There we were, going through another miscarriage. I began wondering if it was wrong for me to continue to pray to God for a baby. Afterall, if parenthood wasn’t in God’s plan for us, we didn’t want to be outside of His divine will for our lives.
But, what would I do with the gaping hole in my heart aching to be filled by a baby!?!? My empty arms and aching heart were sobbing ~ at moments even SCREAMING ~ for God to talk to me!
Didn’t HE put this strong desire to be a mommy in my heart!?? WHY wasn’t He answering my heart’s cry?!? Was I being disobedient for continuing to seek Him for a child, if His answer was consistently “NO”?
Jeff believed we should stay on our knees and seek the Lord. I began to wonder if it was even worth asking for, if God had no intention of bringing us children.
I wondered if I was being selfish in my continued prayers for what God didn’t seem to want to bless me/us with. God assured me one night, through Jeff, that YES! He wanted me/us to continue to seek Him and pray for the desires of our hearts! He wanted us to continue to pray for our children and wait for Him!
Psalms 27:14: “Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.”
After reading an article one night, Jeff paraphrased for me the difference between expectancy and expectation. He doesn’t recall now where he read it, darn it! I wish I could credit who helped answer such a mystery for me! Allow me to share with you how learning such a difference freed me to keep praying amidst our unanswered prayers!
God wants us to lay the desires of our heart at His feet. He wants us to pursue these desires with confidence in Him. Not confidence in our ability to reach these dreams, but confidence in His ability and willingness to answer our prayers! He yearns to bless us abundantly! His plan for us is GOOD! ALWAYS!
I had the special privilege of working as an Adoption Social Worker for many years. I typically wrote a letter similar to this to each child after they went home with their adoptive parents. My purpose in doing so was two fold: (1) to share my experience of the time I spent with their birth parents and how they came to chose adoption and to let them know how much they were loved and (2) to share Jesus with them. I gave a copy to the adoptive parents to share one day in the future if they chose to, and I placed a copy in their adoptive file to be found should they ever seek information in the future.
Rya & Roman
The end of this letter is a little more personal because this is our own adoption story.
Dear Rya and Roman,
I knew your birth mom K for 5 years prior to your birth. She was a single mom raising a daughter and had previously placed another child for adoption. She was 24 years old with a high school GED and a job in a hospital cafeteria. She was 5’6 tall with long beautiful brown hair and brown eyes. You both have her cute nose! She was very pretty. Her personality was strong, determined, hard working, funny, and self-assured. I love her laugh! I know less about your birth father T, but you are both tall like him and Rya looks a lot like he does!
She had dreams of a husband still unfulfilled. She wanted what most women want, a good husband who could provide financially, a home and a family. When she was pregnant with the two of you, she really wanted to be able to parent you! The reality of raising 3 children alone hit her, and it broke her heart, but she decided that placing you for adoption would be the best gift she could give you. Because she had already gone through placing your older sister H, she was aware of just how hard it was going to be. There is a grief in placing a child for adoption that is like a death. It is always there and doesn’t go away. On top of that, society doesn’t help because they don’t always honor birth moms in the way that they should for making such a difficult and unselfish decision. I consider them heroes who will chose to carry the pain of loss for what they believe is the greater good. I’m not sure I have that quality. I am too selfish.
She loved you so much! Let me try to explain what that kind of love looks like. She loved you so deeply that she was able to look beyond herself and think about what would be the best for you in your life. All the while she could feel you moving inside of her and she was beginning to know each of you. She could tell which one of you were moving and who was in what position. She used to tell me all the time that “the little girl is going to be the strong one.” It turns out she was right! She also allowed me to be a big part of her pregnancy, because she wanted you both to recognize my voice when you were born. She wanted you to be raised in a Christian, 2-parent home with siblings and lots of love.
She chose an open adoption so that she would be able to know you and you her. You have 3 siblings whom you get to stay in contact with because of our open adoption. We chose open adoption as a family because, as Christians, we felt the gift she was giving us was amazing but realized that we have a lifetime of gifts to give to her in return. Your dad called it a ministry opportunity. We can be Jesus to her. We can be a witness through how we raise you, how we treat her and honor her as your birth mom. We believe that the example of our Christian marriage can be a witness to her. We can help lessen her grief by allowing her to share in your life. She and your birth father T are a part of our lives now forever because they are a part of you and we celebrate that!
