Adoption

I've never lived through infertility. I've watched a dear friend suffer miscarriage after miscarriage; I've cried with her. But I have not know the desperate longing for a child that somepeople endure. I don't really get it.

What I do understand is the miracle of adoption. Don't get me wrong, it was absolutely miraculous that my bio children grew inside my body, and then I sustained them from my body for their first months of life. I love my bio kids; they are treasures. But there is something equally miraculous about God taking a child who did not grow in my body and carries none of my DNA and giving her to me to love. He rescued her out of a situation she surely would not have survived and placed her into our arms, and as soon she was in my arms He wound her into my heart. I have children of my body, and a child of my heart. And somehow the love is the same.

There is something different about our expierience of bringing a child into our home by adoption though. Adoption pleases God; it brings him pleasure. When Abby came home I felt God's smile.

God uses metaphors and word pictures throughout the Bible to demonstrate his love for us. Adoption is a living picture of God's plan to bring us into His family. When we surrender our lives to him we become his children. We bear his name, and are entitled to his inheritence. I was a spiritual orphan and I became a daughter of the Most High King. If that's not adoption I don't know what is.

Here is my point. There are many couples out there who's hearts are breaking with the longing to hold a child of thier own. They are childless. And there are many many children out there who are desperately needing a mommy to hold them and a daddy to protect them. They are the fatherless. The equation seems to have a simple solution. Adoption. There is a miracle to be had. There is a blessing to be bestowed. And really you don't even have to be childless to enjoy it.

Adopting Baby has been one of the scariest, most challenging, outrageous blessings of my life. I don't want anyone who feels even the slightest calling to miss out on the joy.