One of our daily prayers – some days it’s more of a desperate pleading – is that God equips us to love as he loves. We discussed our desire to adopt prior to marriage. We stepped into adoption with a shallow understanding of the depth of loss, devastation, and trauma that accompanies it. We bear witness to the impacts of the tragedy that is adoption daily as we walk alongside our children who have come from hard places. Our life is not neat, comfortable, or picture perfect. It is raw, messy and hard. Adoption wrecked us and we are so thankful for that. Jesus didn’t come to earth to live a quiet and comfortable life. He threatened the existence of those things.
We followed God’s leading to step into hard places and we have experienced significant growth in our own faith. As we pray daily for God to help us love as he loves we are praying John 15:12-13: “Love each other as I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”. Jesus modeled this for us and we are obediently responding to be a living sacrifice for others (Romans 12:1) by stepping out in faith again and bringing another child into our family. We know this will add to our life’s complexity; however, throughout all the hard times, there is such growth and healing for our children. Our greatest desire is that they know that they are worthy, created and loved by God for a wonderful purpose.
We are honored to have the encouraging partnership from Katelyn’s fund for this adoption journey. Their spiritual and financial support to us in this process is a testament to how the Body of Christ each has their own work to support the Kingdom. We hadn’t intended to start another adoption journey so quickly after completing our previous, but an advocacy post on Reece’s Rainbow for a little girl in Africa with multiple disabilities grabbed at us in a way that was undeniably God’s prompting. We know that children with disabilities are less likely to find permanence in a family and instead live out their lives in institutions. We committed to this precious child with very few answers to the many questions circling in our minds. And we pray for God to quiet the questions as we trust in Him. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13
