Why adoption?

Launching out into the terrifying and exciting adventure of adoption has created a myriad of emotions in my heart and a ripple of reaction in those who hear our news. Mostly we have met sweet encouragement and rejoicing with us for the way God is working in our family.

I feel immeasurably blessed to watch those who have wept with us truly rejoicing at this new direction God is taking us. But I know there will be honest questions and probably those who don't really get it along the way. After all, isn't is expensive, time consuming, uncertain? Yes, yes, yes - but we will do it, Lord willing.

If I'm really honest, down in the crevices of my heart I wonder if God's best for us will fall short of my own expectations. I wonder if He will provide and on my timeline at that. I wonder how much more breaking it will take to heal us of the disease of self - "my way, my wants, my timing, Lord!!"

But to answer the question...

There has always been vague interest in adopting someday. The proud assumption was that we would do it our way and on our terms. A beautiful boy joined us almost three years ago and we wondered if someday his baby brother or sister would share his blonde hair and brown eyes. Or would they have the dark hair or the blue eyes, our DNA? Adoption on the back burner and seeming very distant at best.

Early in 2010 the Creator created and we rejoiced. Soon after, there I stood in the chapel of a seminary campus, at an conference, worshiping with a tiny but filled womb, learning the plight of the orphan and of my own spiritual adoption in Christ. I wept. The desire to adopt grew but my womb did not...though I could not perceive that at the time. In a month's time the hope of a growing family vanished in miscarriage and we came face to face with an all-wise Creator Father. We got on our knees and pleaded for mercy, for comfort, for another.

It has not come. And all around us friends have taken brave steps toward freeing the fatherless and making room for hopeless orphans under their own roofs. Someday, I thought. After God heals this wound and fixes me...womb, heart, all. All the while I knew He would redeem our loss, and as we take steps in this journey I feel more confident this is His way for us.

As time has passed we have felt more and more aware of the growing distance between our firstborn and whoever will come after. We have also sensed that now is the time to begin the process of inviting one of "the least of these" to be our son or daughter. So I researched and we made some overwhelming decisions one at a time until we got to where we are now.

It is both spiritual and practical, and doesn't God so often work that way? We know there will be obstacles (in both the physical and spiritual realms) but the Father of the fatherless is faithful. We are thankful for the way He is working in our souls, our family, in the nations, and that is why we are adopting.