November is National Adoption Awareness Month, so I thought I would post some of my thoughts on adoption.
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” – Galatians 4:4
God could have chosen to save Christians and no more and that would have been an incredible act of grace and mercy. But God does not stop there. Not only does he love and save us while we are His enemy, but he amazingly adopts us into his family – becoming our father.
It isn’t surprising then, that the orphaned and widowed hold a special place in the Father’s heart. We are told in James that:
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” – James 1:27
Some of my earliest memories are of my family visiting widows in our community. I’m very thankful for this spiritual heritage that has been given to me by my parents. Our family has had the privilege of being blessed throughout the years by growing our family this way. Though, it shouldn’t be surprising that when we as Christians bless others, we ourselves are blessed. We are told:
“Whoever brings blessings will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.” – Proverbs 11:25
But I think often times we forget this truth. I like to remind myself of this before I engage in the cyclic downward spiral of self-absorption, a lie our culture has sadly gift wrapped and presented as the the truth.
Another trap we can just as easily become entangled in, is that of self-righteousness. Oh what a slippery slope the slope self-righteousness is! Our good works do not come out of our love for and desire to please God, rather they come from the dark place of self-glorification. Our heart’s desire is to bring glory to ourself rather than to the Father.
Let us constantly bring our motives before the altar of God’s will and pray that our deeds bring Him the glory He deserves. What a beautiful thing for our will to sing in unison with the Father’s!
Brance and I have mentioned to a few people that we have been thinking and praying about adoption. I would like to say that my heart’s desire and motive has been right the entire time. But, my human nature likes to bring up fears, founded and unfounded alike. Would you please join us in prayer as we seek God’s will in regards to adopting a child?
I’m so thankful for my own adoption by God the Father and I’m excited to take part of the physical reflection of that here on earth. I hope that other Christians might discover the joy that comes from blessing others through adopting the widowed and orphans into our families. I know it might not be possible for every Christian to legally adopt a child, but there are countless boys and girls and widowed men and women who need the love of a family. I encourage you to consider adopting someone into your family. I’m sure you will be blessed like my family has been from God’s beautiful plan of adoption.
Wow! I will definitely join with you in praying about adoption. What an exciting thing!
Thank you very much! By the way, we have proudly displayed the 6 month picture you sent of baby Sean. Lots of family and friends have commented on how cute he is!
I love your thoughts on this. Chris and I went to an adoption dinner last night to learn more about starting the process. What a beautiful picture of God’s grace.
Wow, that’s awesome Tiana! There are so many children in the world that need loving families. Brance and I are just starting to look into the process ourselves. I’m not sure how much you’ve found online… but I found this website helpful http://www.howtoadopt.org/. Please keep us updated!
I love the new Thanksgiving look — how often this special holiday which focuses on giving praise to the Almighty gets overlooked and lost in the rush to Christmas.
In all honesty, I started to set up the Christmas theme, but I just finished teaching Colossians to the youth and we spent a good deal of time talking about thankfulness, and its importance in our lives as Christians.
So I thought, “Hey! Don’t skip Thanksgiving!” And thus we have the Thanksgiving theme.
I LOVE Thanksgiving…your layout totally cracks me up though. I’m thinking oldschool filmstrip.
ha ha
I’m glad you like the picture! I am amazed at how fast they change! He looks so different even just two months later! I can’t wait to see new pictures of Haddie…hint hint.
Your right, we need to post more pics of Haddie. We’ve been incredibly busy
! Maybe I can get a few posted this weekend…
Hey Lauren, lately I’ve gotten really sucked in to reading all kinds of blogs by adoptive moms. They share their experiences and talk about the difficulties and the great times. And they have links to other friends who are adoptive moms and have blogs, so you could just keep reading forever. It’s very addicting. Most of the ones I’ve read tend to be about transracial adoption- I don’t know if that’s something you guys are interested in or not. But a lot of the issues are just about adoption in general. Anyway, it’s really fun to go adoption blog surfing, so if you’re ever interested and want to get sucked in, I can pass on some blog addresses!
Hi Tiana, I would love to have some of the blog addresses. I don’t read very many blogs, but I did happen across a blog belonging to a christian adoptive mom and had a lot of fun reading some of her posts. It is amazing how much we can learn from other people’s experiences.