FOSTER CARE 44 JULY 2026 www.goodnewsfl.org Good News • South Florida Edition Just let that land Two hundred and fifty years. I've been sitting with that number, and I find I don't quite have the words for it. Two hundred and fifty years of this country existing, growing, rising and enduring. There is something about the sheer weight of that number that deserves more than a quick acknowledgment before the fireworks start. So this month, I want to pause with it. Because I think there's something in the story of this country, and in this particular milestone, that speaks directly into the work we do and the lives we are called to live. Young, but not without roots In the scope of human history, 250 years is remarkably young. And yet the accomplishments, the resilience and the reach of this nation in that short span of time are genuinely remarkable. I don't think that's an accident. I believe, and I'm not alone in this, that something spiritually significant was woven into the founding of this country. At the root of this experiment in freedom was a deep hunger for something that only God can truly provide. And so, as I think about this 250th year, I find myself interested in the thing that made it possible at all: freedom. True freedom. The kind that doesn't only originate in a document or a declaration, but more completely in a Person. Freedom is a calling Galatians 5:13–14 has been sitting with me this month in a fresh way. Paul writes, "You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: love your neighbor as yourself." I love that Paul doesn't just say we have freedom. He says we were called to it. Freedom isn't incidental to our faith; it's part of our design. Everyone who bears the image of God, which is everyone, is called to experience freedom. And there is ultimately only one source of that freedom that reaches all the way down into the soul: Jesus. This is something I think about often in the context of the children we serve at 4KIDS. We talk about home as a place of safety, belonging, identity and healing. But underneath all of those things is something even more fundamental. We are fighting for children to be free — free from the weight of trauma, free from the instability that has followed them, free to discover who they are apart from the pain of their past. That is the freedom we are reaching toward together. When freedom turns inward But Paul doesn't stop at the gift, he immediately names the tension. Freedom can be misused. And I think that's worth sitting with honestly, especially in a season when we are celebrating it so loudly. I want to be careful here because I don't think the answer is to become suspicious of every good thing in life. God has given us genuine gifts to enjoy — family, friendship, rest, the simple pleasures of an ordinary summer day. None of that needs to be treated as dangerous. I believe God actually delights in our delight. But there's a line, when the good things in life become the main thing — when comfort becomes our compass and convenience becomes our calling — that's when freedom quietly becomes something smaller than what it was meant to be. When indulgences become little gods, as Paul would say, we've drifted. And the antidote is to turn your freedom outward. Use it for someone else. The whole law in one line What strikes me most about this passage is the scope of what Paul claims. The entirety of the law, every commandment, every instruction, every moral framework Scripture lays out, is fulfilled in a single act: loving your neighbor as yourself. Not partially fulfilled, not mostly covered, but fulfilled entirely. That's a staggering claim. And it reframes freedom in a way I find both convicting and clarifying. We are free so we can give what we have to others. The purpose of our freedom is service. The expression of our freedom is love. This is why the work of 4KIDS is not charity in the traditional sense. It is an act of people exercising their freedom on behalf of children who have not yet been able to experience their own. Foster families opening their homes. Donors investing in restoration. Volunteers showing up week after week. Every one of those is an act of freedom turned outward. An invitation for July As we celebrate 250 years of this country and all it represents, here is the question I'm sitting with, and the one I want to leave with you: What will you do with your freedom? Not in a heavy, obligatory sense, but in a genuinely hopeful one. Because I believe most people, when they truly encounter the needs around them, want to respond. The capacity for generosity runs deep in people who have been touched by grace. So in the spirit of 250, consider this an invitation to find even one person, one family, one child who needs someone to show up for them. To use the freedom you have been given — your time, your resources, your presence — on behalf of someone who is still searching for theirs. Since September 2024, Andrew Holmes has been serving as the President of 4KIDS--a ministry that provides Hope, Homes, and Healing to kids and families in crisis. Learn more and catch the vision of a home for every child at 4KIDS.us. - Andrew Holmes - 4KIDS President 250
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