All my kids are adopted: Adoption Post #1

i never had a close friend growing up who was adopted. i did have one cousin who was, but because no one ever harped on it, it felt just the same to me. i think the first time adoption came close to a personal meaning for me was when i was getting married. i was trying to figure out how to honor my stepdad andy at the wedding. as it turns out i think i didn't give him the honor he deserved. dad walked me down the aisle and then i stopped at the end, andy stepped out to kiss me, and then he went back to his pew. that didn't show him justice. though i had a dad, andy really raised me and chose to be in my life for every single day of it. when he met my mom, i was the extra paragraph in small print that was going to make their marriage totally different. he married her, quite able to read small fonts. and he liked the deal. i didn't realize it was like i had been adopted until later, like twenty years later. and i really have a crazy respect now for men who marry single moms.

as jason and i looked towards having kids i went through a lot of phases. the first being "no way. i am not ready. i don't think i want to stay at home. and i really can't see myself with kids. but i really want to do all that later." then (thanks to our church) it looked more like, "i would like to be ready. being a mom and raising kids is a beautiful honor, like a crown on a woman's life." then it changed to, "is it now? do i have a heart for this? lord, where is my heart? can i see myself as a mom?" then finally, "please lord, this is my desire: for children and to be at home with them." it's totally wacky and surprising how the first and last quote are both from me.

even when i mentally finally caught up with my husband (because of the Holy Spirit, my faithful counselor), who had patiently endured a couple years of waiting, my thoughts around natural and adopted kids were totally different. and i think most people don't move from what i am about to describe. somewhere in my head i wanted to adopt. but it was kind of a last resort, a nice faraway goal, an eventual decision and an afterthought of our own childrearing of blood born children. but interestingly trying for our own child was very much in the forefront and preferred, i guess is the right word. now i should mention something at this moment. i don't think it's wrong to want your own kids and to have a desire for them. don't hear that. i just think it is interesting how we all think they are so different from adopted kids. the sidenote big picture being that we are called to all things, whether "our own" kids or "adopted" kids or to not get to have kids at all. so it's important to be prayerful. yet the heart for "our own" kids from "adopted" kids can be so so not the same. and mine was for sure.

when did this change? well, jason and i did want both. we wanted to try for our own, like most couples. and down the road we've always felt like we would adopt one. when we got pregnant with the girls i began to understand that the whole "our own" and "adopted" mentalities were actually...not far from being the same at all. when the girls were in the womb i could not see them. i could feel their movements. i could sense them physically. i could pray for them. but i did not know them. i couldn't see them or cuddle them. i didn't know what they would look like or act like or what our relationship with them would be like.

and the day they were born...was not their first day of life. they had already been living for nine months, just smaller. they were already around. i had just not met them yet and officially said, "hi i'm your mama." and one day, what we would call their birthday, i got to meet them. it actually felt like adoption. it felt like jason brought a crying kanah (she was first) over to my face and said "this will be your daughter." and i looked over at her, crying, like, who are you little one? you are such a beautiful creation? i wanted to know all about the girls in those moments but it felt like a rushed introduction to who they were. and they were such a mystery to me. some moms have said to me that you will just feel that instant connection. i partly agree with them. there is that moment of awe when you see your own child after birth and you just can't believe they are yours but somehow you know they are yours. but is this because they came out of my body? or because God gave me a huge heart for them? i think the latter myself. because i have never met this person!

but really, more than this instant connection thing, i really really really kind of "got" the whole "our own" kids sort of is the same as "adopted" kids during this time, at the very beginning of being a mom to kanah and grace. these two little beings literally felt like they showed up into my life and i had to get to know everything about them. they were kind of little strangers to me.

there's another evidence to me of this. and i don't know about other moms, but even though i was in awe of the girls from the beginning and certainly loved them, i cannot even compare the love i had then for them to the love i have now for them. i certainly loved them, but now i am love them more fiercely and madly. it reminds me of the verse that we had read at our wedding. 1 Thessalonians 3:12 "may the Lord make your love increase and overflow for one another." i really feel like what began as root and foundational love for my daughters, established by the heart of God, became an increasing and overflowing love for them because God keeps growing my heart for them. it's insanely beautiful and cool. i remember when i was in the "can i see myself as a mom?" stage of pre-motherhood, i didn't know if i would love my children enough. i think the Lord takes care of this for us. there was evidence of this for me with the birth of my daughters and i believe there is the same evidence of this for adopting parents, so i won't fear the day we adopt a child.

regarding the title of this post, and to wrap this up for now, i really do believe that all of my kids both present and future are adopted. i really really believe God has evened out in my heart any differences i saw in my "own" kids verses our "adopted" kids. they are all adopted. they are/will all be given over to our care. we are their caretakers and they belong to God. and God made them (psalm 139). he loves them way more than me - which i can't get my head around - and i honor him by loving his kids. he lets me call them "mine" and entrusts them to me. i am so thankful God has worked on my brain with this because i do want to adopt and pray with all my heart that the Lord will move many families around us to do the same - since all these kids - "ours" and the "adopted" are the same. God this is so cool. and i want to keep understanding your heart.

"but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born of the law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. and because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'" galatians 4.