Love is Sacrifice

Let my life be the proof, the proof of your love.

Let my love look like you and what you're made of.

How you lived, how you died,

love is sacrifice.

So let my life be the proof, the proof of your love.

Months ago when we first felt led to begin this adoption journey a popular song came out by For King and Country called "Proof of Your Love".  It really resonated with me and I took it up as a mantra to encourage us along this journey.  I would sing it while jogging and pushing that ridiculous double stroller up the hills through our neighborhood.  I would literally say "love is sacrifice" over and over again to keep cadence as my feet pounded the pavement.

In the middle of the song they speak 1 Corinthians 13.  I know that verse.  I had that verse read at my wedding.  It's the love verse...but it has never resonated with me so much as now.

I'm still slowly learning about what sacrifice is.

I thought I had a small glimpse when I set aside a career and the things that go along with that for the privilege of staying home with our children.

I felt fairly sacrificial when we sold a brand new mini van to help finance this adoption.

But today, God is asking us to sacrifice something bigger.  Our own dreams and plans for our family.

We've found out that the little boy we are hoping to adopt has a condition that is much more severe than we anticipated.  He will require extra attention and care.  He might never walk or talk normally or develop in the way we hoped.  He will have to fight harder for everything.

All of our dreams and plans and hopes for the future came to a screeching halt.  This was not the normal life we were expecting.  This is not how we planned our adoption to go.

We decided it was too much and we couldn't do it.  We would move on to another child.  We would pursue something that was easier to handle.

But then God.

If I'm honest it took me awhile to be willing to come to God with this.  Because I think I knew what He was going to say.  And I didn't want to hear it because it is not what I wanted.  I wanted easy, not hard.  I wanted to move on from this with some semblance of a normal family life.

But when we finally brought it to God, it became overwhelmingly clear.  This is our son.  We loved him and chose him and pursued him.  God brought him into our life for a reason.

Are we afraid or do we trust?

Honestly, we are scared that we may fail.  This is not at all what we anticipated when we started this process. This is not at all in my plans.  But God knew.

God knew and God will carry us through this.

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

Love never fails.