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There are strongholds in my life. I feel fortunate that the Lord has opened my eyes enough to see them. I know in my head that He has overcome the world and everything the enemy decides to throw at me. It’s something else, though, to transform the deepest parts of myself that cry out for the light.
“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” -Phil 1:6
God isn’t finished with me yet!
It is interesting to sit back sometimes and watch the way the enemy tries to steal away our joy, especially if we press closer to the Lord and draw from his strength.
One of my major obstacles to adoption has to do with childhood in general. Specifically, with childhood illnesses. I freely confess that I am what my daughter terms a “germaphobe.” I carry hand sanitizer in my car and in my purse. Upon leaving a store or other public place, I pull it out when we first get in the car. I have a tendency to panic attacks that occur whenever there is a danger of me or anyone in my family coming down with stomach flu. This means that when my daughter was younger, a couple times a year I went into full fledged panic attack mode, complete with uncontrollable shaking and anxiety so elevated that I would go a day or two being unable to eat. The entire time I was able to function and care for my daughter — but at an expense of not taking care of myself. And I hated myself every time she wanted a hug and I did so reluctantly for fear of the sickness spreading to me. Talk about selfish!
My mother asked me today if I was ready to go through that kind of anxiety again knowing how I react to those kinds of situations. It’s not as if I can reasonably ask the birth parents if they themselves are prone to stomach illnesses.
My honest answer is that I am not sure if I am ready or if I will ever be ready. It’s when I am in the middle of a panic attack that I am glad I only have one child. More children mean a higher likelihood of “sharing the love.”
And that is exactly what the enemy wants to hear, isn’t it? Doesn’t he find ways to throw curveballs at us when we are closest to following God’s will?
This week my husband and I have been more focused on adoption than we’ve ever been. Suddenly my daughter’s sweet friend who she has played with very recently has come down with…you guessed it…stomach flu.
Today I felt the Lord working in me. At first my legs got that “fight or flight” adrenaline rush, and I felt an unpleasant panic attack coming on. But for today, I refused to go there. I refused to let my mind obsess over whether or not my child will get sick. I prayed harder for the Lord’s hedge of protection around us, and I offer up praises this evening no matter what. The Lord’s will be done!
So I sense that the enemy is mounting an attack. I will not be afraid. The Lord is my shield. The Lord is my light. The Lord is my rock. The Lord takes me by the hand and leads me beside still waters. My legs might shake. My lungs might squeeze the air out of me to the point of pain. My head might ache, my neck might tighten up into a crick, but the Lord is with me, and I am letting go so I can let Him.
In 2004, 139 lives were lost each and every minute in the United States. What claimed those 1,222,100 lives? Was it cancer? Diabetes? Heart disease? Well, not heart disease in the traditional, clogged arteries sense, but it was due to a heart disease of a different sort. Over a million women in the U.S. chose to end their children’s lives through abortion. A heart disease that can’t be fixed through legislation, or through legalization, or through any government agency…but only through the love of Christ.
Christ’s love is endless and abundant and covers over every one of our failings.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me. Matthew 23:37
How many of those aborted would have been prophets or messengers? or the inventors of alternative energy sources? or scientists who find the cure for cancer? Christ knew that we would be resistant to him and to his message, and he loves us anyway. He loves the mothers who made the choice to abort and he loves those babies whose lives were snuffed out before they had the chance to experience life abundantly.
I do not condemn the mothers of those 1.2 million babies. I ache for them because they thought there was no other way to deal with the unexpected and unwanted miracle happening inside their wombs. But there is another way: adoption.
As my husband and I consider adoption, the Lord has been pressing into my thoughts the idea of adoption as a ministry. After all, as Christians we have been adopted into God’s chosen family:
And this is God’s plan: Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News share equally in the riches inherited by God’s children. Both are part of the same body, and both enjoy the promise of blessings because they belong to Christ Jesus. Ephesians 3:6
If we decide to adopt a child, we will do everything we can as parents to pass on this Good News, and not just to the child. The adoption agency we are considering has a ministry to birth parents, and we will be given an opportunity to establish a relationship with them as well. What better way to show Christ’s love than to take someone else’s child — perhaps a child that may have otherwise been aborted — love him, and raise him as our own? Isn’t that what the Lord has done with me? He took me and lives in me and is “raising” me still. As I tell my friends, the Lord’s not finished with me yet!
