I have a story about infertility, but this is the story of after. After the ugly-snot crying while hiding in the bathroom at baby showers, family functions, and girls’ nights. After the poor choices that I thought would help me cope. After the sin that I hoped would mask the grief. This is the story of how God, lavish in lovingkindness, helped me face something I didn’t want to face — the death of my plan for my life.
And this was my plan…
I had planned to marry and have biological children, whom I would mother from birth and rear to change the world for Christ. In truth, I wanted all of the celebrations (and let’s be honest ladies, attention) of the first grandbaby, the baby showers, and to share all of those experiences with my friends and family.
When that was no longer an option, I was heartbroken. I wanted adoptions that mirrored this experience as closely as possible. But neither international nor domestic newborn adoption is meant to replace the “natural” experience. It is different, with different pain and different beauty.
I didn’t want different. I wanted to be like everybody else. I wanted what everyone else had. When obstacles and grief rattled our adoption plans, I became unraveled, unwilling to let God handle the situation and comfort me.
Idols don’t rescue, and I learned this the hard way.
Our first adoption had fulfilled some of my dreams for a family, but I had not yet put down my idol. Our second adoption was a very different story. He came home as a toddler in intense grief. For months, our son needed more than I ever thought a person could need. My idol, it seems, had failed me this time. I was exhausted and felt alone.
I was seeking the Lord during this time, but I just wasn’t ready to face what He was continuously showing me. I just couldn’t let go of this “idol.” I loved motherhood. What was so wrong with wanting babies? Most people don’t have to rehab babies. Babies are cute and small (and don’t punch). Everyone else gets babies! Everyone else seems to have complete control of their dreams coming true and raising their children exactly how they want. Nobody else has to rehab a little soul all day, every day. Other peoples’ children love their mothers. My internal thoughts were a broken record of “woe is me.” Worse, I was blind to the pain of what this innocent child had gone through, and could only see my own pain, what I had lost, what I was entitled to.
I finally understood that Jesus loved me first just as I am, not for my ability to reproduce.
At the end of my rope, I finally placed my dream of a biological family at Jesus’ feet. The gentle hands of the Healer removed the bitter root that had begun to grow. And I finally grieved, sitting alone on the couch many nights, breathing in and out and crying. The pain slowly faded, and He replaced it with a love for my adopted children I hadn’t known before. Not love because they are my children, but love because of their preciousness to Him. They are not precious because they were little and just happened to be young enough that I would desire to parent them. Their preciousness transcends age, race, or situation. This change in perception about every child turned my heart inside out.
Children are not born to fulfill people! No person is responsible to fill another human heart. When we see children in this way, we are not seeing their preciousness to our Creator, we are seeing their “value” to ourselves. On the other side of the grief, was acceptance, grace, and the ability to see the Kingdom of God and His heart for the forgotten with new eyes.
I am no longer focused on our loss or what I wanted. I’m thankful to enter into this space with a servant heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. Every child is precious. This frees me to serve the orphaned, abandoned, or neglected with an open heart, more free of agenda.
As the universal church, we are beginning to understand God’s heart for adoption. We are showing up in the thousands for domestic newborn adoption and international adoption of normal, healthy, young children. My prayer is that we take it a step further to see the divine preciousness of every child — the child whose biological mother wants to retain some contact, the nine-year-old, the male, the African American, and the “all of these things and disabled” child.
It’s easy to love the precious Haitian babe on our knee on a mission trip, and yet we may not express the same doting fondness for the 7-year-old foster child in our own community’s backyard. Both of these children are equally precious to our Creator, but we, as a culture (and, dare I say, even Christian subculture) have placed a different “value” on them.
What does the Word say?
Most of us know the “big” verses, God’s charge to the church to care for the orphan:
Deuteronomy 10:18 “He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.”
Jeremiah 7:5-7 5 “If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever.”
Psalm 68:4-5 “Sing to God, sing in praise of his name, extol him who rides on the clouds[a];
rejoice before him—his name is the LORD. A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.” This is a description of God Himself!
Matthew 18:1-5 “At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom“ of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”
Matthew 19:14 “Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
James 1:27 “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.”
…..And Isaiah 1:17 “unpacked”
Recently, I became determined to understand what God was saying through the prophet Isaiah regarding orphan care. I wanted the context. I wanted the significance of the back story. Theologians have spent centuries debating this book, and I won’t get that far here, but I will share a specific section that spoke to me.
Right out of the gate in Isaiah 1:1, “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz concerning Judah and Jerusalem….” God is talking to His holy and chosen people, and they are in trouble. Verse 4, “Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly.” He continues to elaborate. God is telling them about their idols, the things they have put their faith and trust in apart from Him.
Hmmm… sound familiar? He goes on to tell them to no longer bring Him their worthless offerings when He knows He doesn’t have their hearts. He knows where they have put their treasure and how they haven’t been faithful to follow only Him. Then He really throws it down in verses 15-17.
“So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered in blood.“
“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil.”
Here is the kicker. Here is what He is building to, the point He wants His people to get in verse 17:
“Learn to do good.
Seek justice,
Reprove the ruthless,
Defend the orphan,
Plead for the widow.”
We are to pray for His forgiveness and clean our hands. We are to stop doing evil. After this, we are to get down to business and do exactly what He asks of us, and the first thing He asks of us is to seek justice, defend the orphans, and plead for the widow.
So what do we do?
So I ask myself, where is my energy going today, in this moment? Where is your energy going today, in this moment? Where is the energy of your church and circle of influence going today, in this moment?
Wait. Hang on. The truth of how you and I answer this may be rather uncomfortable. Do the concerns and trivial distractions of everyday life take you away from God’s instruction to Israel when he was frustrated with their idolatrous behavior?
Ultimately, friends, loving those at the bottom is inconvenient. It is messy. It involves spending two hours in a minivan with 4 kids and a single mom to make sure she makes it to job training and her son can be in safe hands while she does. It may mean sleepless nights and giving up your home as a quiet sanctuary. It may mean your adoption funding/child supporting plan may override your kids college savings plan. It may mean spending your energy rocking an enraged and grieving child rather than a cooing infant. It may mean cooking your meals in double so you can drop one off to a foster family. It may mean letting go of friends that don’t seem to have an interest on walking the road towards restoration for the forgotten. These are a few examples of what it has meant for me to let go of my plan. What could it look like for you?
Today, my husband and I are back in an adoption process over which we have little control. The next child to come home will likely be disabled, male, and not a baby, but obviously precious. Our doors are open to Safe Families for Children of Kansas City. Our minivan is full (and not very clean). Our prayer is that Jesus would stir hearts and summon our village to support us, and that He empowers us to show up, and show up on time. We pray for Him to interrupt our lives and continue rewriting the story of our hearts. We pray to see His glory in all of it. We pray this for you, too.
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