When was the last time you did something meaningful to help somebody less fortunate?
I’m not talking about giving money to a military charity, serving in a soup line for homeless veterans on holidays or even reaching out through your church to help the needy in your military community with winter clothing or food drives.
That’s easy giving. Easy in the sense that you do what you feel you need to do as a contribution to society and back home you go to your own comfortable existence once you’ve done it.
I’m referring to the really tough giving. The stuff that downright gets your hands dirty by the amount of challenge involved where you don’t mind the extreme amount of effort it takes. The kind of giving that requires a serious day-to-day commitment and a certain degree of personal sacrifice to do everything within your power to bring quality to the life of another individual.
For instance, a kid.
A kid like the African-American boy we took into our home five months ago and treat as if he were another son in our house. He’s eighteen and still in high school, the best friend to our son – also in high school. This smart, talented, wonderful kid is morbidly obese and had no clue what a decent meal was after spending the last eight years of his life living on ramen noodles and macaroni and cheese. He didn’t know how to drive a car, get a job, enjoy happiness within the framework of a loving family.
A kid so starved for attention and affection that he put his head down and openly wept when we asked him, all of a sudden after his father had viciously cussed him out on the phone for the hundreth time, to please move in and join our family.
This boy’s mother died when he was ten years old. Raised from that point on by an uncaring, emotionally-abusive father who had previously only been an occasional weekend father to his son, this man is also considered an outstanding member of his local Navy Reserve unit. And yet, he had no trouble merely kicking his only child to the curb.
We receive no government assistance for this boy. Why in the world would we want a boy from the ghetto to continue to live as if he’s still in the ghetto by securing public aid for him? He’s a member of the family now. We financially support him the same as we do our other two sons who are still living at home.
We buy him what he needs. Feed him nourishing, healthy meals. Encourage him to believe in himself and his dreams. Help him find a job, take the SATs and register for college. Most importantly, do what we can to make him feel wanted and loved.
It isn’t easy, not by a long shot. We have a small home. We don’t have the room or the means to comfortably take such a step in the financial sense. It’s amazing what a small house and a tight family budget can handle when you put your mind to it. How well your kids can instantly pull together and show you the stuff they’re really made of when you reach out to someone this way. Someone who really needs you.
Like a kid.
Want to make an important contribution to the world? Make a serious commitment, accepting in the process the sacrifice that comes attached to helping someone who desperately deserves a better life. Simply open your door and your heart to…a kid.
You don’t have to be Angelina Jolie with millions of dollars in the bank to adopt a child from a third world country with a lot of glitz and fanfare. Heck, we have enough needy kids right here in our own country crying out to be emotionally adopted by good families. The kind of families that have a wealth of love and compassion to take that child in and say, “You matter. You matter to us.”
Who knows, we might have a future black President of the United States currently living in our midst here on Simons Drive – or a Quincy Jones-like-up-and-coming brilliant musician who will one day graciously accept his third Grammy on live television as he now occasionally takes out the garbage.
This boy can compose music that would knock your socks off. He is also driven by a sense of rightness and a deep sensibility that tells us he is definitely bound for bigger and better things.
All this kid needs is a chance. We feel it’s our personal responsibility to help him get that chance. You’d better believe we are doing everything we can to stand in the gap to make sure he gets it. This amazing, beautiful, loveable kid.
Don’t think about it, just do it. Take a child like Kyle into your family. Just like that. Do it. When he smiles at you and says, “Have a nice day,” on his way out the door in the morning, you’ll know you’re doing something important, something that really matters.
You won’t be sorry, I promise you.
