"Without Christmas there would be no Easter."
I read a sign with the above catchy little phrase on it as I was on my way to church. True, I thought. No birth of Jesus Christ, no savior to die on a cross, defeat death, and allow a way for the enemies of God to "have the right" (John 1:12) to become His children through adoption.
"In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves." Ephesians 1:5,6
(Contrary to popular sentiment, we are not children of God until we have believed and received in Jesus Christ. Yes, we are all created in His image, but after the fall, we became His enemies. See here and here .)
We are adopted. Adoption is God's idea.
"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." Jesus (John 14:18)
You know what else is His idea? Taking care of the orphans.
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress..." James 1:27
I don't know how many widows there are out there, but I do know that there are a little more than a half-million children in foster care in the United States - 129,000 are waiting to be adopted.
Do you know how many places of worship are in the U.S.?
400,000.
Devon Williams of CitizenLink sums it up best:
"Can't we find one family out of every three churches to adopt one child?"
Please consider rescuing a child for God. He did it for us. (Oh, and state adoption is actually free most of the time...some of the time the government actually pays you!)
(Rescuing a child works for me!)
17 comments:
You know I have a big AMEN for this post.
We found out last Monday @ court that it's looking like we'll be able to adopt our foster son! So exciting!
Thank you for being a advocate for this!
My husband and I adopted a beautiful little daughter from South Korea! Her name is Lydia Darling and we don't know what life was really like before she came. Our three sons adore her and she them! Thanks for the lovely post. I have just begun to blog so I don't have all the "pretties" yet, but come visit me sometime!
Oops! See what I mean? I didn't even type my "address" correctly! I'm at www.homeschoolblogger.com/hasanyoneseenmypurse/
I agree that adoption is a great idea. I also think that when we are church members we are responsible to help out our church family with raising their children in a godly fashion, in a sense "adopting" them as well. So even if we don't bring a child into our family by adoption, we all "adopt" children when we take our responsibilities seriously as a church body. Great post!
Suzanne
I think God is definitely telling me something. My husband and I have discussed adoption for years. Now that our youngest child is nearly two, we've been talking about whether or not to have any more biological children and we're pretty sure we're through, but we know there is more room in our family. Friends of ours are about to adopt a sibling group of five, through the State of California. This will give them a total of nine children. And they are absolutely ecstatic. Watching them go through the process has been convicting to say the least.
I believe there is at least one more child out there for us, one that needs a home. Thanks for your post.
Sometimes my husband and I talk about the verse in James, and we conclude that widows and orphans in our culture can include single moms or dads and their children, divorced moms/dads and their children, single woman who have never married and women with significant others in prison. This broadens our view on how we can help others in their distress.
Can't wait to have a little adopted niece or nephew!
This is a great thing! We did go partway into the process ourselves before having to make the painful decision that we could not do it at the time. It was hard, because there are so many children out there who need a good, godly home.
My neighbor has adopted 3 children through foster care and a family at our school has adopted 2.
I encourage everyone who feels the tug in their heart to at least look into it.
Thanks, Sarah Mae for a lovely post and praise the Lord for adopting us!
I couldn't agree more. Our children came to our family through adopting from foster care. I can not even begin to imagine how different, lonely, and boring our lives would be without my precious sons.
I encourage anyone with interest in adoption to consider foster-to-adopt. It's not an easy road, by any means, but it has certainly been a blessed road for us.
If you're interested, you can read our adoption story here: http://www.texastanya.net/blog/category/adoption/
Since evidently Kiddo is going to be the only biological child for us, it has crossed my mind to think about adopting a little girl. The Lord has not given either of us a burden for it, but the seed is there.
My dh and I do actually plan on adopting at least one child when we are a little older. We actually would like to adopt a pre-teen who may be trouble or went through a lot. We really want God to use us in this area, but believe we need to be more mature to handle something like that. We work with youth now, but still don't have nearly enough experience. I know, I know, God calls the unqualified, lol. That is our plan anyways, I know God could always shake it up bit! Anyhoo, that's what we're hoping! :)
Thank you for this post...I pray others are inspired and maybe even feel a sense of duty. Not everything is going to be something we want...and it may shake up our comfortable homes for a bit - but isn't it worth it to do God's work? Isn't it worth it to pour into someone's life - to change their life? Great post!
this is an important message that too few churches hit head on! even though we are not planning on expanding our family for a couple more years, austin and i have talked very seriously about adoption - thanks for sharing these websites!!! :)
I love your post about adopting. I would love to adopt, however my husband is not quite on the same page. I figure if it is God's will for us than he will change hubby's heart. Thank you for the verses that support adoption.
I think this is such a great message. We adopted our daughter and she is one of the greatest blessings in our lives.
You also made me think how we as women "adopt" all children. I was watching a rerun of Oprah yesterday. She was asking what people would do in certain situations. They set up a camera and hired teenagers to act out bullying another girl in a public park. Many, many people passed by without doing anything, but time and time again women stopped to help out.
Adoption is a great option. My child is a Chosen Child and I cannot imagine my life without her.
This is a great post. Simply touching at this time of year - and this station of my life. My hubby and I have 3 kiddos (H1 (10) H2 (5) were born before we met, B2 (11 mos) is ours together). We are truly a blended family and talk about having another together and maybe adopting a 5th (lucky charm, one for the road!).
Special thanks to Tanya @ TexasTanya.net for sharing her story. Simply amazing. God works in ways that just continue to wow me. I had my first at 15 or 16. I looked into placing her for adoption, but the bio-father wasn't interesting in relinquishing rights. I wasn't interested in tearing up another home or having my daughter be in foster care for 30 days before placement... I live every day, thankful for keeping her. I couldn't imagine life without her. It's such a blessing to read how Woody and Tigger have truely been a blessing from God. It's simply perfect.
~Allie Z
My husband and me have just begun our journey down this long exciting road. We have not been able to have childen of our own, but we have been blessed in so many other ways so we decided to adopt through the foster care system. There are so many children that need a home. Might I just add that many of these children are school age. Please keep them in mind. It is of course nice to bring home an infant, but the older children in the system need us too. We can not wait to be a mom and dad to children (siblings) that needs us.
AMEN! I just did a big ol' post about this last week here.
I'm enjoying my visit to your blog. Can you tell, with all these comments? ;D
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