There was a Girl...

What a powerful post about a family who chose to adopt a fifteen year old girl from Russia. You can read it here: There Was A Girl. Fifteen Years Old.

Together for Adoption Interview

Check out a recent interview I did with my husband about our adoption story.


House Conference II (Interview), Phoenix, Arizona from Together for Adoption on Vimeo.

Not Quite Enough Love...

Here is a summary of some disturbing comments by a foster/adoptive parent used in a state training we recently attended:

“We decided to adopt because our family had so much love within us and we thought a child with nothing would be so happy to share in that love. But we are so disappointed. Not only has she not appreciated or accepted our love, she is actually taking away some of the love and joy from our home.”

This is a great picture of how our culture views love. People are not always as honest as this individual was, but love is often seen as a tank that can be empty or full, depending on the circumstances. Too often love is treated as a commodity to be spent. If my loved ones treat me a certain way, then I feel loved. If I feel loved, then I am able to love in return. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.

This is anti-gospel. Hollywood does a great job of packaging this type of love as a beautiful ideal of “happily ever after” but the word “love” should never be used to describe such a self-centered way of thinking.

God’s love is not something that comes and goes based on our actions or inactions. He does not have a pool of love that will run out if we are really rebellious, defiant, or unappreciative of his love. God doesn’t get to the year 2012 and say, “Sorry, my love pool dried up because those children born prior just took and took and took and gave nothing in return.”

God’s love is patient, kind, and generous. God’s love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. God’s love never ends. God doesn’t offer us an opportunity to partake in an infinitely loving relationship with him because he thinks we will be so thankful for the opportunity. Amazingly, God sent Christ to the cross after thousands of years of his people being unthankful. Christ faced the death penalty on our behalf knowing that we would never contribute to his “love tank.”

And so we are called to follow in His steps.

We never have to worry about running out of love because our hearts have been infused with the infinite love of our Heavenly Father. That is why we can love our enemies. Love those who mistreat us. Love those who don’t contribute positively to our life. Love others when we feel like we have nothing left to give. Love a newborn who does nothing but poop, cry, and eat. Love our invalid senile old parents. Love our children...even when they are slow, behind, rebellious, full of rage, hate, or sin…

Unfortunately, this foster family has not really experienced the love of Christ that radically redefines the word “love.” What they call love is actually a demonic twist which will produce nothing but resentment, anger, and frustration.

 “If Affection [love] is made the absolute sovereign of a human life the seeds will germinate. Love, having become a god, becomes a demon.” C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)

Together For Adoption House Conference

Monday night Dan Cruver sat in a living room with 30 of our dear friends and blew our mind on adoption. He spent 40 minutes talking about the Trinity. It was like someone trying to explain snow to a bunch of children living out in the bush of Tanzania. Four days later and the implications are still consuming my thoughts. I will be blogging some of them this weekend! :)

God is moving within the church to grow our understanding of adoption. When we understand what God did to make us his children...it changes everything.

I am very excited about the work that Together for Adoption is doing! AND I am thrilled that the T4A National Conference is in Arizona this year. Save the date: October 21-22nd @ Redemption.

My review of Dan Cruver's new book, "Reclaiming Adoption" is coming soon...

Self-Originating Love

"Transformed by the gospel, our love is to be self-originating, not elicited by the loveliness of the loved. For that is the way it is with God."  -DA Carson


This quote has been at the center of my thoughts for several days now. What a powerful, yet simple truth. If we were to apply this gospel truth to our relationships, how transformed they would be!


The Gospel is this: 
   God, being rich in mercy, because of HIS GREAT LOVE, chose me: a dead corpse who was rotting and decaying in my own sin.  He chose me (aka: the stinky corpse) to love, accept, redeem, adopt. He chose me to love, not because I was lovable, lovely, or worthy, but because he IS love. And through his love, he washed away the decaying stench and made me a living being. He made me human again. He broke the curse of death that sin had wreaked havoc against me and breathed life into my soul. (Ephesians 2)
    Because of that great truth, my ability to love and have relationships with others is then transformed. Love then, comes from the fact that God loved me greatly, not from how lovable or unlovable those around me are.
  
    Some examples that come to mind...


   I am able to love my husband regardless of what he does or doesn't do. Regardless of how he makes me feel or not feel. Regardless of how holy or sinful he is. My love is "self-originating" because it comes from the living-spring that God has placed within me.
    People sometimes ask if I worry about children I adopt being pre-disposed to genetic disorders or having mental illness due to abuse. When fears begin to fester within me about fostering/adopting children with unknown factors that may affect their development, God's love within me is able to drown out those sinful thoughts, because loving a child who might be considered "unlovely" in the world's eyes is a precious opportunity to experience in a microscopic way the unearned love God has for me.
    When I am wronged, hurt, or sinned against, I am able to love my enemies. Yes, they are far from deserving my love, but I was also an enemy of God and yet, he loved and redeemed me. My love towards them is not based on their actions or loveliness, it is based on the love within me.
    Of course, to call my love for my spouse, my family, my enemies "self-originating" may give the impression that I muster up this love from within, which is hardly the case. Rather, because of the work that God did within me, he infused my heart with his unending love. That is what empowers me to love those around me, even the "unlovable".
    Knowing this truth helps me to identify my unloving thoughts as anti-gospel. When I try to tell myself why I am justified to stay angry, bitter, or resentful the Holy Spirit reminds me that these unloving thoughts are an assault on the heart of the gospel. When I chose to replay a painful or offensive situation over and over in my mind, I am reminded that I am filling my mind with poison. Instead I can think about how Christ has chosen to forget my sin and make me his daughter...knowing my offenses to God far outweigh the greatest offense any human has ever paid me.
    Of course, far too often I chose to let my mind wander far too long in anger, bitterness, and resentment. And I am all too slow to take my thoughts captive and fill my mind with Gospel truths. But I praise God for the riches of his grace that continues to seep God's love deeper into my heart and allows more and more victory in this area....for His Glory alone!

