About Adoption

I have been thinking about adoption lately.  I think it may have something to do with the small boy who came into our home and split my heart wide open this week.  Not because I want to adopt him, but because I pray that someone else will.

You see, he will need to be adopted at some point.  He is not going to return to his biological parents.  Knowing this has caused me to think he will someday be a child of adoption.  Adopted.  Chosen.  I want so much for this little angel to have parents who have longed to become parents.  I want him to be their dream-come-true, their everything.  I want them to be unable to imagine life without him and to wonder at their good fortune for being chosen for him.  I want them to see past his challenges through to his beautiful soul.  All children deserve that, don't they?  Especially children who have been bruised, broken, and neglected. Separated from their families for the sake of safety.  I want him to be chosen, loved, and treasured.

I myself was adopted and I have known the joys of adoption from both sides of the mirror.  As an adoptee and as an adoptive parent.  As an adoptee, I was surrendered by my biological mother, who was young, single, and unprepared, to parents who had experienced the devastating loss of 3 premature infants.  It is a miracle, really, how God places children in families.  Birth families and adoptive families alike are given exactly the child or children that God has chosen for them to raise, to guide and protect until He returns them home to Heaven.  It could be a few days, or many, many years.  Either way,  it was decided long before we put our human touch on it.  The concept is mind-boggling.

The boys that Toby and I have adopted have completed our family perfectly.  We didn't know we were missing them until they came, and then we knew immediately.  They were ours.  Just like that, we knew.  In the 15 years that we have been providing foster care, this has only happened one other time and then it was not meant to be.  We loved the other 50+ children we cared for too, but we knew we were not to be their forever family.  With Josh and Levi, we recognized them as our children long before we knew they would be able to stay.  Our love for them is matched only by our love for our biological children.  In fact, we sometimes say we have forgotten which of our kids we adopted:)

I read a blog entry today that I want to share.  It is kind of long, but well worth reading to get an honest look at the adoption process through the eyes of adoptive parents.  It is found here:

http://www.chsfs.org/blog/dear-moms-adopted-children#.U0a5U239p-M.facebook

Adoption is not for everyone, by any means.  Most families in the world will be formed through biology. I hope, though, for the little monkey in my home, that there is family out there wishing, praying, to complete their family with a special little boy.  Waiting for their dreams to come true while making his come true too.