You and I were created for relationship.  It’s by design that when we’re born into the world, we are born into a family.  If those familial relationships are severed or lost, other relationships are sought to fill the void.  Sometimes efforts are made to rediscover lost relationships with family members.

71-years-old Blackstone – with the help of his wife and support of his children and adoptive family – found contact information for Rusk, age 74.  He reached out to her, asking if they could meet.  Rusk, who lives only 40 miles from Blackstone, responded that she would be delighted to meet her brother.  On Sunday, February 17, 2019, Rusk and Blackstone – along with his wife, children, and grandchildren – met in Grapevine, Texas.  After 70 years of separation, it was a reunion filled with tears of joy.

“My little brother finding me after 70 plus years is the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to me,” said Rusk.

During this same reunion, Blackstone also met his two-half sisters, who are from his biological mother’s second marriage.  “[They] wouldn't let me go. They hugged and hugged and hugged,” he said.  “I now have two other half sisters I didn't know existed in the world.” *

You and I were created for relationship.  We need that human connection, whether it’s biological or through adoption.

Even more fundamentally, you and I were created for a relationship with God.  Sadly, our sins separate us from Him (Isaiah 59:1-2).  When we try to fill that “God-shaped void” in our lives with relationships with other people and things, these relationships don’t satisfy that deep, primary need for relationship with God.

Here’s the Good News: God is searching for us.  He wants us to be united with Him in His family.  He went to great lengths to make that relationship possible.  It cost the life of His Son Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins so that we can have forgiveness and be reconciled to God (Ephesians 1:7).

If we will place our faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from our sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ (Acts 2:38), then God will forgive us of our sins, add us to His family, and give us the gift of eternal life (Acts 2:41, 47; Romans 6:23).  God will continue to cleanse us of that sin that separates as we continue to walk in the light of His Word (1 John 1:7-9).

If YOU go searching for God (and that search will involve a study of His Word, the Bible), what you will find is that He’s been waiting for you.  He’s waiting for YOU to accept His offer of salvation and reunion and eternal life.

Won’t YOU accept His offer on His terms?

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” – 1 John 3:1

-- David A. Sargent

* Information gleaned from “Adopted Texas man, 71, meets biological sisters after submitting DNA kit: 'I just lost it'” by Madeline Farber of Fox News, www.foxnews.com, 2/21/19.

David A. Sargent, Minister

Church of Christ at Creekwood 
1901 Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama  36695

Archived issues of Living Water can be viewed and accessed from our website at: www.creekwoodcc.org