"Poke!"

Maggie says she and her friends periodically 'poke' each other in their spaces online. A poke means, 'I still think about you, Friend, and I care, even if I don't write often.' Wow, I could poke so many people, especially my daughters, sons, and grandbabies so far away in the North.

In order to devote more time to poking my own family, I have reluctantly withdrawn from the adoption forum on line. God bless all those dear people who are waiting in pain and faith for the Ukrainian government to get things sorted out, so they can finally go over to get their children. Some of those kids have been crying over the phone, "When are you coming?" And all of those parents, I know for a fact, are crying, "Soon, I desperately hope!"

God help them, and God help every family everywhere who is struggling to be normal and together and strong and joyful. I noticed recently that there is not even one struggle-free family recorded in the Bible. Every single one is 'disfunctional' in some way or other.

We can all be glad that, despite our disfunction, we have a very functional God, Who continues marching on with His beautiful eternal plan for Planet Earth, His favorite small speck in the Milky Way. He calmly moves forward, bowing to use us to accomplish His dream, imperfect though we are in our smallness, little cogs in the great wheel of His will.

The comforting thing is that inside His loving and wise heart, He has a unique solution for absolutely every predicament, sin, weakness and hurt we families possess, and that we can't sway Him one inch from His Great Purpose. With the smallest whimper from us, He sends help, sometimes within seconds, or minutes.

While God is busy spinning worlds and problem solving for us, we can do the easy part by 'poking' each other now and then. Kind of like placing a hand on each side of a dear one's face, looking at them tenderly and saying, "I really do love you."