Our Heart For Adoption

We are adopting! This has been years in coming, but always a calling for our family.  We have been foster parents in the past, and felt hopeful that a child placed with us would become ours forever, but it was not to be...and we are still trusting God with the unknown of that situation. The craziness of life and babies kinda took over, and we hadn't really focused a whole lot on moving in the direction of adoption until recently.  We have had an active home study (approval by the state to adopt from foster care), for about a year, and had the opportunity to accept a little boy last fall, but the timing was not right for our family.  I was very grieved over this, but my husband, in his wisdom knew that we needed to adjust to three under three before adding more to the clan.  {Side note: I'm thankful that God gave me a wise husband.  I would act in emotion more often than not, and he evens that out! Two is better than one!} I see all these profiles of kiddos needing families, and I honestly just want to take them all! Ha! Please don't think I'm super mom, because I'm NOT.  There are days when I feel as though I cannot handle the three I have birthed. It is only by God's grace that I parent them and will be able to parent more. My husband has felt like this too...and struggled for a few months with whether adoption was even right for us to do. During that time God used his Word to really speak to Chris about His heart for adoption. Our favorite passage comes from Matthew 25:31-46, specifically these verses:

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25:37-40

Wow! Who are the least of these? Children without parents to love and guide them definitely fit in this category! It is also clear in James, that as believers in Jesus Christ we are to care for these children:

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

I know that it also seems so crazy to many in our culture to commit to raising children that are not biologically ours when we already have some that are. Even when I grocery shop with just three I get multiple comments about how "many" kids I have. It's insane what some people say, but that's another story for another day. I think that the last part of that verse above is just as powerful as the first part...to not allow ourselves to be polluted by the world...God's ways are so different than the ways of the world.  It's so easy to get caught up in the activity (even good activity) that our culture denotes as normal, and be too busy to do the work that God has placed in his Word and in our hearts to do. Our God is awesome! Not only did he confirm his calling to us in multiple ways, but he also grew our hearts. We have now committed to adopt not just one child from foster care, but a whole sibling group. Our family will be growing exponentially this year, and we are so excited to have the opportunity to depend on God's grace even more!