So rather than looking into adoption in terms of what it would add to or take away from our family, God is nudging me to consider what it would mean to the child. If our decision to adopt impacts even one woman and causes her to choose life, then our decision would be worth it — for the child, for the woman, and for our family. And then, for one minute in time, the number of children lost to abortion would be 138 instead of 139.
Perhaps it is time to put our faith into action and show true love and sacrifice.
My husband and I attended an adoption workshop on Friday. So much information was discussed that we are still processing and thinking.
The sticking point for us isn’t whether or not we think a new child would be good for our family; it is that we already have a good family. We like the fact that our daughter has reached a level of self sufficiency. We are comfortable with our one-child family.
And therein lies the rub. As Beth Moore taught during a Life Today taping, we are a society that is addicted to comfort. But following the Lord often means stepping out of our comfort zones. When we are just gliding along through life cocooned in comfort derived from the sameness of our days, how are we stretching our faith? If we never place ourselves in uncomfortable situations, how will we rely on God to be our Comforter?
So in that sense, adopting a child would be our ministry to that child and the birth parents. We would step out of our comfort zones and back into a life of sleep deprivation and dirty diapers and spit up…and also joy and first smiles and that indescribable new baby smell. We would acknowledge that instead of being 45 when our daughter graduates, we’ll be 55 when the new baby graduates…that’s ten more years of direct parenting. We would be blessing that child with parental love as well as the love that comes from Jesus. We will be obeying God’s Word from James:
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. James 1:27
On the other hand, we can look after orphans and widows through financial means. Having a heart for orphans doesn’t necessarily mean the Lord wants us to run out and adopt. Some might say that our little family is small because that’s the way our Sovereign Lord intended it to be and that pursuing adoption would be trying to put our family in our own control rather than the Lord’s. Others could argue that the Lord allowed me to have health issues so that we WOULD adopt a child as our own. There are times I confess that I tend to feel that we have only one child because having more just “wasn’t meant to be.”
We are in prayer about this decision and are also in God’s word. After the workshop during my quiet time, I asked the Holy Spirit to lead me to scripture that would help me know what the Lord wants me to do. I want God’s will for my life! Imagine the goosebumps I felt when my Bible fell open to these words:
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11
God already knows the plan! My husband and I may have jumbled up thoughts, leaning first one way and then the next. But God knows, and the Bible tells us that he will make our paths straight if we trust in him with all our hearts.
So that’s the next step of this journey: trusting God to make his will known, and praying that I will have the wisdom to SEE without any of my own personal filters making me twist things to my own will.
There have already been some interesting things happening since we attended the workshop:
The overarching verse of the adoption agency is Jeremiah 29:11, the very one I opened my Bible to after praying for guidance.
At the workshop and today at church, I was struck by the notion of adoption as a ministry to the child rather than as a means to “complete” our family.
The worship pastor, in praising God for his majesty and glory, listed several images of God’s greatness…mountains, hurricanes, thunder, lightening, a newborn’s face.
God’s not finished with me yet! He’s working on me even now as we (me, my husband, and God) work through this together. Even if the answer is NO on adoption, this journey is already bringing glory to God because it is causing us to press even closer to Him.
This journey about adoption is in its infancy. My husband and I haven’t even yet decided for sure that we want to adopt, but I do believe the Lord has a hand in our considering the option.
We have a beautiful daughter who is really our miracle child. Born nearly five weeks early, she was as healthy as a preemie could be. It’s been nearly ten years since her birth, and in that time we have tried unsuccessfully to have another child.
The problem was never my husband — it was me. Unable to cope with debilitating nausea, I retreated to my bedroom full of depression and despondency. Sleep deprivation got the best of me; I’d fall into a light sleep only to be awakened by another wave of severe nausea. And on and on it went from the day I conceived until the day the Lord took that baby up to heaven. I remember thinking at the time that the Lord must have looked upon my pitiful condition — at that point, I was hospitalized because I’d lost too much weight — and decided that he needed me around a bit longer. The miscarriage felt like a miscarriage of justice, and I felt a mixture of relief and rage…relief that I could eat again, and rage that I’d been through so much agony…for a baby I never got to hold in my arms.
But the Lord holds him today.
