In the Old Testament book of Isaiah, chapter 1, verse 17, God tells us to bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.

And we're going to look at how that principle can apply as we reach out to single parent households.

I'm John Fuller, joined by the head of our parenting team, Dr. Danny

Werta, and we're going to start now with a clip from Focus on the Family with Jim Daly,

in which Jim spoke with Pam Farrell and Peggy Sue Wells. Now Peggy Sue was a single mom to seven

kids, and Pam grew up in a single-parent household. A mentor mine years ago said to me, if you think about it, because of the biblical

customs and the times that the Bible was written in, especially the New Testament for

this example I'm about to give, when you think of widow and orphan, you know, we think

of people who have no parents or a spouse who's died. But this person had said to me,

you know, in the customs there, if the husband was out of the picture, they were, in essence,

an abandoned woman. She was a widow. And the church needs to take them in and take care of them

as a command of the Lord, even if the man is still alive and just has now left his responsibilities.

That's an interesting way for the church to think about that.

But here's the benefit in the long run.

Think of the children, particularly, when they have that good experience that people in the church

pursued them.

Men came alongside them, helped mentor the boys, for example, and it was all healthy.

And that is a good story.

It is a great story.

I mean, look at the table we're sitting at right here.

Right.

We are the result of some healthy Christians doing exactly that.

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