My husband and I have realized adoption is not the way God designed families to be. His design from the beginning of time was for a mommy and daddy to have children and always love them and never leave them or forsake them. But, because we live in a broken, sinful and fallen world... the reality is different. BUT, He has chosen adoption as a way to REDEEM the brokenness. Just as he has sent his son to die on the cross and rise again on the third day...he has given us adoption to heal the broken hearts of these forgotten children. Was it easy for Christ to die on the cross? No. It was suffering. Just like adopting a child is often suffering on one side of the bonding or the other. But, through this suffering, Christ rose again and made a way for us to live an eternal life. Not only do we get to live eternity in heaven, but right now on earth we are covered with Christ's righteousness. When God looks down from heaven and sees one of his children, he sees Christ, not us. Once we are in Christ, we are becoming a new creation...he is redeeming us and stripping away our nasty sin. (thank God!) The process of sanctification is hard and painful...but through this process we are being made new. We are seeing more of our sin and ugliness...but seeing God's FORGIVENESS, MERCY, and GRACE all the more. In the same way, once you adopt a child, the process of bonding, attachment, and healing is very hard, painful and often miserable. But, in the process, God is making the adopted child new and whole, as well as the parents, but in a whole different way. God is not interested in making us HAPPY, his in the business of making us HOLY. Which is Oh, so painful, but it reaps a harvest of goodness!
About a month after I came home from Uganda, I posted about this same thing HERE, but it was coming from a very shocked, shameful, frustrated, and exhausted place...with a little bit of HOPE. But, now...I see God is exposing my sin for what it truly is...Adoption is not hard because of something the child is doing...but because I am realizing how incapable I am of loving this child in my own strength. I am a nasty , ugly sinner in need of Jesus' saving grace. So everyday, I ask God to fill me with his love, so I may overflow to love my children in the way he has called me to. I often fail every single day, or more. It is a constant reliance on my savior to love our adopted child. But, Praise Be to God for showing me LOVE does not come as natural as I thought it did. I definitely took pride in my ability to love my children. I thought it was just something I was good at and others were not. Pretty funny... right! The minute we think we have made it, is the minute he humbles us and brings us to our knees. So instead of thinking this is something I should not share in the blog world because I am such a horrible person, in actuality, we should not be shocked by the sin of another person. We should be shocked at the good in another person, and praise our father when the good does come out! Because it is not from us, it is only from him. LESS of ME, means MORE of HIM!
And another perspective is, what about the adopted child? Will you want him or her to read this when they are older? That would be horrible for them to know that you had a hard time loving them. I agree, this could be hard, but if you teach your children that true love comes only from the father, then it should come at no surprise to your child that things were hard the first couple of years or more. It is often hard to love biological children too, for me it has definitely been different kind of hard, but it comes from the same ugly place...SIN. It is just important for the child to know, it was not their fault, it was all about You and your struggle with the sin that wages war on your soul. I have only been home with Charles Tucker, my almost three year old for six months, so I am very very new at parenting him, but God has definitely taught me so much about myself and his amazing grace and love for me despite my ugliness. I feel encouraged and very HOPEFUL for what God is doing in our family with precious Tuck-Tuck. He is definitely supplying the love I need more and more everyday and he is bringing us all new life in the process. I am excited to see what another year brings for all of our HEALING.
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! Romans 7:24-25a
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:3-5
(I did not know where I was going with this post, but it has turned out to be kind of long. Through the inspiration of the post on The Orphans Table, I was able to write this post. Thank you for giving me the courage to step out and write this. It was neat to see God give me insight into my sin with this topic.)
