Adoption thoughts

November is national adoption awareness month or something like that.   You will hear more this month about adoption than the other 11 combined probably.  It is setting the stage for people to feel compassion going into the Christmas season and maybe just maybe consider the kids that don't have forever homes for Christmas, or Thanksgiving.   To consider who these young adults call when they have aged out of the system with good news or for advice.  Sadly the answer so often is they have no one to call.  They share with peers.  They seek the advice of peers, who often have no more life skills knowledge than they do.  Sadly more often than not the cycle is repeated with their children.  They don't have the resources to help them parent.  They parent like the parents that abused and neglected them parented.  Their children are abused, neglected and dead.  Many of the girls will have children because they know that tiny baby created in their body will love them unconditionally.   We all know how much love tiny babies show.  

Adoption is tough.  It is not for the weak.  It is rewarding beyond words.  The pain and joy of children is magnified in adopted children.  Deeper pain, deeper joy as you see the hurt from their past rise up over and over and try to destroy them.  As we walk through these struggles some days it isn't pretty.  It is hard.  You wonder why you ever adopted.   You don't think you can be effective.  You don't think you heard God right when He said, "Adopt." 

Yesterday a friend sent me a link to another blog on adoptions.  I want to share that link here.  Read the commits also as this will give you even more insight in to the life of adoptive families http://www.studyinbrown.com/writing/2010/10/13/a-song-almost-heard.html I also want to borrow a line from her blog. 

Christ’s love leads us into places that no one else wants to go, where the stench and the mess and the heartache push out the well-dressed and the well-behaved.

But in this "stench and mess" is joy.   Joy of seeing children given a chance at life.  Joy in ways that only God understands.  Human words don't do justice to the Joy of adoption.   Joy at seeing children learn to care for children in ways they didn't know and would have never learned without adoption, without love. 

 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud  or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.  It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.           1 Corinthians 13;4-7

Some days I think a lot about 1 Corinthians 13;4-7.  Usually the focus is on verse 7.  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.   I refuse to give up!   I do have moments I loose faith and wonder what, why, how, but my faith comes from Jesus and when I get my eyes back on Him and not on the situation I can again be hopeful and endure.  Will adopted children turn out the way you want them?  Probably not, but then will biological children turn out the way you want them?  Probably not.   No act of kindness is ever returned void.  No act of love is wasted.   We are sowers of seeds.  God is responsible for the rest.  My goal is to stand before God and be able to say, "Lord, I did the best I could." 

We have adopted 6 times.  We have a sibling group of 3 that have lived with us for almost 6 years.  We adopted a 16.5 yo girl from out of state.  When she turned 18 she went back to her bio family and that lifestyle.  We hear from her very little.  We adopted 11 months ago a sibling group of 2.   They have been "ours" since Aug.   Each adoption, each child is unique and brings it's own rewards and heart aches.  I have no regrets about any of our adoptions.  Each adoptions has brought joy and pain.  I can honestly say the joy far out weighs the pain.   Would we adopt again?   In a heart beat!   We just wait for God to bring the right child/children into our life.   Are all our other children "healed"?  Heavens NO!   They are an ongoing work of the Lord.  Some times I see much healing, some times I feel we are back to square one in an area or with a child or a behaviour.   Some behaviours that I thought we had over come cycle back and we have to re-deal. 

As you read this blog and I hope follow the link to the other blog I ask that you seek God in how you can help the child needing a forever home.  How can you help the adoptive family that is living a life not pretty and clean anymore.  How can you support a foster family that is dealing with the issues of hurt and abuse in children they know will only be with them a while.   I challenge YOU to step out of your comfort zone and help "the least of these."