It’s neat to know them because sometimes I will call you by one of their names when you make a facial expression like them or you act like one of them. It’s what can sometimes be missing for an adoptive child, the connection of knowing whom you look like and where you came from. You can act like K and often look like her but I see a lot of H in you as well. Roman looks a lot like H!
I want to share with you some of what the Bible says.
Isaiah 44:2 says: “I am your Creator, you were in my care even before you were born.” God made you, you are not an accident.
While we were at the beach, Anthony and I took Hailee and Harper out of the water for a little break before they totally turned into raisins. We were lying in the shade giving them a snack. Haven was with us too. Anthony looked at the three kids and casually said, “So, these are the three who will more than likely stay with us forever.” I nodded yes. Perhaps they will be with us until God takes us home.
The “empty nest” question is one that tends to come up frequently. People ask us how we feel about knowing that we may never be empty nesters. I know that it is something that every family considering adopting a child who may be unable to live alone as an adult needs to think about before committing to bring them home.
For us, it is not something we think about or talk about very often these days. The topic obviously came up when we were considering bringing Haven home. We knew there would be a strong possibility that Haven would never be able to live alone, and we needed to seriously consider how we felt about that. And so we did.
These days things are different for us. The empty nest thing is not something we ever really think about. I don’t know, maybe it’s because our lives are so busy and crazy that we never have much time to sit and ponder what our future may or may not look like. Or, perhaps, it’s because God has given us such peace that an empty home is something we may possibly never have.
How do we truly feel about the possibility of never being alone without kids in the house? Well, we’re so perfectly fine with it. We believe that God calls us all differently. I will never become a lawyer or an orthodontist (heck, I really should though with the amount of money they charge to put a piece of wire in someone’s mouth!), and I would absolutely make the worst accountant ever because even my son’s fifth grade math confuses the dickens out of me. I don’t even know if God will ever call me back to working full time outside of my home. Our calling is different than others. He calls us all individually–and when He does He equips us with everything we need to accomplish the mission and gives us absolute peace on the journey. This is our mission. And, with this mission comes a future where Anthony and I may never be alone. For us, it is just part of the journey to be faithful to fulfill what God has told us to do.
Raising the children God has asked us to bring home is a calling for us. It is what the Father has told us to do in this life. We know our future is in His hands. He has taken away any desire that was once there to be empty nesters. We just don’t think about it anymore. We know that Hailee, Harper, and Haven may live with us forever, and that’s perfectly okay with us. When we’re enjoying our golden years in the RV across America, we’ll have three extra passengers, and that will make the journey even more fun.
Besides, we really believe in living each day the Lord has blessed us with to the fullest–whether we have seven kids at home or three. Will it always be easy? Heavens, no. There will probably be many times when Anthony and I will long for moments alone together. But I know my God–I know that when those times come, He will always provide a way to bless us with the desire of our hearts. He’s just so good like that.
We feel so blessed, not by earthly possessions and material wealth we have accumulated but because the Almighty Father has chosen us to be the parents of these three precious children who will more than likely need us to be with them (or near them) forever. What a joy it is going to be to share the rest of our lives with them. The thing that brings me the greatest joy in all of this is knowing that they are here with us, not in some orphanage all alone. That’s what really matters.
Who knows what our daughters’ futures are going to look like? Not us. We have no idea how their lives are going to unfold. And so, we continue to take one day at a time and allow the Lord to have His will and His way in their lives and ours.
May our nest always be full to overflowing. I’ll take it any day!
________________________________________
Adeye Salem
Adeye is a mom to seven children, three biological sons and four
“Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand”
Romans 5:2
This isn’t the whole passage, but I love the term undeserved privilege. Our culture is a world of undeserved privilege. We like to think that we have what we have because we worked hard, we tried hard, we saved and pushed our way to get where we are. That’s really not true.
Because we work so hard, it’s easy for us to think we deserve the things we have. These are privileges that we work and sweat for. It’s ours. We love that about ourselves. And, although there’s nothing wrong with hard work (in fact, it’s a biblical principle), the message of the gospel is that we earn nothing. We get to participate in the privileges of God even though we don’t deserve it.
I’ve only shared this with a few people, but there’s a part of me that wants to brag about this adoption thing. The process has been long and difficult. People have been overwhelmingly helpful, but Anna and I have both worked hard to get where we are. Now, it feels like we are in the home stretch, and there’s a part of me that wants to say “I’ve earned this.” However, the reality is that God has been at work at this before it even popped into our heads. When I read undeserved privilege, I hear that God does all the work of redemption. God does all the work of adoption.
