Trusting and Being Trust-worthy

Opening Prayer (Psalm 126:4-5): 

Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
like the torrents in the southern desert.
Those that sow in tears
shall reap rejoicing. Amen. 

Greetings!

Trust is obviously important to obtain nearly anything in life. The same God the ancients trusted to "send rain on the southern desert" in times of famine is the same God Christian childlovers trust in to send young friends into our lives and to cross our paths so that they may be enriched with love and that we may be enriched as well. But childlovers may feel like no matter what they do, the world just doesn't trust them at all, and they may be tempted to lose hope.

Unlike most gifts and graces of God, trust is something we actually work for. Trust is earned. Through our personal resolution to live conformed to the life of Christ in love, as childlovers, we learn how to trust in the gifts and blessings that God promises us. God isn't obligated to give us the things we think we want, but He does desire that we want the things He wants for us in trusting that He knows what will actually make us happy (for He knows us better than we do! (Luke 12:7)). When it comes to the lives of loneliness we may lead as childlovers though, or maybe the total lack of satisfaction we feel because of our unquenchable desires, we may feel like we want to go curse God out for putting this "curse" on us, one so few have to bear. I know I certainly have. How can we childlovers see this life the Lord has given us as a "gift" when all it feels like is a "burden"? How can we be ever be happy living like this? First and foremost, we may just have to learn what "trusting in God" really means, and then prove ourselves trust-worthy over what He has already given us, in order to get what we really want, which is what He wants for us (true joy). 

Readings and Homily:

Childlovers feel a deep-seated love of children and can't (and shouldn't) ever possess what they love because their moral attitudes keep them from ever carrying those desires out. In sacrificing their own carnal desires for the spiritual and physical good of children, they become a blessing to the world, but this also causes them to feel unduly burdened and perhaps even "burning" with unquenchable cravings. These desires are permitted by God in the childlover not because He wants us to use them as a justification to sin, but as a justification to find satisfaction through conforming these personal sufferings to the cross of Christ with patience by the gift of self-mastery (given by the Holy Spirit). To have patience in the will of God means to trust in the will of God, and if you ever think that you (as a childlover) can't hold back your desires, then you are probably losing your patience, and therefore, losing your trust that God's way (through sacrificial abstinence) is the only way to find real, lasting, and effective satisfaction in life. This happens to everyone, and it is perfectly natural, but let it only remind you how much you need to find Christ. If you totally lose your trust in "the way" (which is the narrow gate (Matthew 7:13)) then you may spend your life wandering; seeking, but never finding.

The "burning desire" you may feel to "have children" was not unknown to many people throughout the Old Testament. Abraham was directly promised by God that he would bring forth from the aging and sterile womb of Sarah (his wife) a son that would give him decedents "as numerous as the stars in the sky" (Genesis 26:4), and he faithfully waited decades, even into old age, for this promise to finally come to fruition. Unless you're a childlover who is blessed enough to be heterosexual though, you've probably resigned yourself to a completely childless life, despite having a very intense desire to love children. Like Abraham, you too may already be asking God: "What will you give me, for I continue childless?" (Genesis 15:2). Or you may even have become desperate enough to beg God send children into our life like the Rachel, the barren wife of Jacob: "Give me children, or I shall die!" (Genesis 30:1). Only God knows what we need to be happy, and even if we don't get "what we want," we have to trust that God knows it is natural for us to want descendants, whether they are our own flesh and blood or those of someone else that we have the privilege (not the right) to nurture and mentor. God may just be waiting for us to realize that we can have our "spiritual descendants" in our "young friends," but only if we first trust that He is capable of bringing them to us. 

Childlovers are right to want by special friendship with children "in spirit" by personal adoption, either by mentoring the kids or showing everyday acts of charity towards them. This, I believe, is the childlover's true vocation and calling and the reason God has permitted pedophilia in the world to begin with: not so that it could be used to harm children (through unnatural and improper sexual practices), but that it could be used as a stirring of the spirit to benefit children (through charity, mentoring, teaching, and "spiritual adoption"). We may be without young friends in our lives right now only because God knows we wouldn't be capable of handling a child entrusted to our care in a way that He wants for us, if we were ever to be entrusted. Since any other way would be completely improper, the only way that anyone of right mind is involved in a child's life is either through biological assignment, social assignment, or pure trust. If we are never to be a biological parent of a child (and even that we can not cast off it is is God's will), we just have to ask ourselves, are we first trusting and then are we trust-worthy to be trusted with someone else's child? 

First you have to trust that God is capable of giving you your heart's desire so long as you are committed to loving it the way He INTENDS you to love it: "But seek you first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33). Notice Jesus did not say "seek first your righteousness" but "HIS righteousness," meaning you (as a childlover, as a pedophile) are not to love children by your own standards of lust and the slavery to sexual desire, but by God's standards of pure-thinking charity and self-mastery. Once you earnestly seek to trust in God's righteousness instead of your own, then you must seek to be deemed trustworthy by others. Once you have trusted in God, you then have to EARN people's trust. And how do you do that? By showing them first that you are trust-worthy over small matters, in the abilities, opportunities, skills and good nature that God has already given you to use in charity for your neighbor. Do charity in small ways first, and then God will grant you to be charitable in big ways:  

"The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones." LK 16:1-13

Christ was speaking in this parable (Luke 16:1-13) about a dishonest steward who had overcharged his master's debtors so he could pocket money on the side. When his master found out, he was fired from his position, but before he left his post, he decided to act prudently for his own benefit so that he may be regarded as trust-worthy in the future. He called each of his master's debtors and reduced their debts to his master to their original amounts so that they would be squared off with his master and that he would perhaps re-attain the trust of society. For his act of prudence, his master commended him. In the parable, this dishonest steward showed that he could be trustworthy over what the Lord had given him in life, and because of that, he was commended instead of shamed. 

What has the Lord given childlovers in life that they may prove themselves to be trustworthy enough to care for children? Maybe He has given you a desire to teach or to mentor children, or has given you a clean record so you could go volunteer with children who so desperately need adult role models (particularly boys who need good male role models). If not, maybe He has blessed you with resources so that you could give abundantly to charity. Maybe He's set your heart aflame with a desire to give charitably to causes that help children suffering in sickness along with the money skills to be able to start your own charitable organization to assist those in need? Whatever it is, the point is, God has given you more than just a sexuality. He has given you skills, abilities, desires, and has pricked your heart one way or another your whole life just waiting for you to connect the dots and come to the conclusion that you have value and purpose for the good of the children of the world. Will you be a good steward of what God has given you so that you can pay it forward for the children that God has been calling you to love and nurture all these years? 

This may be a hard lesson to learn, but it is probably the most important lesson a childlover can learn. God determines what you are in life, and leaves it up to you to determine who you are. Who you are is determined by what you do with what He has given you. So trust in God and be a trustworthy steward of the gifts he has given you (as a childlover), and you will find the contentment in life that he promises is yours: 

"If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours?" LK 16:12

Trust in God and be trustworthy over the children of other people, and like Abraham, your own "descendants" will be as numerous as the stars in the sky! May they be numerous! God is always trust-worthy. Try to be like Him. 

Closing Prayer (Psalm 126:2-3)

Then they said among the nations,
“The LORD has done great things for them.”
The LORD has done great things for us;
we are glad indeed. Amen.

Grace and peace be with you.