Adoption is woven through our family in several different ways.
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First of all, we are adopted by God.
We were born with sinful natures, and that separated us from Him, and yet He reached out with loving arms and pulled us back, and redeemed us.
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Secondly, my husband comes from a family of seven children who are ALL ADOPTED!!
His parents adopted before it was "popular"--before there were adoption support groups--back when a lot of Christian people thought adoption was "too risky."
God gave them a heart for the fatherless, and they have poured themselves into their family selflessly.
When I first met my husbands family I was amazed at how connected they were--if you made one mad at you--they were all mad at you--one of them loved you--they all loved you.
When my husband and I were dating we talked about adoption--how we thought we might do it someday.
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That brings me to the third way that adoption is woven into our family.
After we were married several years we found out with the help of several doctors that we would be unable to have biological children.
There were a lot of emotions that went through our minds at that time, but I remember thinking "so we will adopt after all" and feeling a measure of excitement about it.
Several years later, we adopted two little boys through a domestic infant adoption program.
We thought our family was perfect, but once in a while I would get the feeling that there was a missing piece.
About a year ago we decided we were ready to adopt again.
By now our youngest was almost six--so we thought it would be perfect to adopt a waiting sibling group.
We started the mound of paperwork, and almost immediately we began running into snags.
The age of children we were interested in was uncommon in a waiting sibling group.
I received a phone call from a case worker we knew from our previous adoptions.
She asked me if we had considered being foster parents.
Now, adoption seems pretty easy to me, but foster parenting seemed scary.
There are too many unknowns--too many risks--too little control on my part.
So, I told her that we would pray about it, and hung up feeling rather sure what God's answer would be.
To be continued..........