It’s humbling. It’s wonderful to be a part of. More than anything, it’s comforting to know that my hard work gets me very little. It’s just a response to the God who has already done all the work. I just get a lot of undeserved privilege. It’s a pretty nice perk.
________________________________________
Russ Polsgrove
Russ and Anna have been married for 5 years. Even as friends, before dating or marriage, they shared with one another that they each wanted to adopt. After marrying in May 2005, talk of adoption slowly entered its way into their conversations. Russ, working as a youth pastor, and Anna, working as a teacher and at a girl’s group home, saw the need more than ever for children to have loving, safe homes. After coming to this realization, they chose to begin the adoption process to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia. They have been on the wait list 8 months and should get the call any day for the referral of a little girl age birth to 15 months whose name will be Lucy. They are so excited about their story of choosing adoption to bring their first child home. You can follow their journey on their personal blog.
A tiny, frigid room full of 60+ babies and their foster parents . . . some fat and chunky, some not. Some smiling and happy, some not. I know we’re making a difference, but sometimes it feels mostly futile. Like we can never really do enough. Like we can’t really solve the problem. I don’t like going on the trips because it reminds me of how far we still have to go.
photo courtesy of KC Photography
I get frustrated because I think solutions don’t come quickly enough . . . I question efficacy and efficiency. I want quantifiable results. I want to fix it. I don’t want to see a single baby who fails to gain weight for 3+ months. Not a single one! And though the formula project trips allow me to see many chubby little ones . . . I still see far too many who aren’t thriving. Far too many who might not make it. Maybe not for lack of formula but for lack of specialized care and medical treatment. It’s a complex problem with many deep, systemic issues . . . and it isn’t one that I can easily fix.
But I want to. And, so often, the trips make me feel like a failure.
I get angry. At the “system.” At the people around me. At the injustice of a world where some have plenty and others do not.
I get judgmental. About the caregivers. The staff. The people back home who just don’t “care enough.” I have to confess something really dark and dirty. When I came back, I had an email in my inbox asking for prayer for a 2-year-old with a skin rash. The first thought through my head was not a prayer . . . it was: Well, that won’t kill him.
What has become of me? I’m even getting all self-righteous on people asking for prayer for their children!!
I know Jesus isn’t glorified by my attitude. I’m probably doing more harm than good.
photo courtesy of KC Photography
But, when I came back and talked to a friend about the trip, she encouraged me to reframe my perspective. She saw through my good intentions and hard work to the heart of the matter – that I feel like it’s my responsibility to solve the problem. Though I probably would say that God is in control of the children’s lives, my behavior reflects a belief that if me and my colleagues don’t measure up, the problem will be forgotten. I’m failing to be a colaboror with Christ and am turning into a work-a-holic for a noble-sounding cause. And, that doesn’t bring Him glory or pleasure and only brings me frustration and weariness.
It’s hard, isn’t it? To maintain balance in our lives when there are plenty of good causes and noble pursuits vying for our attention? Like Martha, we busy ourselves with good and important work – from mothering to volunteering to providing for our families. And like Martha, we get irritated at the Marys and fail to heed Jesus’ gentle reminder that resting at his feet is the better way.
I’ve begun noticing that more and more my heart yearns to be a Mary; to simply rest at his feet and let him carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. I know if I carry it, it will crush me, but I still feel guilty when I stop and rest. What if a baby dies because I just didn’t work hard enough? The guilt-track starts playing through my head the instant I cease striving and try to rest. Though I have no idea how to make it real in my life on a daily basis, I know I hear him calling me . . . all who are weary and heavy-laden, come to me and I will give you rest.
You know what I think I’m finding out? That when I’m trying to carry the burden by myself; when I’m shouldering more than my load, I quickly become disgruntled, angry, judgmental, and cynical. I don’t look like Jesus. I’m not reflecting His love. But, when I take the time to rest; when I cease striving, give him the problem and let him be God, I have more joy, peace, and faith that he’s go the whole world in his hands.
Though it may seem to be an oxymoron, spending time resting in him is really the only way to make a difference.
(Now if I could just figure out how to practice what I preach.)
As I am studying the Greek language, I am realizing how much translations are interpretations. It is not really possible to simply translate one language into another. Concepts exist in some languages that don
During a fairly normal conversation with a friend, I brought up that I was advocating for a child on my blog. A child that grabbed my heart and that we were waiting for God to speak to us about him.
Just recently, we finalized the adoption of our son, Joshua, from the foster care system. On adoption day, I wrote the following letter for him to read as he grows up:
