“…our adoption shows us just how welcome we are here. This is not, after all, the first time, God has adopted. Too often we assume that the Gentiles are the “adopted” children of God, and the Jews are the “natural-born” children. But Paul says that Israel was adopted too (Rom. 9:4). Of Israel, God once said, “Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite (Ezek. 16:3). The Israelites were once Gentiles too. God reminds Israel that he “found him in a dessert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness” (Deut. 32:10). Israel was an abandoned baby, wallowing in its own blood on the roadside (Ezek. 16:5)” – Adopted For Life, Russell D. Moore, p. 30
A brother and dear friend recommended this book to me when he heard that we took the first major step in getting our adoption application processed yesterday at our local social welfare department. I have read the first thirty pages and one too many times, Moore’s account of his sons’ adoption and his pointing the readers to biblical insights reduce me to tears. I can’t wait to get my hands on my copy of the book! (paging Doc, lol!)
Anyway, there, I have said it. When Warren first announced our intent to adopt a child, I remained quiet and did not mention it much even to our friends. I wanted to wait things out, see if we will truly, finally, pursue it. Adoption has always been a plan that we both set out to do, contrary to what most of the people close to us thinks, this is not a recourse or an alternative. Warren, in his blog post said that we want to “take advantage of our incapability to bear children,” well excuse my dear husband but we are not entirely “incapable” of bearing children. Clinically speaking, he has a steady supply of a decent amount of sperm and as for me, well there are still tests I needed to undergo such as the HSG and maybe, just maybe, all I need to do is lose the extra sixty pounds I have accumulated over the years. And of course, other drastic (?) alternatives are also starting to become more available and affordable in our province, so you know, it’s not like we are at the end of the rope of things already.
Anyway, I digress, what I am trying to say here is that adopting a son has always been included in our plan for our family, period. It was a decision that we have made a long time ago and a conviction that was made even stronger by certain realizations in our walk with Christ, the strongest of which has a lot to do with being adopted citizens of the Kingdom. I distinctly remember a conversation I had with a sister in Christ who told me that she and her husband decided that no matter what happens, they will never adopt a child. My reaction was, “Why not, Sis? Didn’t you know that you became a Christian ONLY because God, in His immeasurable grace, chose to adopt you? Imagine, out of all the many souls who need a Savior, He chose you. Why would you not consider what our Father in Heaven Himself did for you?” Well, I think I irritated the heck out of her because with a raised brow and a flip of her hair, she exasperatedly said, “To each his own.”
I remember that time our Young Married group trooped to an orphanage in Lubao, Pampanga, we were all distressed to see so many children abandoned and left to the care of the social workers. Most of our sisters in Christ were moved to tears – mothers most especially- out of pity for the children and maybe even anger for the parents who left them there. I walked around not shedding a single tear, but my heart was also being ripped apart as I looked into each child’s eye, seeing the longing, the ‘lost-ness’, the yearning to be loved and maybe, in some deep, primal level, to belong. But did I not look that lost, unwanted and pitiful before I received God’s grace of salvation? Did I also not walk around with a big, hollow soul wanting to be filled and to be assured of love? Did I also suffer condemnation for being an outcast, until the Father drew me to Him and adopted me to become His daughter?
I like how Russell Moore puts it in his book, he said that “Adoption is, on the one hand, gospel. In this, adoption tells us who we are as children of the Father. Adoption as gospel tells us about our identity, our inheritance, and our mission as sons of God. Adoption is also defined as mission. In this, adoption tells us our purpose in this age as the people of Christ. Missional adoption spurs us to join Christ in advocating for the helpless and the abandoned.”
Adoption should not be a “last recourse” or a “desperate attempt to belong”, I believe that those two, mixed together, make up for the best formula for any relationship within adoptive families to fail. Adoption should be founded on biblical intentions and center on unconditional Christian love. When I told our dear, dear pastor about our plan, he assured me that not having a child does not make us less of a family, and he advised me to make sure that we are emotionally prepared, “read parenting books, seek advise from matured parents”, he wisely counseled. Does it look like we are a desperate couple seeking to belong to a society where a “family” is a unit that must consist of a set of parents and children? Perhaps, I laughed and thought to myself. But no, we are not. There is Someone bigger than us behind all of these and we praise Him for the work He continually does in our hearts. Five years ago, I would never even imagine myself thinking about adopting a child. But then, the Lord has done miraculous works in me and here I am now, advocating a cause even.
