I recently answered this question on an adoption application and Ryan encouraged me to share as a blog post on #WorldAdoptionDay. Thoughts and opinions are my own.
“Show me the right path, O Lord; point out the road for me to follow,” I remember praying that verse very specifically for several months while we considered shifting our focus and taking the first steps towards adoption. I remember being scared and nervous about committing to a new journey, but deep-down I had that “gut” feeling. I knew that God was answering our prayer and it was now up to us to take the step of faith. God was working the same way in Ryan’s heart. Today, I sit typing these words, thankful for this journey we are on. Because I rest in knowing that God needed to close a door for us, so that we would walk through the door He has held open for us since the beginning of time. He has shown me that I can trust in Him and rest in knowing that He can restore our hurt and pain, and turn it into something better than we could have imagined. I’m thankful for this journey, because it has changed our hearts in ways that wouldn’t have been possible without this season of our life. God has spoken to me about adoption by changing the way that I think of family. I believe that biological family is one of the greatest gifts that God gives us, but God has shown me how family also includes the people that He miraculously connects us our souls with, apart from biology. God first taught me this through the gift of my husband. I share no DNA with Ryan, yet he is the one human I love most on this earth, the human I am most connected to. God has taught me this lesson again through members of our church family and the family of believers he has given us for support on this crazy journey. The bonds we have with members of this family are not lost on us. These people are our family, given to us by our God whose love goes deeper than DNA. And most recently, he’s shown me this lesson through the love that is growing in my heart for our child. Every day that love grows fiercer and stronger and I feel the connection continuing to grow. That loves comes from God, the creator of adoption. God has ultimately used adoption to bring me closer to the Gospel than ever before, both in adoption's messiness and its’ beauty. I'm thankful that God took the messiness of His Son’s death, and turned it into a beautiful redemption that adopts all believers into His forever family. |