that you are indeed using that much power at your house.

Hypothetically, you begin to look around various corners of your dwelling space to see if you find any radiating fireballs of plasma or a Wal-Mart plugged in to any of your outlets. Hypothetically everything seems up to snuff. Hypothetically, you have an electrician come out to check things over and he tells you that nothing seems out of the ordinary…that NOTHING could be pulling this much power from your home. That this is impossible.

Hypothetically, you would assume that the electric meter is out of whack and it’s malfunctioning. Hypothetically as you look at the meeter, it seems to be spinning around like the Griswald’s meeter on Christmas Vacation when he turns on the Christmas lights. You would call back the energy company and explain to them yet again that there is simply no way this could be on the homeowner’s end. Hypothetically they tell you that it is your responsibility and that they can forward you on to their credit department should you have trouble paying the bill.

Hypothetically…what would you do at this point?