Adoption 2 – Why Adopt?
From my last post, I talked about the idea of being adopted by GOD as His children. That is such an amazing thing when you think about the different instances of adoption in the Bible. Think about how GOD adopted us as His children, Joseph adopted Jesus as his child, Moses was adopted, and on and on. And the general question “Why adopt?” is answered by simply reading the Bible and seeing it throughout GOD’s Word.
But I wanted to talk a little about why we are adopting. Our adoption journey actually began while we were dating. We talked about a lot of ways that we would build our family, and both of us were convinced that we would have children from other countries. It was a given, even before we were married, that international adoption would be a major part of how GOD would build our family. How awesome is that? That GOD would bring together 2 people who both loved children and wanted to adopt…
The funny thing is, a few years into our marriage, we hadn’t begun the adoption process. Things got busy, life happened, and we just hadn’t started the process yet. It was still a part of our lives and a part of our desires, but we just hadn’t begun yet. That is until last June. After GOD began a great personal revival in both Jess and me at the same time (I will describe these past 2 years in another post, it has been awesome!) adoption jumped back to the forefront of our hearts and minds. We were ready. We heart the statistics…over 150 million orphans worldwide, 55 million in Africa alone, 5 million orphans in Ethiopia out of an estimated 70 million in total population. It is just crazy. Around the world these children have no parents, no family to love them, no food, no money, and no hope. And we live in this amazing nation full of everything we could ever dream of and children everyday die because they don’t have the simplest things. How could we not adopt?
We were ready. GOD was preparing us to help meet this need, and our family was ready to grow. It is not that we cannot have biological children (that is still in the plans), it is not that we are “good” people because we are not, and it’s not that we can afford this (international adoption is crazy expensive – upwards of $30,000) because we can’t. Why are we adopting? Because we were adopted by GOD, because GOD’s children around the world need us, and because GOD has called us to this incredible ministry.
I can just picture when we fly out to Ethiopia and take these children in our arms. We will look at them and call them son and daughter, and they will be ours. They will come into our family and have every right as a son and a daughter because that is what they will be. They will instantly be loved completely, taken care of wonderfully, and protected like they were a priceless treasure. They will have hope for their future. The best thing that we will have is the love of a family that will be there for them no matter what. As long as I live and as long as Jessica lives, they will have people who will do absolutely anything for them, and they will know that absolutely. And they will be pointed to their Heavenly Father, they will be shown what it means to be loved by the One that will never leave them.
If you are reading this and you have children, you know what I am talking about. If you do not have kids, understand that the words written in that last paragraph do not do justice to how we already feel about our children. But also, if you are reading this, understand that those words, the way that I described how we feel about our children, do not even come close to describing the love that GOD has for His kids. The way a great parent cares for their children on earth does not even approach the perfect love of our Heavenly Father. If you think you are loved and have never experienced the love of GOD, you have no idea. He fulfills everything that a Father could ever be and He loves us unconditionally and completely. We have a perfect Father who will never leave us. He will never die, He will never stop loving us because better things come along, and He will welcome us into His eternal family. It is my prayer that everyone could know this type of love.
As I think about this adoption and how much I love my children already, I cannot help but relate that to how GOD loves me. How could He love me that much? How could He love someone who He knows everything about? He knows my evil thoughts and desires and actions AND He loves me. This adoption reminds me of that every day, and I hope that everyone who reads this will see our Father’s love for us.