Throughout our journey to adopt our sons from the foster care system we have encountered many people who, in conversation, volunteer their lists of reasons why they cannot adopt. I am often surprised at how many of these people are Christian. They will tell us how wonderful they think we are because we “saved” our kids. They tell us that we are special, that it takes a special person to adopt. They tell us that they don’t have enough money, enough space, enough time to adopt. They even tell us that they don’t feel “called” to help, to adopt these kids. I cringe at the mere suggestion that one could be excluded from the call to help the orphans.
James 1:27 (NIV) says “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.” I think this verse is often overlooked by the Christian community. To me, there are very few ways to interpret this statement. There are over 100 million children in the world who are orphans. In the US there are more than 150,000 children at any given moment who have been waiting some time to have a forever family. Our oldest son waited ten years. I look at him and at the pain he endured and ask myself where we as Christians are in all of this. What is our role? Does this passage in James tell us to look away? Does Jesus ever ask us to focus on our own comfort? Are we not all striving for “faultless religion”, the kind of religion our Father loves?
So often our desire for children is centered around our own wants, our own needs, our own ideas of what family should be. We focus on what it is we want and discard what it is that God wants. I really, really want the baby growing inside of me to be a girl. It is a bit ridiculous how badly I want this baby to be a girl. But no matter how hard I wish for a girl and no matter how much pink I buy, this baby will be whomever God wants it to be. I cannot request a healthy child with beautiful blue eyes. I cannot request a child who is easy to get along with, one who brings joy and peace wherever she goes. I can’t request that she be slender and tall. The only option I have is to trust that the Lord is leading our family and that He will bring us the child He means for us to have. In the same way, I cannot ask that He rearrange His word to suit my desires. Caring for the orphan is hard, hard work. Adoption will never be easy for any of us. It is an amazing blessing but at the root, there is heartache for someone, often most of all for our child. I cannot run from the call to care for the orphan because it is hard. I cannot run from it because it isn’t convenient. I cannot accept the excuses that my mind creates and allow them to turn me from pushing forward toward the call my Father has laid out for me. I must read this verse and make it my mantra. I must know in my heart that a call from God is never put forth lightly. He doesn’t mince His words. We are all called to care for the kids who hearts ache with the loneliness of waiting to be loved.
Don’t ask yourself IF you are called to these kids, ask HOW you can fulfill the calling God our Father has set forth. Then pursue your calling to help the orphans in their distress. It is true that not all of us can adopt for a variety of very valid reasons. So help the orphan in another way. Find your state’s photolisting of children who are waiting for a family. Print out a picture of a child or children who wait. Hang them on your fridge and pray for them daily. Pray for the family who will be matched with that child. Find a reputable Christian organization that offers child sponsorship and add a child to your family in that way. Find an adoptive family that could use some childcare and step up to the plate. So often, so many of us are tired and weary and don’t want to ask someone to take on the task of watching our difficult children. Go to your local Children’s Home and volunteer your time to read to children who have been brought in from abusive situations. Go to the store and buy a pile of diapers and deliver them to the mom who just brought her beautiful bundle of joy home from China. Send a note to a child in your church who was just adopted welcoming him or her into your church family. There are a million and one ways to care for the orphan. There are just as many ways to care for adoptive parents. Decide HOW you can be a part of God’s call to the orphan, and then pursue that task with your heart invested. We are ALL called.
Photo Credit.
Amen.
Thank you for speaking so eloquently to what has been on our hearts! And thank you for the reminder that while we wait for God to lead us to our children, we can still be answering His call.
epfled – Thank you for listening to the Lord and for waiting on His timing. Blessings to your family – Renee
I LOVE this. I was called to be a foster parent – when I was 17, the calling came. I was in total fear to do so, not knowing it was God yearning for me to work for Him in this way…..I spent the next 18 years thinking that my head was talking…not Him pulling at my heart and asking. I came over my fears and became a foster parent. A single foster parent, no bio children- this told me too that He wanted me to have my full attention to some pretty needy children – and I told Him that I’d take the hardest child (ren) out there…..
His children that were placed with me were considered to be from a case that was labeled as one of the ‘worse’ in the county, special needs in so many ways…..my heart is in turmoil today about a current situation (s) and I’ve been really feeling like perhaps this calling is over, I helped where I could….but the kids’ case is not over, not by a long shot….however, this morning as I follow my heart to look up (online here) passages in the Bible to read and help my confused heart, I came upon this piece of reading/post/blogg – - “Are you called?”….tears stream down my cheeks and I yell, “yes Lord, I AM called, please use me more in service for You”….I still am going to search around for readings to go to in the Bible….I have a week left of vacation from my SAH job/nanny for my sister/fostering and everything else…..I am going to seek rather than pretend the pain is not here….the pain to my current foster situation that is. ANY help in directions for my search in answers………
My husband & I have raised our 2 sons, (24 & 21), & they have moved on & we have wonderful relationships with them. Through the years God has burdened our hearts for a possible adoption but we also were faced with many profound emotional & physical issues. In the past year God has done such intensive care on those issues that we are coming to the point that, through a series connections, & situations, God has once again placed this issue of adoption on our hearts. We sat down today to pray about it & ask God how He’d want us to respond. So, as things unfold over the next several months we’ll take this to God & see if He guides & provides regarding adoption. Meanwhile, by faith, we’ll do our “homework”, just in case!
~T.
Hello, I have been reading through this blog for about an hour or probably more, I don’t even know how I got here. But hey! it has been a good lecture and it made me question myself.
I have for the longest time wanted to adopt a baby, I always thought of adopting a boy you know for the social implications and all, but then while thinking about adopting I picture myself adopting a girl.
I am not sure how the process of adopting works, and this is why I’m blogging, I’m single and probably too young to adopt now? (24) and currently I’m finishing a MsC, so I’m not sure if I’m eligible to adopt or should I wait? can I do that while being single? can I adopt a baby from the UK? or other country?
Thanks to your opinions beforehand
Ale
hello iam married i have one child that is 17 years old not with my husband we was going to have one in 2006 but I miscarried nearly died from the whole ordeal . GOD is the center of our life we are saved i do have a step son soon to be 9 and a 25 year step daughter that in in NY . My husband and i have been together for 6 1/2 years married almost 2 years . We have tried to have a child but its not happenening i believe GOD has a plan maybe if we open our heart n home to a baby that needs love and doesnt love a mother or daddy to love them well we may not be thier birth mom but blessing come in different ways if we never do have children together that is something we just have to live with as a family but wont change how we love n care for who GOD bless us to adopt our hearts truely go out to the abused hurting little ones my family all have been there including our 17 year old minstry starts at home first WE pray that someone out there will give us a chance to love thier baby n care for them they way they could but my not be able to because of manys reasons thank you for your time
its me again i just wanna say that by us opened up our hearts to want to adopt doesnt mean we dont desire more children if it happens it will and that will not stop us from wanting to adopt once our heart is in something it in it . MY husband and i have went through foster parents classes just finshed not sure what this journey may bring but we do know it was truely placed on our hearts by GOD to become a foster / adpotive parent to a little angel out there somewhere GOD aslo may use us to help a birth mother join back with thier baby its all about helping others heal n bring familes back together My husband is a minster in the gospel he has a strong minstery to the youth GOD sends people in our paths for all kind of reasons i will just say LORD HAVE YOUR WAY thank you AMEN