wondering about this thing called Adoption this month
November is Adoption Awareness Month.
This weekend we were out of town, in Omaha, which is a larger city. There is more cultural and ethnic diversity in Omaha. Sometimes I wish we lived in a place like this, where there were lots of different colors of skin, and lots of different ways to do life. I think our adopted children would do better if we lived somewhere that had more black people, more mixed racial genetics.....but this is where we are, for now.
When we were at the mall, and out for dinner we got plenty of curious looks. We are a crazy mix of family. Old parents. Blond teen-agers. Dark-skinned littles....and we just do it. We are family. This is the mix we were given.
Adoption is a crazy thing. It is a glorious and beautiful tragedy. I love our adopted kiddos so much that I wish their birth parents could have stayed the course and parented them. I do. I want them to have had that complete experience of growing up with the people who made them. Because that didn't happen, we will always be striving to compensate for that. This is a reality of adoption. Our birth moms named their kids. We kept those names. We can tell our kids about when and why their first moms gave them the names they have. Imagine this. Imagine being a child and knowing that you have a name your first mom gave you...and a last name you received through adoption. It is a heavy thing.
I also have 2 names. I have the name my birth family gave me: Nikolyn. I have a last name that I received through adoption. I am Nikolyn, and I am Redeemed. Saved. Adopted into the great inheritance of Christ. I am Christian. I am a Child of the one true God. I have an inheritance that cannot be taken from me through my adoption into Heaven's home.
It is the same with our earthly kids.
Adoption is more than growing a family. It is growing a Kingdom of Heaven. It is parenting children who were born into another home, and intended for a different family. It is rescue. It is making a way for a child to find their intended path, their destiny. God did create us all for a certain purpose. Sometimes adoption helps get us there.
Today, on the way home from Omaha, Claire was telling me about a dancer and her passion. She described her as focused on this passion, and that it meant more to her than anything. She felt like she would follow this passion to the end and that it was a part of her. I said, "well, that is how I feel about adoption. It is my passion. I think about it day and night. I want to share it. I have cared about this for my whole life."
I think that maybe God created me to care about this thing called Adoption. To care about the wonderful and the tragic, the miracle and the heartbreak of it. That would actually make sense.
This weekend we were out of town, in Omaha, which is a larger city. There is more cultural and ethnic diversity in Omaha. Sometimes I wish we lived in a place like this, where there were lots of different colors of skin, and lots of different ways to do life. I think our adopted children would do better if we lived somewhere that had more black people, more mixed racial genetics.....but this is where we are, for now.
When we were at the mall, and out for dinner we got plenty of curious looks. We are a crazy mix of family. Old parents. Blond teen-agers. Dark-skinned littles....and we just do it. We are family. This is the mix we were given.
Adoption is a crazy thing. It is a glorious and beautiful tragedy. I love our adopted kiddos so much that I wish their birth parents could have stayed the course and parented them. I do. I want them to have had that complete experience of growing up with the people who made them. Because that didn't happen, we will always be striving to compensate for that. This is a reality of adoption. Our birth moms named their kids. We kept those names. We can tell our kids about when and why their first moms gave them the names they have. Imagine this. Imagine being a child and knowing that you have a name your first mom gave you...and a last name you received through adoption. It is a heavy thing.
I also have 2 names. I have the name my birth family gave me: Nikolyn. I have a last name that I received through adoption. I am Nikolyn, and I am Redeemed. Saved. Adopted into the great inheritance of Christ. I am Christian. I am a Child of the one true God. I have an inheritance that cannot be taken from me through my adoption into Heaven's home.
It is the same with our earthly kids.
Adoption is more than growing a family. It is growing a Kingdom of Heaven. It is parenting children who were born into another home, and intended for a different family. It is rescue. It is making a way for a child to find their intended path, their destiny. God did create us all for a certain purpose. Sometimes adoption helps get us there.
Today, on the way home from Omaha, Claire was telling me about a dancer and her passion. She described her as focused on this passion, and that it meant more to her than anything. She felt like she would follow this passion to the end and that it was a part of her. I said, "well, that is how I feel about adoption. It is my passion. I think about it day and night. I want to share it. I have cared about this for my whole life."
I think that maybe God created me to care about this thing called Adoption. To care about the wonderful and the tragic, the miracle and the heartbreak of it. That would actually make sense.
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