"What are you thinking today about adoption?" My wife has asked me this question frequently over the past several weeks. To clarify, she is not asking to decide whether I am interested in adopting again. We have settled that issue, feeling called again. Rather, she is interested in the details of our adoption. From where should we adopt? Boy or girl...or both? How many children? These are the easy questions, though we do not yet have a settled answer.
The more difficult questions are yet to come. We will be asked to complete a rating form to help guide the placing agency in terms of our interests. Specifically, we will be asked to give our input on what is acceptable in our child. "Fetal alcohol syndrome--acceptable? unacceptable? willing to discuss?. Severe physical disability--acceptable? unacceptable? willing to discuss?. Child is blind in one eye--acceptable? unacceptable? willing to discuss?" This checklist will go on like this for roughly five pages, asking us to search our hearts and make an honest estimation of which children are acceptable.
How can I as a parent, as a Christian, read these questions with an honest heart? How can I be asked, preemptively, to make a determination of who I can love? How is reviewing a checklist "loving the least of these?" (Matthew 25:40). When I face questions like this, I wonder, did God have a checklist when he adopted me as His son (Ephesians 1:5; Romans 5:8)?
I am left asking, do the choices that we make about adoption only serve to provide some sort of emotional salve, to help us believe we are doing the right thing? Or rather, is their wisdom in honestly reflecting upon these very difficult choices about living, vulnerable children created in the image of God?
I honestly do not know that I have a good answer. Nevertheless, I take comfort in God's sovereign hand. Romans 8:28 reads, "and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good." I have trusted God with Heather's health, with Tessa's safety, with my soul and with a thousand other pieces of me. Certainly, I can trust him in this too.
I will conclude with an old favorite verse of which we have been recently reminded. Proverbs 3:5-6 reads, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths."
2 comments:
Jason, what a sweet post. We've faced this...both when pregnant with a child diagnosed with a severe disability, and again when we were filling out a very similar questionnaire for the adoption dream that has been tabled for now. It helped me to think not in terms of what was "acceptable" or who I could love (I truly believe I would love every one of those hurting children), but rather to think of it in a stewardship sense. What has God given us the resources to handle? That answer can be a little less brutal to the soul and more appropriate in terms of choosing what your family can handle. At least, it helped me to think of it that way.
Praying for you guys as you dream and determine again!
What a great way to think about this. Thanks for lending some insight.
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