Isaiah 1:17 – Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow.

I thought I would be writing about one shame that cries out to be righted — and the Holy Spirit has taken me into another direction, to address another related wrong — another crying shame.
I thought I was going to be contemplating the Veteran’s Day paradox that we celebrate and honor veterans, but don’t really take care of them — and certainly don’t take care of their families and orphans.
Somehow the Holy Spirit wasn’t willing to fit in to my plan! That’s where having a great editor helps. A quick chat with Myra and she straightened me out — “maybe you should write about widows and orphans?” It was like the shutters dropped from my eyes, and I could see the words in front of me. Indeed, I should be writing about widows and orphans. In fact I’m overdue. Orphan awareness Sunday was November 3rd. If you have any interest, please go and look at orphansunday.org.
Why is the widows and orphans issue a crying shame? The latest count or orphans in America was 123,000 (with nearly 500,000 in foster care). There are more that 11 million widows in America. Worldwide there are more than 150 million orphans and 100 million widows. So how much do we hear about widows and orphans?
Perhaps we don’t feel the need to plead the cause of the widow, or defend the orphan? So let me provide an insight from the “moju project” — a business committed to making a difference: “The life of an orphan is something most of us can’t comprehend. Seven percent of child orphans are stolen and forced into prostitution. Many orphans have no clean drinking water to drink or food to eat and are forced to sleep in piles of garbage on the streets in the sewers. They live their lives void of love, comfort, and security. Their lives are full of fear, uncertainty, sickness, and often result in death.”
So who cares for widows and orphans? The Bible makes God’s position clear:

At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates: and the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest. (Deuteronomy 14:28-29)

It maybe that this issue resonates especially with me because I was part of a single -parent family in my teen years, and spent some time in orphanages and foster homes. For some time, too, Myra and I were part of a precious ministry in our church trying to help kids of divorced parents. It broke my heart that in the intervening years the position of widows and orphans hadn’t really improved.
There’s no way everyone can adopt an orphan. We all might not have a widow (or widower!) in our family that we can take care of. But there must be someway each one of us can get with James on “pure religion and undefiled” … “To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction” … if we can’t, it’s a crying shame!