All God's Children

At some point during my teen years I remember my mom asking the church to pray for her that she would have the strength to turn her kids over to God’s care. She felt up to that point that she had been fully taking on the burden of raising us. This was a new concept to me. As I grew up, I began to understand the significance of it and appreciated her desire to lean on God in this way.

When you’re thinking about growing your family, typically you and your spouse will talk about what kind of parents you want to be. We decided that we wanted to approach parenthood as if God had entrusted us with something precious that belonged to Him. We were to care for it, not possess it. Just like we view our money, our home, our gifts and talents, we want to be a steward of our children and not feel that we own them. We hope to raise them to do God’s work, with His guidance along the way of course. The idea is, when they have been aptly trained, we’ll release them back to Him to do whatever He wills. Thinking of parenting in this way brought new meaning and importance to raising children. We’re doing it for God, not for ourselves.

Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. I’ve seen the depth of love parents have for their children. I know that living this out will be a daily struggle. But, as we talked about it, we wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to see parenting this way if we adopted. Not that we wouldn’t love the child the same, but when a child grows out of your own body, I imagine it’s harder to think that it doesn’t belong to you. Through adoption we see God taking a child, whom He has chosen, from a situation where he/she might not otherwise know Him and giving him/her a chance to know Him through our guidance.

It’s encouraging to look around and see examples of people who were adopted, raised in Christian homes and have been used by God throughout their lives. We began praying that God would prepare for us the one he has chosen for us to care for and that He would prepare us to offer the kind of care for our children that would be pleasing to Him.

Next Post: 6/14/2007