Spilling Your Guts: A Privilege of Adoption

“Our responsibility is therefore to lay aside all our anxieties and bring them to our father. Being assured of his care, leave them with him.” -Sinclair Ferguson (The Christian Life)

     Marcel came home from school one day last month upset and grumpy. As I questioned him about his day, he grumbled that he did not want to talk about it. I explained to Marcel that God gave him a loving mom to care about the things that upset and bother him. I told Marcel that because he was my son, he does not have to keep his concerns hidden, but can share them with me. One of the great blessings of belonging to a family is that he is no longer responsible to carry his burdens alone.  As a child, Marcel not only has the privilege of sharing his pain with his loving and wise mother, but he actually has the responsibility to share.  If he chose to ignore my loving questions and keep his pain hidden, he would have been denying me the ability to mother him. It would have been disobedient, hurtful, and sinful. Sharing this with Marcel brightened his face and he spilled his guts. We had a great conversation over orange juice and granola bars and within no time Marcel bounced out of his chair ready to go play with his toys.

   

    A few hours later, I found myself anxious about getting the kids fed and our house “clean” (meaning toys stuffed in closet and dirty dishes crammed in the oven) for our Tuesday night Bible study. As I was washing dishes and feeling anxious, I knew that I should go to the Lord and repent for worrying about the perception of others and ask his help to find joy in sharing even a messy house with my friends who would be arriving shortly, but really…I just didn’t feel like praying at the moment.

   

    As I continued with my “to-do” list, God brought my conversation with Marcel to the front of my mind. I realized how often I treat going to the Lord with my fears, worries, and anxieties as optional. But it is not optional; I have a responsibility to turn to him. It is both a privilege of adoption and an act of obedience. When I look to God with my fears, I trust that God knows my every need before I even ask. When I cast my anxieties on God, I am exercising an unshakable faith that God cares for me. When I dwell on my problems, worry about the future, and think about all the possible negative scenarios that can come from some bad news I just heard, I deny the responsibility I have as God’s daughter and make myself the “god” of my problems. Instead of placing my hope in my loving, sovereign Father, I place my hope in my own abilities. In doing this, I am not demonstrating that God is my loving Father who adopted me through the blood of Jesus.

   

    Understanding this truth empowered me to look to God when I began to feel anxious. Several times this past week, I noticed thoughts and emotions that showed there was anxiousness or fear in my heart. Instead of letting those thoughts fester, I was able to direct my thoughts to the fact that I have a Father that lovingly demands I turn to him for protection and guidance. Just like I do not expect my children to carry their own burdens, how much more does God expect me to give him mine!

Mya's 2nd Adoption...

In early February, Mya started acting different. She was responding differently to discipline, acting sweeter to her brother, locking herself in the bathroom for twenty minutes so she could "clean" it to surprise me (boy was I surprised to find baby powder EVERYWHERE because she thought it made it smell pretty!)

One day while we were driving, she had a conversation with Vermon that went something like this...

Mya:  "Daddy, guess what? I prayed today."

Vermon: "Really? About what?"

Mya: "Oh, I don't know...just talking to Jesus"

The next morning I poured my cup of coffee and headed to the couch to read my Bible. Mya excitedly asked if she could join me.  I filled a coffee cup with juice for her, got her audio bible set up, and let her settle into her "cozy spot" in our living room. 

Normally Mya likes to listen to the creation story, over and over and over...

But this time, Mya asked if I could put the crucifixion story on.  When she was done listening, she ran over and sat on my lap and had the most precious conversation with me...

Mya: "Mommy...Jesus is in my heart, I think."

Me: "Really? Did you pray and ask him?"

Mya: "Yes, I have asked him every single morning this week, but I can't tell if he is really in there...is he Mommy?"

I then explained in 6-year old words how one gets to have a relationship with God…

Mya: "Mommy, so how many times do I have to ask Jesus to be the king of my life?"

Me: "Mya, close your eyes and picture our adoption day." (she closed her eyes really tight and large smile spread across her face) "Remember how many of our friends and family were in the room? Remember how the judge asked Daddy and I all these questions? At the end of the time in the courtroom, the judge said you were now Mya Hope Pierre and Marcel Vermon Pierre!”

Me: “Okay Mya, open your eyes. Now, do Daddy and I have to go and adopt you every single day?”

Mya: “NO! That would be so silly!! You are my mommy and daddy forever!”

Me: “And it is the same with God. The way God adopts us is through Jesus taking the punishment we should have gotten for our sins. When we decide to believe in Jesus and let him be the king of our life then God adopts us and we become his daughters!”

Mya: “RRREEEAAALLLLYYYY!!! I’m ready to listen to God and follow his way now…can you pray with me?”

I then led Mya through a simple, but personal prayer. I didn’t give her something to copy, but allowed her to speak her own words to her Creator. When she was done praying she opened her eyes and gave me a big hug and said,

“Mommy, now I have been adopted twice!”