When love takes you in...

In September, when I learned that this month was Adoption Awarness Month, I was so excited to learn about it-so I decided to make it a blogging project. I don’t know about you, but doing all this research has really gave me a lot to consider.

I think I can say that I do understand God’s adoption of us better. I think I can say along with C.J. Mahaney “I was adopted when I was 12.” There is such a beautiful picture of the gospel in that. Taking someone that is not our flesh, that may not even look like us, and taking them in, giving them a home and love and giving them the family name. Loving them as your own, because God loved us as his own.

I’ll leave this final post with a video by Steven Curtis Chapman. The official music video is really awesome too. Hope you’ve enjoyed the posts.

Sermons on Adoption

As the month comes to an end, I’d like to leave this post as one reference point for you. As you grow more in your understanding and maybe as God grows your heart for adoption here are some great sermons on the topic of Adoption.

John Piper:

                  Adoption: The heart of the Gospel

                  Predestined for Adoption for the Praise of His Glory

Charles Spurgeon

                  Adoption: The spirit and the cry

Joel Beeke 

                 Spiritual Adoption

         

Wayne Grudem

                  Doctrine of Adoption

C.J. Mahaney

                 God as Father: Understanding the doctrine of Adoption (It's under the 2008 tab)

These are all really great sermons! I have yet to listen to a couple of them, but I am looking forward to it! Enjoy friends!

Embryo Adoption

Embryo Adoption. I never knew you could adopt embryos, have them implanted in you, and then give birth to an adopted child. It’s all so interesting. Where do the embryos come from? Well they from in vitrofertilization (IVF)-which is used for couples whom have fertility issues. Basically “there are more embryos created during an IVF treatment than are actually used, thus embryos remain.” There are around 500,000 embryos with no tummy to go into right now! 500,000 babies! (www.embryoadoption.org) They do not yet have voices, they are not yet growing, but if us Christians believe that a baby is a baby at conception and at conception we have embryos, then are we not to consider these embryos God’s creation as well? Are we not to see them as the fatherless as well? Let’s consider what Russell Moore has to say:

“These so-called “snowflakes” are brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus are stored in cryogenic containers in fertility clinics as the “extras” of IVF projects. They already exist, and they already exist as persons created in the image of God. And there are Christians called to adopt them, to bring them to birth through pregnancy, and to raise them in love…”

May we not completely mark this off the list without prayerful consideration.

To read all of Russell Moore's thoughts on Embryo Adoption go here.

Video: Russell Moore on Adoption

I keep finding myself looking at Russell Moore’s posts on Adoption!  I like him because everything he has to say is gospel centered. I know adoption for him (in how talks about it) isn’t a sweet thing to simply save the life of a child. It’s deeper than that, it’s about the gospel. So don’t be surprised if this ISN’T the last adoption resource I show you (of his) in the next couple of weeks. In the video below Russell Moore answers a few questions:

Who is his book “Adopted for Life” written for?

How do you counsel people who don’t feel called to adopt, but feel really guilty about it in light of the huge need? (@ 2: 14)

Some would say that individuals care for orphans, but an official ministry of orphan care should not be something that the church formally involves itself with. How would you respond to this? (@ 3:30) 

His original post can be found here.

Interview: Thabiti on Transracial Adoption and the Gospel

Thabiti Anyabwile was interviewed on the topic of Transracial Adoption and how it relates to the gospel. The interview covers alot of questions. From couples wanting to adopt a child from another ethnicity to kids possibly struggling with a sense of identity, Anyabwile addresses these issues with the gospel. 

Is the Orphan my neighbor?

Russell Moore recently wrote for qideas.org on adoption. Here is an excerpt:

Orphans are unpredictable. Often we don’t know where they’ve come from, what kind of genetic maladies and urges lie dormant somewhere in those genes. For these reasons, fear has become an obstacle to addressing orphans. A leading theologian and adoption advocate says we must fill in the gap left by a contemporary Western consumer culture that extends even to the fatherless…

Read the rest here

What Piper says about Singles Adopting

What do you think about single people adopting?

If a single man or woman stumbles across a little kid in a third world country who has been thrown away, or whose mom and dad have been slaughtered, then, Yes! Take him, and care for him, and, if necessary, grow him up and be his dad or mom.

Yes, it's better to have one parent than no parents.

But, I've got to add this: I don't think that's the same as a single woman or a single dad in America having their career, reaching 35, discovering they're not going to get married, having a parental instinct, and just wanting to have more self-fulfillment.

Read all of Piper's comments here.

Book on Adoption: Heirs with Christ by Joel Beeke

I haven’t bought this book but it does have a good review by Justin Taylor.

Description according to monergism.com:

The Puritans have gotten bad press for their supposed lack of teaching on the doctrine of spiritual adoption. In Heirs with Christ, Joel R. Beeke dispels this caricature and shows that the Puritan era did more to advance the idea that every true Christian is God’s adopted child than any other age of church history. This little book lets the Puritans speak for themselves, showing how they recognized adoption’s far-reaching, transforming power and comfort for the children of God.

Here’s a trailer for the book:

 

Watch an interview with author here.

Adoption and Abortion are connected

Does it bother you that 90% of pregnant women diagnosed with Down Syndrome decide to have an abortion? (Read article)

Does it bother you that in 2007 Planned Parenthood a pro-choice organization gave out only 4, 912 adoption referrals and aborted 305,310 babies? (That’s a 1: 62 ratio) (Read article)

Do the procedures of abortion bother you?

It bothers us because that is destroying God’s creation-his very image. It bothers us because we are supposed to care for the fatherless. It bothers us because we are not okay with murder. When God gave us the breathe of life and deposited in us the Holy Spirit-it started to bother us because we are not as comfortable with sin as we once were.

