Why should I help you grow your family? Isn't this an awesome question? This is a very logical one for those of you looking on the outside in of anyone adopting. This question was brought up in an adoption meeting at our church as we strive to grow the ministry. Why should our family help you grow yours...what in it for us and why should we? You got to agree whether you are adopting or not this is a very good question.
My answer is this....as a body of Christ God has verse after verse in the Bible stating to help ones in need specifically orphans and widows. Non-negotiable, non optional it is a commandment. Does it say you have to empty your checkbook....NO not at all. James 1:27 states Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. It even says widows not just orphans. I am telling ya first hand I need prayer more then money taking on the mission of being an adoptive parent. Parenting goes beyond needing the money to bring them home. Once the child's adoption has been paid for your life becomes a full time mission. Not a 6 month, 1 or 2 year or even 5 year term commission but a lifetime. I say this because after adopting my own son and being a foster parent and working with at-risk you for over 15 years it takes everything you got. When you raise your children in your home, with your rules and boundaries with your love and teach them to become and adult it starts from the time they take their first breath and you boot them or they leave openly at 18 years old. The love they feel starts before they take their first breath, in their mothers belly. They fell that love and desire to be wanted. When you adopt just imagine VOIDING all of that. When you adopt you go backwards before you can go forward to teach them what they should have known and had from the get go. You cannot erase the bad in their life but help them heal EVERY DAY from the hurts and rejection. After being dog trainer for over 12 years I see this even in rescued dogs. You can adopt an incredible dog but you have to learn to teach them each day to heal from the neglect and abuse they may have experienced. They are scared and they may heal but the memory never leaves. They may never trust but they will have to try to learn how to learn to but the idea may never stick. They may never let you all the way into their life in fear of being loved then rejected. It is pieces of a puzzle that takes time...a lifetime to commit to.
Why do I say all this.....why should you help others grow their family? When you look at this verse it does not mean to go out and save the world but I do believe God is calling us to help change one orphan or widows life...one at a time. How can you? By prayer for the families that are adopting, prayer for the foster families, prayer for the widows in distress. Drop off food to a widows house, help her babysit her child(ren). Stop by and bring her a coffee and just show her you care about her and talk or just listen. Host a child that has never experienced love from New Horizons For Children. Help by supporting financially a family that is adopting should you be called to donate towards their adoption. Remember you are not donating to buy someone a new car you are donating to bring a child that has no family and is not wanted, needed, denied or lost their own family from causes out of their control into a family to love them. Offer support to just be there for your friend who is adopting. Go out and adopt yourself or become a foster parent. God does not call us to go save the world by ourself but again but he does call us to not just sit and pretend we do not see the faces of the children in need. When you reject those children in need of love and the love of a family YOU reject God. Your creator, the one that gave YOU life. You deny him. So next time you see a face of a child in need which is all over the internet...don't just sit there, pray...do something!
Joe and I are one of those families that we know are called to specifically called to adopt so we are adopting Taylor. Our prayer is that she is cured of HIV, call it nuts if you want but God created it and he sure can take it away too. We are in prayer that God gives us the wisdom & skill to be the parents she needs to grow and blossom into the young lady he has set aside for her future. Then we pray God will provide the finances we need to adopt her. I will admit...my nerves are rattled by the idea of how we can raise $25,700.00 in about a month to go get her. And when I think do we just bail and walk away God reminds me one at a time and of everything he has put before us to lead us to her and all the amazing doors he has opened to show us we are called to go get her. So I have nothing but to trust in him to meet our EVERY need. So again most of all we ask for your prayer for the first and foremost obstacles...her healing and our commitment to being her parents and doing it the best to our knowledge lead under what God is calling us to be for her. Secondly that he will provide the finances to bring her home.
So my plea to you is it does not matter how you help an adoptive or foster family or widow...just do something and do not pretend you do not notice the need and the commandment in scripture to do something to help a child and/or family. Adoptive, foster families, widows and children in need that have no voices need someone to step to the plate to do the Biblical commandment God has called upon US ALL. Someone SHOULD be there to cheer them on, on the sides lines in whatever position God calls you to help.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete