Why Adoption is Near to My Heart

I've never done a whole post dedicated to adoption before. Yet at the same time, adoption is something that is so near and dear to my heart.
Sure, I've mentioned adoption before in previous blog posts, but I've never explained why it means so much to me.
I have three siblings, all of which are younger than me. It's not always easy being the oldest, but I think each position brings different positives and negatives.
Years ago, God put adoption on the hearts of my parents as something that they should do.
One attempt to adopt did not quite make it all the way through.
After a few years of this event, my parents knew that it was time to try again, but that the whole situation was in the hands of our God.
It's easy to get caught up in our plans, and the way that we want it to go.
Luke became part of our family in December 2011, and my parents were away in China for 2 weeks as part of the adoption process.
He has been such a blessing to our family, and he has gone through a lot of hills in his life.
He's already had two open heart surgeries, had multiple tubes put in his ear, wears a hearing device to help with deafness in one ear, has a pacemaker, and has gone through months of speech therapy.
Seeing God work in his life and bring him to the point where he can speak English fluently, is excelling in school, and is now a healthy boy physically, is amazing.
There's not a more vivid picture of how God works, than it is shown in the story of my brother.
The open heart surgeries were completely in the hands of God.
Bringing him so far through speech therapy was the doing of our God.
However, this journey of bringing him into our family didn't come without hardships.
Although my parents were the ones most influenced and impacted by the paperwork, home studies, traveling and adjusting to parenting another child, my sisters and I were also impacted by it.
We had to adjust to sharing life with another human being, who wasn't just a baby.
We had to learn to deal with being away from our parents for 2 weeks...and we had never been away from them for more than 2 or 3 nights.
Even though I was pretty young, this experience grew me.
I learned that life isn't always just about you. Sometimes you have to sacrifice in order to do what God wants. That's why the "prosperity gospel" is so inaccurate. God isn't up in heaven just giving us whatever we want. He uses different things in our lives to grow us to have more dependence on Him. Our lives aren't about US, they are about pleasing Christ, because we have been adopted into his family.
Looking back, of course I would be willing to be apart from my parents for two weeks in order to bring my brother home. But during that time, it was hard, and I think it was one of the experiences that taught me to put my trust in God. I had to trust that God would bring them home, and no matter how much I worried, nothing would happen. I was not in control of the situation, and it was one of the earliest times in my life where sadness and grief crept into my life because I wasn't willing to give that up and surrender it to Him.
Adoption is something that God doesn't have in the plan for everyone's lives.
But taking care of widows and orphans is something that God wants each of us to do.
It's not going to be easy, and sometimes adoption equals sacrifice and possibly giving up what you had in plan for your life.
I have no clue if adoption will be something I do when I'm older. And sometimes for adults, it can be hard to say okay to God when he puts that in the plan for our lives, or even when he takes it away.
But taking care of widows and orphans...I believe we can all do something, even if it seems like a "little". We can all do something, especially if we have been adopted into God's family. Adoption is something that we as Christians have experienced firsthand.
For us as born-again Christians, adoption has been part of our lives as being Christians.
I think that adoption is even nearer to my heart though, because it has impacted my family.
Adoption isn't something that each family can do, and God calls different things into different people's lives.
I'm so thankful that adoption was something that I was impacted by in my life...and my life isn't over yet.

James 1:27, "to look after orphans and widows in their distress..."