The MET Church Houston, Texas

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27)

Printers and publishers understand that paragraphs should be wholly contained on one page. That’s the plan. When things don’t go according to plan and the first line of a paragraph lies on the previous page, it is said that you have a widow. The same is true when the last line of a paragraph lies on the following page; it’s called an orphan. Having widows and orphans on a printed page can cause the communication process to lose effectiveness. The widows and orphans also lose some of their meaning and support because they have been separated from the remainder of the paragraph. Isn’t it interesting that printers and publishers use these words to describe how communication loses its effectiveness? As Christians, we also lose our effectiveness in communicating God’s love when we ignore widows and orphans. We can’t click a button and prevent people from losing their families, but we can embrace them and show them God’s love. Most word processing programs have a feature that prevents widows and orphans, but it isn’t that easy in real life. Widows and orphans are so important to God that He tells us looking after them is pure and faultless religion.

In many cultures, and too frequently in our own, widows and orphans are marginalized or ignored. Fortunately, we can do something about that. God calls us to. Set aside some time for your whole family to pray for the widows or orphans you know. Think about what you can do to help them and make plans to do something for them soon. You will be surprised what an impact even the smallest things can make in someone’s life.