Adoption Is Not Plan B

Andy and I began to see infertility as God’s way of finding good homes for children who need a mommy & daddy. But, we wondered, why does it have to be that way? Why did it take infertility to push us towards adoption? James 1:27 says “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.” Shouldn’t we want to adopt even if we were able to have children?

Society has raised us to believe that there is a certain way of doing things in life and an ideal order to those things. We go to school, get a job, get married, buy a house, get a dog and have some kids. Before we’ve achieved each step we tend to believe that the next step will make everything else better. People living outside of that order or way of doing things find themselves in a place of tension. They begin to get discouraged, even depressed, not realizing it’s because they are living as a slave to societal “rules”.

It doesn’t have to be that way. I read an article a few months back that challenged this way of thinking in regard to having children.* The article begins by describing a family who decided to adopt BEFORE they considered having biological children. Now there’s a foreign concept! When they began planning to grow their family, they didn’t ask, “What do we want?” They asked, “What does God want?”

The article goes on to talk about churches that have created this “Culture of Adoption”. At Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church in Lecanto, FL, there are have been over forty adoptions in a congregation of around 1000 members! I’ve also heard of a church in NC where a group of Liberian orphans came to sing. A short while after their performance, members of that congregation adopted all the members of the choir! Can you imagine? What if the church really did care for orphans like the Bible says we should?

I’m thankful that God has allowed us to experience infertility, because we would have never considered the beautiful plan of adoption otherwise. Adoption is not plan B. Maybe it was for us, but if you’re planning to grow your family I’d encourage you to first ask God, “What do you want, LORD?”

* “Cultivating a Culture of Adoption” by Carolyn Curtis
April/May 2007 issue of By Faith Magazine
http://www.byfaithonline.com/

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