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| Our beautiful family at our 10 yr. Vow renewal. A beautiful work of art. |
As an adoptive mom of 5 blessings I get asked all kinds of questions. The hardest one to answer is "did you know that you could love these kids this much in the beginning." or " How do you love them like your own." I know that what they are asking is how do you love a child that has no previous connection to you with an unconditional, unfailing love. I didn't have this answer always. God did provide the love and the bond but I was unsure how...until this week.
The answer is in the importance of all human life (at least for me). When I was young I remember watching an episode of One Day at A Time, where Barbara learns she may not be able to have a baby. I felt deep in my soul that I would not carry my children within my body. It was sad and has taken many years for me to come to terms with (as I learned the extent of my infertility) but it paved the way for the beautiful gift of adoption in my life. Since I was a child I knew that I wanted to adopt not if I couldn't have biological children...I wanted to adopt period.
What does this have to do with importance of all human life you may ask? We as a society value perfection or at least the closest we can come to it and the biggest area that reflects this in my opinion is in our children and how we build our families. We can now genetically engineer our babies, choose their gender. Terminate if we are unable to deal with their different abilities and simply start again. We have this notion that if we didn't control every aspect from start to finish then it couldn't be good enough. This is the greatest gift we will ever receive. A gift handcrafted by a loving Heavenly Father to grow you in amazing ways and to strengthen you as a person and we are saying no, it's not good enough if I didn't hand pick it. Or we hesitate and shy away in fear if our DNA is not included. In our amazing group of blessings we have a myriad of differing abilities. Times can be trying and stressful as we work to cover all the bases and sometimes we drop the ball and have to start again. But there is not a moment that I am not eternally grateful for each unique person God has given us in our children.
I am here to tell you that my children are no more important or less important than any one elses. They were handcrafted and hand chosen for us just as much as if they were fashioned in my womb of mine and Donald's DNA. God's hand protected and guided them to us so that we together could grow and show the world around us His love even in dark times, times of hurt and desperate need. These children have amazing futures designed by the God of the universe the same as ANY baby born into this world. They deserve to be loved and protected not because of whose DNA they carry but because of who created them. So the answer is No I didn't always know I could love a child that was not of my DNA with an all consuming motherly love....but that is simply because I didn't always know the God of the Universe that creates love....I simply had to let Him in and let Him do what He does best...guide me/Donald into His will for our lives. I know it sounds cheesy but it is so true. Where God guides, He provides.
John 15:16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
