A New Legacy

The Bible teaches that there are two kinds of families: the natural and the spiritual.

The natural family is your biological family—the people you're tied to by blood, parents, and grandparents.

The spiritual family is the family you are joined to by the blood of Christ and the waters of baptism.

Scripture commands us to honor both.

1 Timothy 5:8 says we must care for our natural family—or we’ve denied the faith. But when natural families are broken or absent, the spiritual family steps in, as seen in the care for widows in the church (1 Tim 5:9,16).

These two families overlap sometimes. Other times they’re miles apart.

My mother gave me life—but for most of her life, she didn’t know the Lord. Naturally, she was my mother. Spiritually, she belonged to another family.

But God used me and my wife to bring her to faith before she died. She became my spiritual family too—and that is why I grieve her death differently than I do my brother Wayne's. Wayne was my blood brother, but without God as his Father, there’s no reunion coming.

Blood matters—but baptism is thicker than blood. The spiritual family is the forever family.

Still, the loss of a natural family leaves real wounds.

Take adoption: it’s a living picture of grace, but it only exists because of loss.

As adoption experts Silverstein and Kaplan put it: “In adoption, to gain anything, one must first lose—a family, a child, a dream.”

Adoption can heal, but scars remain. As Frodo told Gandalf in The Return of the King, some wounds cannot be wholly cured in this life. They ache until glory.

Christians today often deny this. Our culture tells us we can undo consequences with enough therapy or effort.

But Scripture—and experience—says otherwise.

Grace restores, yes, but full healing only comes when Christ returns. Until then, losses linger. They mark us.

This isn't just about adoptees.

It’s also true of kids from broken homes—especially fatherless ones.

The Bible calls the fatherless “bastards” (Heb 12:8)—a word that means more than illegitimacy. It means deprivation.

A good father passes down more than skills. He models emotional control, righteous anger, and masculine affection.

Without that model, sons often become angry, unstable men.

As Paul says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger” (Eph 6:4)—because angry fathers raise angry sons.

Fatherlessness handicaps a man.

But here’s the hard truth: a mentor can’t fully replace a father.

The church can act like a family, but it can’t be your natural family.

We confuse the two at great risk—leading either to heavy-handed cultish churches or domineering fathers who try to become mini-popes in their households.

Scripture keeps natural and spiritual family distinct, yet intertwined. And so must we.

You can’t erase the natural family. You can’t replace it either.

But you can *start* a new story.

God called me out of a family marked by occultism—my grandfather wrote books based on conversations with demons.

That was my heritage once.

Now, by His grace, I’m building a different household—a heritage of heaven.

And though my brother, just hours before he died, said, “You’re not a real Foster,” I decided not to throw away that name.

I took it back. God gave it to me.

Now, Foster means something new. Something better.

The loss of a natural family will hurt. It may haunt you.

But you can be the generation where everything changes.

You can build the kind of home you never had.

You can stop the cycle of loss and begin a new legacy.

It won't erase the scars. But it will set your feet—and your children's feet—on a new path, a path toward the restoration of God's household on earth.