Faithful Fridays~Adoption

Hi everyone!

Welcome to Faithful Fridays!  My mama and I started this so that Christians can weekly post about their Faith...prayer requests, praise reports, etc.  If you participate, please let me know in a comment and give me a link to your blog so that we can come visit you!

Now, you know me with my adoption craze.  I can't help it...those kids need homes and they need them fast!

I would like to share a few videos and a few of my thoughts on adoption and why we should pursue it, especially as Christians.

So this first video...by Eric Ludy (who, by the way, is awesome!  Mama has been reading the book that he and his wife wrote, When God Writes Your Love Story, aloud to me), is one of my favorites.  It's so worth it to watch it.  It will truly move you.



Next is a video by Randy Bohlender, from the Zoe Foundation.  I'm really not familiar with that organization, but I found the link to this video on an advocacy Yahoo group. 



I've shared some things about adoption before, but I would like to bring my points up again.

1.  Money

This is a BIG thing with people...they say, "I'd love to adopt, but we just don't have the money."  Let's rephrase that statement.  "I'd love to go get my child who is stuck in an institution on the other side of the world, but we just don't have the money."

"Now wait a minute," you exclaim, "that is NOT the same thing."  Are you sure?  When my mama and I saw my little brother's face in his referral photo, we KNEW he was ours.  He just was.  And he had been our child from the very beginning.  God had known all along, even if we hadn't. 

As Mr. Eric Ludy said, what if that was your child over there?  Your Emily?  Your Jacob?  Your Ellie?  Your Jack?  Your baby boy or your baby girl? 

Don't you see?  "I'd love to adopt" is the same as "I'd love to go get my child from across the globe."  And you wouldn't dare say that.  You would hop on that plane and you would fly over to your child as fast as you possibly could.  You would do whatever it takes.  You wouldn't worry about money.  Money would be nothing to your concern at that moment.  It would be your child. 

And if you are concerned about living expenses for when you get home...think about this:  If God wants you to have this child, won't he take care of living expenses?

Matthew 6:25-34 says

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 
  "And why do you worry about clothes?  See how the lillies of the field grow.  They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that dot even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For the pagans run after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own."

And if it is God's Will that you adopt, don't you think he'll provide the money? 

2.

Too old.

How many times have I heard this?  "Oh, I want to be around for them."  Yes, you want to be around for them.  You want to be there for them.  You don't want someone else to have to take care of them.  And yes, that's understandable. 

But even young people can die.  A 30-something year old could adopt and then months later die in a car accident.  You never know what will happen.

And don't you think that if God wants you to adopt, he will make sure that either you are around for them, or that they have someone there for them who can watch over them and train them?  Stop worrying!

3.  God's Will. 

Really, I can't argue much over this one.  Because I think that God's Will is different for each person's life.

So, you must seek God's Will.  You may find it by seeing a specific child's face and just knowing.  Or it may be that several events just happen to occur at just the right time (I don't call that coincidence, I call that GOD), or it may be that God makes all the pieces fall into place.  Or it may be something completely different.

But if it isn't any of these things, what if--well, what if you were to let the ball start rollin' and just see if God opens the doors?  If He closes them, you know that it is not God's Will that you adopt.  If he opens them, you know that He wants you to keep moving on.  He will show you.  You just have to trust Him. 

Really, in all of the adoption process--the consideration of adoption, the beginning of the process, the middle, and the end--through all of it, you have to trust God.  Trust the Creator of the universe.  The Deliverer.  The Savior.  The Author of Salvation.  The Implementor of Mercy.  The Giver of the Ultimate Happiness.

I think he can handle it.