The Broken Road

I struggle with adoption.

I love adoption, and thank God for it, I believe in it and the power God gives it to transform lives.  But I struggle with the brokenness of it.

The pain and trauma and turmoil that are manifested because for some reason, whatever reason, a child is not able to stay with their biological family.

I believe in God's sovereignty.  But I will never believe that God desires for first families to be broken.  He does not want death, poverty, fear, addiction, greed, social stigmas, AIDS, apathy, or sickness to prevent a mother from raising her child.  He does not desire that human trafficking, prostitution, or child slavery drive the abandonment cycle.  But he allows it.

That's a theological debate for another day, but the fact is, God allows these things to occur on Earth.  The world has been a broken and sinful place since Adam and Eve took that bite of fruit in Eden.  And only Jesus can redeem the situation we have gotten ourselves into.

He has made us Children of God because of His sacrifice on the cross.  We have been redeemed, adopted by our Heavenly Father.  That is what he has done for us, and that is why adoption is so significant.

Jesus had to walk a messy, painful road full of suffering in order to restore us with His Father.  The righteousness that covers us whiter than snow is His blood.  

Why should we expect following Him here on Earth to be any easier?  Jesus said to take up our cross and follow him.  When you get involved in the suffering of other people, life gets messy.  And that is exactly where God wants us.

Adoption is messy.  It often is the difference between loneliness and love.  Between sickness and health.  Between life and death.

But we have to be sensitive to many things, particularly the fact that the details of Zachary's life are his.  Children living in orphanages don't have a lot of things that they can hold on to as a source of identity.  First and foremost, they often do not have a relationship with their birth parents, so their family heritage and history is lost.  They do not have a room, toys, or pictures to call their own.  They often shuffle through the same clothing that has been passed down from other children in the orphanage.  They truly have very little to identify as their own.

What they do have is their story.  How they were abandoned, what little they know about their birth situation.  The small details of their lives that were fortunate enough to be recorded.  As Zachary gets older it will be his choice if he wants to share these details or not.

We get the privilege of walking that messy road with him- of helping him discover who he is, in Christ and as a Chinese child adopted by an American family.  We pray every day for the grace and wisdom to do this well.  Zachary's life, like all of our lives in different ways, is full of brokenness.  Thankfully, we know the God who heals and restores.  I hope he will too.