i read in August a lovely blog post a mother’s reflections a year on after adopting two older kids. My favourite part of her post is:
Is adoption easy? No it is not. Is this simple? Nope. Complicated and long-term. Will bonding be immediate and seamless? Maybe, but probably not. Will you struggle with guilt and fear that first year? Yes, but you shouldn’t. You’ve agreed to partner with God in some difficult, heart-wrenching work, and it’s no kum-by-yah party. Give grace to yourself; God already has.
Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting through, and adoption is one of them. I can hardly think of something closer to God’s character, who is the “Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy.” Certainly, we are his difficult children who spaz out and pull away and manipulate and struggle. We distrust His good love and sabotage our blessings, imagining our shame disqualifies us or that God couldn’t possibly be faithful to such orphans.
But He is. We are loved with an everlasting love, and it is enough to overwhelm our own fear and shame and humanity. In adoption, God is enough for us all. He can overcome our children’s grief. He can overshadow our own inadequacies. He can sweep up our families in a beautiful story of redemption and hope and healing. If you are afraid of adoption, trying to stiff-arm the call, God is the courage you don’t have. If you are waiting, suffering with longing for your child, God is the determination you need. If you are in the early days of chaos, God is the peace you and your child hunger for. If your family feels lost, He is the stability everyone is looking for. If you are working hard on healing, digging deep with your child, God is every ounce of the hope and restoration and safety and grace.
In Him, you can do this.
He is enough for us all.
Yes adoption isn’t an easy path. But if you are called to it by God, then you have more than enough. November is National Adoption Month in the US. And i would like to borrow Jen’s words:
Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting through, and adoption is one of them.
From the 1st November till 31st December, Reece’s Rainbow has it’s annual Angel Tree fundraising period. Previous years, this special time was a special effort to highlight the kids 0-5 years old with Down Syndrome who needed families, it was also a time to do some very special fundraising for these kids so that their forever families would have less to fight through to get to them.
This year, through voting within the Reece’s Rainbow community, 3 children from the other age groups and with other special needs were also picked. Each child is then paired with an Angel Tree Warrior, whose goal is to raise awareness for this specific child as well as to raise US$1000 for the child’s adoption grant.
Teamwork Tuesday will spend the weeks in November and December showing off one of these Angels and their Warrior’s fundraising project each week.
This week meet Abbott.
He is 5 years old and is reported to be a very kind and cheerful child who is active and likes to run and see new places. He was in a fairly good orphanage but was recently transferred to an institution and we have not been given any updates since. i pray and hope that he is ok, that the institution he is at is a good one with enough staff and facilities to care for him. (Such an institution is rare where he is)
His only special need is Down Syndrome, which in this day and age is very manageable, if he lived in a country with the facilities to provide the support he needs, if he had a family who would go that extra mile for him.
His Angel Tree Warrior has a wonderful matching grant for him; US$200 will be given to his grant once his grant total reads US$2985. Every dollar you donate will be doubled.
She also has a couple of fundraisers going on for him.
- A Crochet Shop called Hooked on Hope, where 25% of sales goes to Abbott’s grant. Click here.
- A Walk/Run-a-thon. Click here for details.
Help reduce the obstacles which may stop his forever family reaching him. Buy from the crochet shop listed above or if you are in the area, join the Walk/Run-a-thon. These will all help grow his grant. Please go to his Angel Tree Warrior’s blog for details or click on his name or photo to donate directly.
Thank you very much.
Please follow this link to the full blog post i quoted from at the beginning: Jen Hatmaker – The Truth About Adoption: One Year Later.
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Do also remember and take part in my Precious One Fundraiser for Wesley.
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