National Adoption Month 2012
November is National Adoption Month and uncharacteristically for me, I have yet to write anything about it. In looking at the calendar, I realize that unless I write something soon, I will have missed it entirely. (You can read posts here from 2011, 2010, and 2007.)
I have thought about writing something quite often, but yet I have hesitated. I don't have to think too hard about why I have hesitated. This has been a difficult month. With our going out of town, we threw our family system into a state of chaos that we hadn't seen in a while, and dealing with chaos doesn't leave a whole lot of energy left over for anything else.
And honestly, when I am living in chaos, I seriously wonder whether I should really invite anyone else to voluntarily join me in that chaos. Why should I even suggest to someone whose life is running pretty smoothly that they should abandon that and actually choose what could be a much harder road? In my darkest moments, I fleetingly ask myself why we did.
There is a framed portrait hanging in my living room of my first five children. D. is a baby, and the others stair step up from him to M. at age 10. Four of my blond, beautiful children are sitting in a line, each holding onto the sibling in front of them, while the bald, chubby baby is facing all of them and grinning. It was at this moment in time that I would rock and nurse baby D., a wonderfully happy, joyful baby, and sob. I wasn't sobbing for D., but for a little boy somewhere who didn't have a mommy or a daddy to hold and rock him as I was rocking my baby boy. My heart was broken for a child I couldn't even name.
It was also at this time the J. and I started to seriously discuss adoption. It had a 'now or never' feel about it, as if if we didn't choose to pursue it now, we never would. It was a nearly three year process as we slowly made the decision and then did paperwork in order to complete our first adoption. We went into it with the same expectations that most do when starting down the adoption path. We wanted to give a child who needed one a home and we wanted another child to love. It all seemed so simple.
If you have been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know it wasn't simple, and it continues to not be simple. It was and can be hard. Very hard. And hard not just for J. and I or for our other children, but hard for that first adopted son as well. He, perhaps, has had the hardest journey of all.
But during the hard times, I sometimes go back and remember. I remember sobbing for the little boy I didn't know, except I know him now. That time period during which I was weeping for him lines up exactly with the time frame of him going into orphanage care. It was during the months he spent in the orphanage that I spent crying for him. I may not have known his name, and he may have felt as if he had lost everything in the world, buy God was already working to redeem his story.
So now we come back to the question of voluntarily taking a more difficult path in life. My life may not always be easy (or quiet), but there is something to having a role in a redemption story. (And I want to be clear. We are not the ones doing the redeeming. Not by a long shot. This is God's work, God's story, God's work of redemption. We just get to tag along.) And redemption is costly. In this case it is costly in terms of comfort, ease, and resources. But those costs pale in comparison to the ultimate redemption that is offered to us by Jesus.
As this National Adoption Month draws to a close, ask yourselves what is really important. Ultimately important. We are instructed to imitate Christ. How better to imitate our Lord and Savior than to sacrifice our comfort and ease to provide love to a child who is without hope. It won't be easy. It will be hard, and some days you may ask yourself why you chose the path you did. But you will understand God's love for you in a way you never did before and consequently you will experience His joy and peace as well.
Who doesn't want front row seats to a miracle?
I have thought about writing something quite often, but yet I have hesitated. I don't have to think too hard about why I have hesitated. This has been a difficult month. With our going out of town, we threw our family system into a state of chaos that we hadn't seen in a while, and dealing with chaos doesn't leave a whole lot of energy left over for anything else.
And honestly, when I am living in chaos, I seriously wonder whether I should really invite anyone else to voluntarily join me in that chaos. Why should I even suggest to someone whose life is running pretty smoothly that they should abandon that and actually choose what could be a much harder road? In my darkest moments, I fleetingly ask myself why we did.
There is a framed portrait hanging in my living room of my first five children. D. is a baby, and the others stair step up from him to M. at age 10. Four of my blond, beautiful children are sitting in a line, each holding onto the sibling in front of them, while the bald, chubby baby is facing all of them and grinning. It was at this moment in time that I would rock and nurse baby D., a wonderfully happy, joyful baby, and sob. I wasn't sobbing for D., but for a little boy somewhere who didn't have a mommy or a daddy to hold and rock him as I was rocking my baby boy. My heart was broken for a child I couldn't even name.
It was also at this time the J. and I started to seriously discuss adoption. It had a 'now or never' feel about it, as if if we didn't choose to pursue it now, we never would. It was a nearly three year process as we slowly made the decision and then did paperwork in order to complete our first adoption. We went into it with the same expectations that most do when starting down the adoption path. We wanted to give a child who needed one a home and we wanted another child to love. It all seemed so simple.
If you have been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know it wasn't simple, and it continues to not be simple. It was and can be hard. Very hard. And hard not just for J. and I or for our other children, but hard for that first adopted son as well. He, perhaps, has had the hardest journey of all.
But during the hard times, I sometimes go back and remember. I remember sobbing for the little boy I didn't know, except I know him now. That time period during which I was weeping for him lines up exactly with the time frame of him going into orphanage care. It was during the months he spent in the orphanage that I spent crying for him. I may not have known his name, and he may have felt as if he had lost everything in the world, buy God was already working to redeem his story.
So now we come back to the question of voluntarily taking a more difficult path in life. My life may not always be easy (or quiet), but there is something to having a role in a redemption story. (And I want to be clear. We are not the ones doing the redeeming. Not by a long shot. This is God's work, God's story, God's work of redemption. We just get to tag along.) And redemption is costly. In this case it is costly in terms of comfort, ease, and resources. But those costs pale in comparison to the ultimate redemption that is offered to us by Jesus.
As this National Adoption Month draws to a close, ask yourselves what is really important. Ultimately important. We are instructed to imitate Christ. How better to imitate our Lord and Savior than to sacrifice our comfort and ease to provide love to a child who is without hope. It won't be easy. It will be hard, and some days you may ask yourself why you chose the path you did. But you will understand God's love for you in a way you never did before and consequently you will experience His joy and peace as well.
Who doesn't want front row seats to a miracle?
Comments
Well said, and I had to chuckle at "inviting others to join in the chaos".
Yet taking that other road makes all the difference. . .