Why adopt?

Tim and I answered this question for a long time in the same way, the truthful way. God calls us to. Specifically in James we are charged to take care of widows and orphans.

But now something has changed. A big part of the change is Sam. God called Tim and I specifically to parent Sam. He's our child.

But what if Sam had been different? What if there were signs of developmental delays or larger attachment issues?

With the recent incident with the mother in Shelbyville I have been thinking about this a lot. I've read two different articles in the past 24 hours about adoption, why we do it and why someone was choosing not to do it.

People adopt for hundreds of reasons, but I have to believe that God is working in all of those adoptions.

Tim and I are adopting because we feel that God calls us to be parents and we have so much love and are so blessed we want to share that blessing with what some would consider the least of these. But on top of that we want to be parents. There is a little bit of selfishness involved. I can't say that the numerous pregnant women surrounding me at the moment aren't pricking at my soul just a little bit. I want to hold my son close to me. I am jealous of the woman who carried him next to her heart for nine months and then got to see his first steps and hear his first words. I am jealous of the orphanage and the sanitarium where he is now because the people there get to see him wake up in the morning and put him to bed at night. God called us to be parents, but he also put a love and a fire in us that makes us yearn to be parents.

I have also read several articles critizing Russia for somehow sending "defective" children. And this fires me up to no end.

We fell in love with Sam on a waiting list. All we had was a picture and two sentences regarding health problems he didn't have. I knew with a ferocity I cannot explain that Sam was mine.

But I kept reading that we needed a full physical history, what if something was wrong with him?

And all I could think was how he's a child. A little boy with a future who needs a home. We're not adopting a puppy and deciding on breeds and characteristics. That's not how God loves and that's not how we should love.

Sam is fearfully and wonderfully made. God knit him together in the womb and laid out a path for his life.

Adoption is not a spirituality merit badge. It's not something to do because it's trendy. Heck, if this wasn't a God thing I think both Tim and I would have given up when they told us it would cost more than I make in an entire year. Yes, adoption may be our mission field, but Sam is our child. And he'd still be our child if we had gotten to Russia and there was an undisclosed medical problem. You wouldn't kick one of your kids out if you found out they had cancer and we wouldn't give Sam up for the same reasons.

What Torry Hansen did was wrong. Regardless of what she thought she was getting when she adopted a boy from Russia. That was her child and the people making excuses for her should seriously consider what they would be saying if that little seven year old were her biological son and she put him on a plane by himself. It would be wrong then and it's wrong now.

I don't really know the full reason why I'm writing this today. Maybe I just want it to be there for later. Maybe after we're done and this blog is no longer private someone will find it and it will give them courage. I don't know. Adoption is spiritual warfare and just for today I want to stand up and say that I am Sam's mom, before the creation of the universe God had ordained it and nothing changes it.


P.S. (from Tim) This is the blog from Christianity Today that really upset us, because it was bashing adoption by someone who had previously adopted. Adoption has received enough bashing from uninformed sources over the past couple of weeks. It is just frustrating.