“…to take care of orphans and widows in their suffering and to keep oneself from being corrupted by the world.” James 1:27
Adoption is a subject that is important to me and near and dear to my heart. All six of my children joined our family through the blessing of adoption. When we were first contemplating adoption, we didn’t view it as a calling on our lives, we viewed it as a way to meet our needs. We wanted to have children and for unknown reasons it was happening the traditional way. I think we looked at adoption and probably parenting in general a bit selfishly.
Over the years and as our family has grown, so has our view of adoption. Adoption isn’t so much about providing children to parents as it is about finding parents for children. Does that make sense? As an adult I’m not entitled to a child any more than I’m entitled to a closet full of clothes, a fancy sports car, or a tropical vacation every year. However, no child should have to grow up without a permanent, loving family.
November is National Adoption Month, specifically National Adoption Day was November 17th. It really is just a way to call attention to the children in our community, our country and around our world who wait for a family. We don’t need to be perfect parents to consider adoption, I know I’m certainly not. What’s needed is the desire to care for another person created in the image and likeness of God. A willingness to acknowledge that all children are valuable in God’s eyes, and not view adoption as another feather in our faith cap.
While we are all called to care for orphans, I firmly believe that we are not all called to adopt. I think people get guilted into thinking that in order to be a “good” Christian they need to adopt a child. I happen to disagree. I have written about ways to help an orphan without adopting. Adoption is a wonderful, beautiful, messy, uncomfortable, hard, and fantastic journey. But we are all called to serving orphans in different ways.
If you have never thought about this topic before, I would encourage you to spend some praying about what God is asking of you. Maybe He’s calling you to think about adoption, perhaps He’s calling you to care for orphans in a different way. What I can guarantee that he is calling you to do something!
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