What if?

Ok. So let's be honest. There are risks to adoption.

A lot of them.

The two biggies I can think of for me are Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) and whether the child has a history of sexual abuse that will be re-enacted out on precious family members. These circumstances are very common and very real. They can also pose great risk to members in an adoptive family. Am I worried?

Yes. Absolutely.

There is a lot at stake. I have prayed long and hard about this. Lord, please protect our family. Lord, please heal the child(ren) that is (are) coming to us. I know of more than a couple of situations where adoption all but destroyed the adoptive family or the adopted child. In many cases, it was both. The tears, the anger, the frustration and the feelings of wanting to give up on the child were right there on my front door step as my friends wept bitterly over what to do. Their desire to have everything like it was before the adopted child arrived and the question of whether they had actually misunderstood God's calling to adopt were transforming their hopes and dreams into nightmarish despair.

I grieved for these precious friends. I watched these situations closely and took mental notes. Knowing that eventually we would be in the same boat of wanting to adopt, I learned great lessons from these dear families and what it means to be committed. What if that were us? How would we handle it? Would we be able to? Most of the difficult adoptive situations that I speak have been miraculously redeemed and/or are works in progress. Are we this strong? Only one family I know of, chose to disrupt the adoption.

Here is where Steve and I stand on this issue and I will take the words from the amazing book titled "Radical" by David Platt.

Ultimately, Jesus was calling them (his disciples) to abandon themselves. They were leaving certainty for uncertainty, safety for danger, self-preservation for self denunciation. In a world that prizes promoting oneself, they were following a teacher who told them to crucify themselves. And history tells us the result. Almost all of them would lose their lives because they responded to his invitation.

But we don't want to believe it. We are afraid of what it might mean for our lives. So we rationalize these passages away. "Jesus wouldn't really tell us not to bury our father or say good-bye to our family. Jesus didn't literally mean to sell all we have and give it to the poor. What Jesus really meant was....."

And this is where we need to pause....because this is when we start to redefine Christianity. We are giving in to the dangerous temptation to take the Jesus of the Bible and twist him into a version of Jesus we are more comfortable with."

We will adopt and we will trust that in doing this, no matter what the outcome may be, that this is what we are supposed to be doing. It may not make sense and it may not seem wise in many people's eyes. But Steve and I have decided to obey Jesus and "respond to his invitation".