Just like abortion is serious matter for the church to care about. So is adoption. Both have to do with caring for the fatherless.

If you are pro-life, I would challenge you this month-whether teenager, single, married or elderly-to not only care about being pro-life but care about adoption. In the foreword to Adopted for Life by Russell Moore, C.J. Mahaney (not legally adopted) starts out by saying “I was adopted when I was 18.” He goes on to say how his friend told him about Jesus and God saved him.

If we were adopted by God through the payment of Jesus Christ’s blood-I pray that we would be able to see the beauty of adoption and thus ask God what our role is in it. After all if it weren’t for adoption, we’d be in pretty bad condition.

In the video below Russell Moore explains the how adoption and abortion are connected:

An Adoption Culture

There is so much I want to share with you guys about Russell Moore’s “Adopted for life.” However, since I haven’t the time right now I will leave with you an excerpt from the book that will hopefully leave you thinking about how adoption doesn’t just advance the cause of life in the adoptee-but beyond.

“An adoption culture in our churches advances the cause of life, even beyond the individual lives of the children adopted. Imagine if Christian churches were known as the places where unwanted babies become beloved children. If this were the case across the board around the world, sure, there would still be abortions, there would still be abusive homes. But wouldn’t we see more women willing to give their children life if they’d seen with their own eyes what an adoption culture looks like? And wouldn’t these mothers and fathers, who may themselves feel unwanted, be a bit more ready to hear our talk about a kingdom come where all are welcomed?”

Wow. An adoption culture-where it’s not just sweet that some couples adopt children and others just comment about how great it is-without their own consideration of it. An adoption culture-where every believer sees that God has adopted us with the payment of his son Jesus. After all, the first cannot without the latter. What a beautiful light that would shine in an Adoption Culture.

Post a comment & give 2 bucks!

Adoption Blog: Kisses from Katie just recently caught my attention on FB because of the word “adoption”.  As I clicked the link and read the actual post I learned more about a woman named Katie. She is single and has 13 children. She lives in Uganda and has adopted all 13 of her girls. Sixsseeds.org put a post of hers up. Because it is National Adoption Month they are giving $2.00 to Katie’s family for each comment that is posted.

I looked into it and it totally seems legit. Sixseeds promotes adoptions and Katie has a unique story. It makes sense that they would support her in the month of November. If you would like to know more about Katie go here. Katie talks about how believers have been adopted and how the Lord has seen fit to bless her with 13 girls. She talks about how adoption is beautiful and wonderful but how it is also hard and painful she says….

“..It stinks to not know when your daughter took her first steps or what her first word was or what she looked like in Kindergarten. It stinks not to know where she slept and whose shoulder she cried on and what the scar on her eyebrow is from. It stinks to know that for ten years of her precious life you were NOT the shoulder she cried on or the Mommy she hugged.”

But she also goes on to say…

“And every single day, it is worth it. Because ADOPTION IS GOD’S HEART. He sets the lonely in families. Adoption is the reason that I can come before God’s throne and beg Him for mercy, because He predestined me to be adopted as His child through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.”

To read the rest of this post go here.

To contribute $2.00 to Katie & her 13 girls go here and leave a comment.

The role race plays in adoption

“Until recently in Georgia (and still in many other states), one of the five factors listed as 'Special Needs' adoptions was: being black3. Black children remain in foster care at higher rates than other races and are disproportionately represented (27% of those entering foster care are black even though black children comprise only 15% of the U.S. child population).4There are a number of factors that influence this, but the main factor is race….”

This article from www.toomanyaborted.com is a very informative article concerning, politics of adoption, cost of adoption, and inter racial adoptions.

Before I read this article, I always assumed that if we wanted to adopt we’d have to be really rich because it is so expensive. This article gave me hope.

This article also made me mad. Can you believe there are still organizations out there that would rather a black child STAY IN FOSTER CARE than be adopted by a white family? That breaks my heart. Lets learn more about adoption. This article is a great place to kill some misconceptions about adoption’s cost and raise awareness about race and adoption.

Read all of the article here.

Book on Adoption: Adopted for Life by Russell Moore

Just recently I bought Adopted for Life by Russell Moore  I'm excited to dive into it. As I very much admire the things that Rusell Moore has to say I'm sure you will be hearing a quote or two during this month "National Adoption Awareness Month" (and until I finish it J )

Description according to monergism.com:

A stirring call to Christian families and churches to be a people who care for orphans, not just in word, but in deed.

The gospel of Jesus Christ—the good news that through Jesus we have been adopted as sons and daughters into God’s family—means that Christians ought to be at the forefront of the adoption of orphans in North America and around the world.

Russell D. Moore does not shy away from this call in Adopted for Life, a popular-level, practical manifesto for Christians to adopt children and to help equip other Christian families to do the same. He shows that adoption is not just about couples who want children—or who want more children. It is about an entire culture within evangelicalism, a culture that sees adoption as part of the Great Commission mandate and as a sign of the gospel itself.

Moore, who adopted two boys from Russia and has spoken widely on the subject, writes for couples considering adoption, families who have adopted children, and pastors who wish to encourage adoption.

Read the foreword & Chapter 1 here. 

National Adoption Month

This month is National Adoption Awareness Month. So in honor of that, this month I will be posting as much quality information about adoption as I can. There will be articles on God’s adoption of us, videos, and information you may have never heard before. (This is also a project for myself-Lord willing, this will be in our future) If you have any websites that you recommend along the way-please leave a comment for the benefit of all who pass by.

Today I’ll start my raising awareness by sharing a precious video from the founder of www.theradiancefoundation.org. Ryan Scott’s birth mother was raped. She made a self-less choice to give him life and give him up for adoption. The song in the video is a song written to his birth mother. May a small portion of the beauty of adoption be impressed upon your heart as you watch…