Adoption

On January 22, 2010, Mandi and I celebrated our tenth anniversary.  God has blessed us greatly over the past ten years.  I believe we are truly a great team and we grow closer together every day.  We love children and we have spent years now ministering to children and their families in the church.

We desired to have children of our own early on in our marriage.  Not for lack of trying, we soon realized that might not be a possibility.  Mandi was diagnosed with a medical condition with one of the symptoms being infertility.  We pursued some medical cures and tried some mild fertility meds to no avail.  It’s not out of the question for us to have children in the future but for now we are leaving that in the hands of the Lord.  We believe that all things work together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purposes.  This confidence we have has given us peace and contentment with whatever the Lord wills. 

A few years ago we began considering adoption.  I admit that I was resistant at first but Mandi has been patient with me.  Recently, both of our desires to adopt have grown stronger through prayer, reading, research, personal stories of adopting families, and the great need.  The abortion rate is staggering along with the growing number of orphans wordwide.  As Christians we don’t feel that we can ignore these facts.

Adoption is a beautiful picture of God adopting us.  We were once lost, unloved, helpless, and hopeless but by grace through faith in the finished work of God’s son Jesus we are now children of the most high.  As children of God he has extended to us the full privileges of sonship.  Our Heavenly Father graciously took us in, and loved us, helps us, and gives us hope.  We are called as Christians to minister Christ’s love to needy people around us.

James 2:14-18 say’s “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”  Earlier in James 1:27 he writes, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.”

Our desire in adopting children is to show outwardly what God has done and is doing for us inwardly.  In other words, to display our faith in a way that will exalt Christ and provide evidence of the new heart he has given.  We hope that others will be awakened to the need of people around them and find ways that they too can share the love of Christ.  We can think of no better way to express this than adoption.