Before we adopted Silas, we talked with many people about our desire to adopt. I think the fact that there wasn’t an actual child in the picture yet made some of them feel safe enough to express their true feelings about adoption. While most were supportive and positive, there were a select few who said things like, “Well, that’s great for you, but I could never do it. I just couldn’t love a child that isn’t my own.” There is so very much wrong with this statement, especially coming from Christians.

First of all, there’s the whole “my own”, “your own”, “their own” language. I hear it all the dang time, even from the most well intentioned people, and I’m sure I was guilty of it too at times before Silas came along. It usually goes something like this…”Oh you adopted!?! We have friends who adopted and also have kids of their own.” I understand that there are times when you need to distinguish between adopted kids and biological kids, but I think it’s important to use the correct language. Silas is “my own” kid. Your friend’s kids who were adopted are “their own” kids. When you ask me, “Do you have any kids of your own?”, I will tell you yes, and so will the legal document that we received when Silas was adopted. So, instead of “my own”, “their own”, “your own”, let’s use the word biological. Because all of us adoptive parents consider our children “our own.”

Okay, moving on….

So, there are some who think that they cannot love a child that is not biologically linked to them. I am sure this feeling is not uncommon, but it lacks an understanding of God’s love for us as adopted children. The Bible is filled with adoption language, and as Christians, adoption should not be a strange concept to us. We are considered children of God because of adoption.

We were all adopted! So, we should have an imagination for adoption in our own lives. Just because someone feels like they can’t love an adopted child doesn’t mean that’s reality. There’s a lot in the Gospel that doesn’t feel natural. Adoption may not feel natural in a world that sees the biological connection as the closest relational bond. Scripture, however, clearly teaches that adoption is God’s normal. It’s his way of bringing us into relationship with himself. The fact that it doesn’t feel natural is not a reflection of its abnormality or our inability to do it. It’s a reflection of a small imagination for God’s love for us and how he’s called us to embody this love to the world.

I’m not saying that if you have these feelings you just need to ignore them and adopt anyways. I’m just saying that we need to think hard about how we limit God’s love and diminish the Gospel when we have this mentality. God is bigger than we give him credit for, and his love for us is greater than we can imagine. If we grow in our knowledge and understanding of God’s love for us, our capacity to love will grow too.

I know with every fiber of my being that I could not possibly love Silas more. I did not give birth to him, I have no genetic link to him, and we look nothing like each other. And yet, I love him so fiercely it hurts. Biology is inconsequential when it comes to the amount of love I have for him. The vast majority of adoptive parents will tell you the exact same thing, whether they are Christians or not. God clearly designed us with the ability to love in this way, because he wove it into the very fabric of his gospel when he chose to redeem the world through our adoption as his sons and daughters.

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Mindy and her husband, Nick, adopted their son, Silas, domestically in August of 2013 after seven years of marriage and two years of unexplained infertility.  They live in Southern California, where Nick is a pastor and elder at ROCKHARBOR church and Mindy is a part-time teacher. She also hosts an infertility and adoption group each month, where she gets to do life with women who share her deepest pain and her greatest passion. She blogs at Finding Sunday.

Yesterday afternoon, Silas fell asleep on my chest for the first time in a long time. I laid there soaking it in, feeling his heart beat on top of mine. This kid’s heart beats so in sync with mine that sometimes I forget he grew in another mama’s belly. I never forget her. I just sometimes forget that Silas hasn’t always been a part of me. He hasn’t always been mine.

I began imagining what it would have been like to have had him growing in me. I don’t feel any lack in our relationship because we missed out on that time together, but there’s a part of me that does grieve for that time. Not because we lack a connection, but because I know he has a connection to another mom too.

I started to wonder…if I could have grown him in my own womb and given birth to him myself, would I have?

Well, sure, if he could still be the same Silas that he is now. But, the reality is, he would be a different kid if he had been born to me. And, I don’t want a different kid.

So, my grief is drowned in the depths of my gratitude.

Gratitude for his birthmom, who carried and cared so well for my baby for 9 months and then selflessly gave him the life she wanted him to have…one that did not include her. My privilege is her pain. And her connection to Silas does not diminish mine. In fact, I think it strengthens it, because I carry with me every day the knowledge that he could belong to someone else. And yet, he’s mine.

And my gratitude for a God who breathed a deep desire for adoption into my heart long ago, before infertility was something I even knew could be a reality. For a God who gently guided us through our pain down the road that led to Silas. For a God who redeems and restores and who causes all things to work together for good.

I feel this overwhelming gratitude daily, and I often ask Silas in these moments, “How did I get you?” and “Why do I get to be your mama?”

I live every day in awe that he is mine.

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Mindy and her husband, Nick, adopted their son, Silas, domestically in August of 2013 after seven years of marriage and two years of unexplained infertility.  They live in Southern California, where Nick is a pastor and elder at ROCKHARBOR church and Mindy is a part-time teacher. She also hosts an infertility and adoption group each month, where she gets to do life with women who share her deepest pain and her greatest passion. She blogs at Finding Sunday.

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We’re building the nest this month!

Head right on over HERE to find out more and learn about the 40+ businesses that support adoption and the work of The Sparrow Fund!

Since coming home with Silas, we get a lot of comments from people about how wonderful God’s plan is and how much better his ways are than our own. Talking about God’s plans with this cliche simplicity is something we Christians love to do. But when it was said to me in reference to infertility and adoption, something about it really irked me, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I really sat down to think about it.

Here’s the thing. Adoption was always a part of our plan. The infertility part wasn’t. So, adoption was not some “new plan” from God that came about because our original plan didn’t work out. In my mind, they are two completely unrelated things. The only thing that ties them together for us is the timing. We didn’t choose to adopt because of infertility. We chose to adopt because God called us to it long before we ever knew we would deal with infertility, and because it was as much a desire of our hearts as having biological children was.

And here’s another thing. I do not believe that the infertility was God’s plan for us. I don’t believe that the pain and struggle our birth mom had to endure in life was a part of God’s plan for her. I don’t believe that parents who can’t have children and children who can’t have parents is ever a part of God’s plan. But I do believe that God, knowing the challenges and pain we would have to face, did make a plan for us and Silas to have each other. Because, God “causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him.” (Romans 8:28) And this is so, SO good.

And one more thing, isn’t it God’s plan for all of us, as Christians, to care for the orphans….not just those of us who deal with infertility?

“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

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Mindy and her husband, Nick, adopted their son, Silas, domestically in August of 2013 after seven years of marriage and two years of unexplained infertility.  They live in Southern California, where Nick is a pastor and elder at ROCKHARBOR church and Mindy is a part-time teacher. She also hosts an infertility and adoption group each month, where she gets to do life with women who share her deepest pain and her greatest passion. She blogs at Finding Sunday.