Holy TENSION!!!

How can we be so passionate about adoption and yet so sad over the brokenness of adoption at the same time? 

 This was one of the subjects discussed at the orphan conference I went to. 

 I can not get over it in my head.  This is exactly what I have struggled with for a LONG time. 

On one hand we celebrate when a child comes into a forever family and on the other hand we grieve the loss of their birth family.

How can I be so in favor of the exact things I am totally against???

We live in the tension.

 being FOR adoption     

 /

 broken FOR adoption.

There is much in the media about how adoption is hurting people; the kids, and their birth family, and their adoptive family, and there is child trafficking, and  people breaking rules, and on and on........

 These are the cases that are getting the attention of the media.

 The media fails to share the stories of the millions of kids that are wasting away in garbage dumps and orphanages.
They are not talking about the kids that have NO family EVER to be found, or if they are found they want nothing to do with their children.

  These kids have no voice and nobody to give them a voice.   

I have children that would have had a very different life if the Lord had not laid it on our hearts to adopt. 

 I don't say that to give us any credit, it is almighty God that did this. 

  God knows we tried every excuse and reason that it wasn't right for us and then He came in and BROKE US!! 

 He broke our hearts. 

 You can't put a heart back together with "logic" and "more rules" or "more programs", you put it back together with sitting at the feet of Jesus and saying,
 "WHAT CAN I DO?"

 But if we would have said NO...it's too hard, too expensive, too risky, too WHATEVER...where would they be, where would our hearts be??

We asked questions and we prayed our ever living guts out, we jumped through all the hoops, and followed all the rules, and hired all the people,  but there is
A LOT of unknown, a LOT of UNANSWERED questions.  

 Things we may never know about our kids' first years.  

I will tell you what it came down to for us......TRUSTING THE LORD!!!  

Begging Him to show us, guide us, and help us.

He is so faithful. 

There is no formula to follow.  

There is a broken system and rules that you must follow, but beyond THAT, every child and situation and circumstance are different. 
 These are LIVES, and no 2 look alike.

When you are talking about obedience in any area to God...I believe it always comes down to

 HIM and YOU.  

An intimate, personal relationship.  

He will NEVER go against His Word, so you start THERE and you stay there, and you PRAY and ask and listen.

So for me...the adoption conversation comes down to this, here's the perfect formula and system we are all looking for:

LISTEN AND OBEY!

I thank God EVERY DAY that He did not just LEAVE me, but He sought me out and adopted me into His family.
I praise Jesus for being obedient unto death on a cross to make my adoption possible.
 I'm so glad He didn't put my "culture" or my "birth family" over the fact that I was His and He wanted me in His family.  Even though I didn't look like or act like one of His kids yet.

PS.  I have a great birth family and live in the greatest country on earth...and I still needed adopted by HIM to have eternal life with my heavenly Father.

Ephesians 1:3-6

English Standard Version (ESV)

Spiritual Blessings in Christ

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us[a] for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.