It's always difficult to even begin to capture what's happening in one's heart. Each of us has unique circumstances that are hard to explain or communicate to another soul. Yet in many ways, we are the same. Sure, you may have never experienced the adoption process-the longing or impatience that goes along with it. But you know a heart that aches for something, you know the difficulty of waiting on God for His timing, you know the agonizing hurt of loss, you know the “belief” that your own plans are best, you know the difficulty of waiting for someone else to lead, you know what it's like to miss someone desperately, you know the pain of unmet desires. Each of us may be on our own faith walk-that is by no means exactly like another's-yet we have all experienced these emotions. We each have felt these things as we sought to see God's hand in our circumstances.
Because of this commonality, I write to you what's going on in my heart. I know you can relate. I want to share the low points of my raw emotions, as well as the truths of the Word that have been a salve to my spirit. I pray that whether you are reading this through the lens of adoption specifically or not, you can apply the truths to your own heart.
Early on in this process, I decided that I would attempt to be wide open about our adoption process. I didn't begin this blog, documenting our process, so that you could necessarily understand me. I don't write because your understanding is essential to my existence. Or because the only way for me to be loved and supported by you is if you understand what I am thinking. We all have experienced the fault in that reasoning. Your ability to love me is not based on if you understand exactly what I’m going through. My ability to live life and obey God is not based on if I feel loved or understood.
God has given us many clear commands in Scripture:
"Be holy, for I am holy."
"Sin not, don't let the sun go down on your anger."
"Love God. Love others."
"Husbands, love your wives. Wives, submit to your husbands."
"Judge not."
"Love others as you would love yourself."
And the list goes on. We know these commands. We seek to obey these commands...most of the time. But sometimes, we allow ourselves to believe that we've found a loophole. Generally, we give ourselves these "loopholes" because of someone else's actions. We find ourselves believing that because so-and-so (husband, wife, friend, child) isn’t obeying God in our relationship like they’re supposed to, then we don’t have to do our part either. You know, my husband doesn’t love me like I want him to, so I don’t have to respect and honor him like I’m called to do. Or my children are not obeying me (even though I was sure to teach them Ephesians 6:1), so I do not have to be patient with them. Or this other lady (who I thought was my friend) is gossiping about me, so I no longer have to love her as Christ loves her.
See what I mean?
Often, we deceive ourselves into thinking that we only have to obey God in our lives if the others around us are meeting our “needs” (actually, desires). We allow the world’s psychology to subtly sneak in to our thinking: I can’t honor my husband because he won’t ____ (you fill in the blank.) I can’t love that person after what they did to me. We justify our disobedience by their disobedience.
Christian friend, that is not how this life is supposed to work. That’s a broken system. Not what God called us to.
I am expected to obey God independently of other people's responses or understanding of me. We all are.
This first post in this series is more of a foundation. I felt like I needed to explain this before I moved on to share my own emotions. I would never want any of you to get the wrong impression about my purposes for writing. I can still "feel loved" by you even if you do not know anything about adoption. So please do not misunderstand my post.
We can encourage one another regardless of if we understand exactly what the other is going through.
My main reason for being this open in regards to our adoption is simple: I want other people to consider adoption. You are probably reading this either because you are intrigued by adoption or maybe just because you know and love me. Either way, I want to pull back the mysterious cover from adoption. I want to dispel the common doubts-you know the ones. You've heard them before, or perhaps you've even thought them yourself.
-Adoption is only for people who cannot otherwise naturally have children.
-Adoption is really expensive, so it must only be for "rich" families.
-Orphaned children are better off on their own anyways, staying in their native countries.
-The command in the Bible that tells all Christians to care for orphans isn't really talking about me.
-There's so much corruption in the international adoption world, we should just stay away. After all, I don't want to have any part in unethical means. So I'll just do nothing.
-I don’t think I could ever really love a child that’s not my own blood.
I want to use the truth to help you rid your mind of some of these untruths. I want you to make your decision as to whether or not you should adopt based on this question: Is God directing our family to adopt or not?
After all, that is how we, as Christians, claim to make all our decisions, right? So let's be realistic and truthful about our thinking. Let's allow God to direct us to accomplish whatever He calls us to.
That all being said, I intend to paint a picture of the adoption journey that is realistic. It won't do any of us any good if I make it sound like a bed of roses. That wouldn't be true either.
So here I share what's going on in my heart from day to day during this waiting journey. Raw. Realistic. True.
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