Adoption: Why?

God put the idea of adoption on our hearts about five years ago. We wrestled with the idea and continued to ask the questions of why and how. After all, we are a large family by current standards, and the financial cost  of adoption was a huge hurdle that made it seem impossible even if we wanted to. A few years ago, we seriously consider adoption and even began the home study process. We quickly pushed the pause button when we became pregnant with Silas, feeling that it wasn't the right time to begin this journey. A year after Silas, Gabe decided to make his entrance into our world. And, yet again, we felt the timing wasn't just right.

While adoption did not fit in our "plans" at the time, God continued to soften our hearts. He continued to teach us that He adopted us into His family and we should do the same for those in need. Every time we came up with a reason to not adopt, we would quickly realize that the reason was selfish and not rooted in Him. 

So, why adopt now? As we've said, we have a large family. Six children makes for a full house. During the home study interview, Eli jokingly told the social worker, "Well, seven is a lot of kids!" And he's right. However, we have all sat around the dinner table and have had the feeling that a little person was missing. Not realizing at the time that the sibling we were missing wasn't simply in the other room or down the hall, but half a world away.

Last year, there were 147 million children living without parents and only an estimated 25 thousand adoptions. When compared against that backdrop, the bigger question that kept coming to our minds was, “Why not?”

This leads us to today. We still do not have answers to all of our questions, but the Lord has taught us that He will be more than sufficient and we believe God is using this process to strengthen our trust in Him. We do not expect this journey to be easy, but we know it will be worth it.