Warner Brother’s new horror movie Orphan proclaims that it must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own. As the dad of two adopted children, that is simply not true. Pam and I do not have any biological children to compare with the two we adopted, but I cannot imagine loving my biological child any more than I love Abram and Callie.
There are certainly challenges associated with taking an orphaned child into your home. Most of the children who have been orphaned have been traumatized, abandoned, neglected or abused. Parents need a lot of prayer, counsel and support before, during and after the adoption. Ask any family who has adopted, and many will tell you it is difficult, but they will also tell you the rewards for rescuing a child are eternal.
I have two friends who are close to finalizing their adoption of a little girl from the state foster system. They have battled through sleepless nights, wrestled with doubt, and heard horrible stories about the little girl’s past, but I have also seen God give them strength for the journey. Most importantly, a little girl’s life will be forever changed for the good because a young couple had the courage to adopt.
Right now, many families in our city are praying about adopting orphans from our state’s foster system through Wait No More. In the past months, over 200 children have found permanent homes because of the efforts of churches and ministries across our state. By faith, I believe Colorado will have a waiting list of parents wanting children and not a waiting list of children wanting families. There are over 3000 churches in Colorado and less than 600 orphans. It is realistic to believe our state could be the first in the union without any foster children.
I do not plan to see the movie, Orphan, but I do plan to champion the idea of adoption for the rest of my life. It’s pure. It’s undefiled. It’s religion that pleases God.
July 28, 2009 at 10:03 am
Thank you, Pastor Brady!
July 28, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Dear Pastor Brady, I would like to give a comment related from our experience of adoption. We adopted a daughter from a Russian orphanage in 1998 who was 8 years old at the time. We testify to the fact that God has given us immeasurable grace, fortitude, and endurance in this process of helping someone heal and learn to live and love in the context of a family. We are an imperfect family who opened our home to an imperfect child, and together we have learned so much. I mentioned this film to our daughter who is now 19 and her heart reeled as she heard of her country Russia being highlighted in this context. I reminded Anya that there is neither Jew, Greek, Russian, etc…. in the Kingdom of God. “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.” Eph. 3:14 We are all adopted into the Kingdom of God and all bear His Name!
We have witnessed many families in this process….I believe for me the solidifying verse that gave me as a mom the go ahead to move forward with the adoption process over a decade ago, was Psalms 68:5-6 “A Father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the the prisoners with singing;” We have three biological children as well, who have been amazing in this journey, and are the better for it. For those families in the process, or those considering, my counsel would be to seek Him and His will. If you are called to adopt you will have a grace and the endurance to finish the race, particularly with those orphans that have not had the teaching, and nurturing, in those formative years. If you are not called to adopt there are so many roles you can take to come along side and help those who are called. I cannot even imagine this journey without our families and friends to encourage, and to be another extension of love, protection, and care for our daughter. God will come alongside in amazing ways!
Thankyou Pastor Brady. The past three years has not been easy for our daughter as she had dealt with the
loss of a spiritual father figure at New Life over the past three years, bringing up some abandonment issues up again in her life. It was a setback for our little one who was just then getting her wings. But as always, God is faithful, and we have talked through this with her, and thoroughly forgive. As always God will always be the One who Stays! As I read this to our daughter before I hit the send button, she said
“Pastor Brady is amazing!” Thankyou….kathy walton
July 29, 2009 at 11:11 am
Wonderful blog about your adoption experiences – Tom Davis, president of Children’s Hopechest here in Colorado Springs and an adoptive father himself(see you are reading his book Scared) is asking for stories about adoption – sent you an email with his blog about this movie and his way of replying.
Blessings,
Karen Huggins