Adoption is awesome! I love it! It is exciting! It creates forever families! Since we are paper pregnant I could probably name 100 reasons I love adoption, but here are my top 10.
1. Love! God is love. We love because God first loved us. {1 John 4:19} We are called as Christians to love one another. The bible says in Mark that the greatest commandment we have is to love God and love one another. Pretty important stuff! I cannot think of a more special way to show love than to adopt a child into your home. We have so much love in our marriage and seriously can NOT wait to show our children what it means to love and be loved.
2. Hope! Adoption is all about hope. It gives parents hope to raise a family who might not otherwise have the opportunity. It gives a child in need a hope to have a forever family. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you HOPE and a future! {Jeremiah 29:11} God promises to give us hope in life and after! He gives us a hope for eternal life through salvation. That is the most glorious hope of all my friend.
3. To live out God's word! Adoption is nothing new to God. It was His idea from the beginning. Think about it. Jesus was adopted by Joseph! How amazing!! Our loving Father wants to adopt us into His holy Kingdom. He sacrificed His Son as the only perfect way to provide a way for us to be his children forever. Adoption is mentioned in the new Testament six times. Each time the term is used in relation to Jesus redeeming our relationship with our Heavenly Father so that we can be in His family. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God's Spirit when He adopted you as his own children. Now we call Him "Abba, Father". {Romans 8:15} Choosing to bring a child home through adoption and loving that child unconditionally allows us to experience how God loves us and makes us His family!
4. We are are to be God's hands and feet. "Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now." ~Saint Teresa of Avila God put us on earth to be a door for His love to walk through! James tells us we are to care for orphans and widows. How else but to welcome them into your home and family forever?? Oh to bring that sweet, sweet baby home! I know we are commanded to bless others by serving them, but when I lay that baby down to sleep in their own bed for the first time I know I will be the one who is being blessed. What an awesome way to think of ourselves when we say we are God's hands and feet!! I don't know about you, but I am excited to do God's work.
5. One less orphan! Can you imagine my friend, not having a family? Growing up knowing someone loves you, longs for your very presence, and provides you with a safe place to live are some of our greatest gifts. Knowing there are babies and children in the world who are abandoned and hungry makes my heart hurt. Seeing precious babies in orphanages not knowing love, never experiencing a mother's loving touch, knowing they have to soothe themselves to sleep each night is heartbreaking. One less my friend. One LESS orphan. One less baby who needs a mama's whisper of a promise to never leave them is what I want to make happen! When I adopt my baby there will be ONE less.