Looking back, I can see that I lived through a definite refining process, but not all of my impurities came out through that fire. I lived in fear of the same thing happening again. For four years I determined I would not get pregnant again. I turned my back on my husband’s desire for a bigger family because I was so hurt and traumatized from the experience.
But then the desire to hold a baby once again took hold of me, and we tried to have another baby. Several years later when we did conceive, we once again experienced extreme loss. This time, the Lord was merciful to my body and swept that baby up into heaven before extreme nausea set in. But the loss felt more profound this time around…my little girl was eight, and I wasn’t getting any younger.
The doctors told me I have a blood clotting condition that probably contributed to the miscarriages. The presence of anticardiolipin antibodies in my system means that a future pregnancy would put me at risk for dangerous blood clots and/or strokes and would require me to get daily shots of a blood thinner to prevent miscarriage and blood clots.
So then my thoughts and prayers turned towards a different door, one that I’d often pondered but never thought would happen…adoption.
In some ways I feel that I’ve turned the corner on motherhood. My child is nearly ten and is extremely self sufficient. We left diapers and bibs behind a long time ago. And yet…I can see myself walking through that door again. First words, first teeth, first steps, first haircut, first everything, all over again. How would my only-child adjust to suddenly having to share me? Would the age difference be a widening gulf, one so wide that it would prevent her and her sister or brother from ever becoming close? Would a new baby drive a wedge in our marriage if we aren’t both 100% on board?
I don’t know the answers to my questions, but God does. In a little over a week my husband and I will attend a workshop about adoption, and it is my prayer that the Lord will show us a glaring sign or at least an unmistakable whisper in our hearts, telling us the way to go.
It’s been over three months since my last post. (Does that make me sound like a recovering write-a-holic?) Now that summer is in full swing, I hope to write more frequently, as the Lord leads me.
Yesterday we had a wonderful time with family, celebrating the birth of our great country. The holiday was even more meaningful to me this year due to a recent encounter I had with a beautiful Ethiopian woman I met at a hair salon. “Saluda” (not her name) ministered to me as she cut my hair, fixing a disastrous haircut I’d just received from an unnamed “Big Name” hair salon — at a quarter of the price.
Saluda grew up in Ethiopia but moved to America over twenty years ago, and she LOVES this country. Extreme poverty and corruption are rampant in her native land, so much so that she does not often go back to visit. She spoke of how much she loves “the law” in this country. In Ethiopia, if a person is pulled over by a policeman, he can be bought and the ticket is ripped up. In Ethiopia, if a person wants to build a house, he has to pay bribes to everyone just to get started. In Ethiopia, orphaned children live on the streets, eating garbage out of trash cans, holding out their hands, their bodies skinny and sickly. She gives to them, she said, but there are so many of them that she can’t help them all. There are no jobs to be had.
In America, she said, a person can make a living for the family, even if it means holding down two or more jobs. At least in America there are jobs for the taking for those who will do them. When her daughter sees a person on the streets begging for a handout, she who has seen extreme poverty shakes her head and says,
There is a difference between being poor and being lazy.
She was not being callous in her observation. She was being honest. Something about her comment has stayed with me. I remember my father teaching my brother and me the importance of having a strong work ethic. Even if you have to walk alongside the road and pick up aluminum cans, you can do something to earn a little money.
So today I am grateful to be celebrating my freedom — freedom from overt religious oppression, freedom from corrupt public officials, freedom to obtain employment, freedom to write these words. I am thankful to our Lord who is the source of all our freedoms. Even if I were shackled, I would be free to pray and praise him. If my mouth was taped, I would still be free to praise in my mind. Today I pause a moment to pray for those around the world whose only freedom can be found in their minds. I pray the Lord will encourage, strengthen, and lift up the millions of children around the world whose extreme poverty is at a level that we in America can’t even fathom.
And I thank Him for Saluda, who through her conversation and gentle spirit opened my eyes to a new appreciation and gratitude for America, and especially for the Lord who, for some reason only He knows, decided to plop me down here, in hot-as-fire North Texas, in an air conditioned home. He has given me a precious child who does not, THANK YOU LORD, have to dig for food in a garbage can but can freely go to the pantry whenever she wants.
Psalm 118:28-29
You are my God, and I will give you thanks;
you are my God, and I will exalt you.Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
