Adoption of an Older Child
It’s been a long time since the appearance of a new “This Month” reflection, and for that I apologize. At least half a dozen ideas have flitted through my mind like butterflies in a meadow, but not made it through my fingers and into the world. These next few months I am especially seeking faithfulness to God through reflection and writing, so hopefully posts will be more regular (and “This Month” won’t turn into “this Year”).
Yesterday, I was talking on the phone to a dear friend. She told me that, rather to her surprise, she has asked for more information about a girl who needs a family.
This is the kind of adoption that could turn life upside down. The girl, Rose, is of unknown age, probably about 13. She’s been severely malnourished and experienced great hardship; she doesn’t read or write, and doesn’t know English. My friend is trying to figure out whether it is wise and responsible to bring Rose into their family, explaining to her two children (both eager to forge ahead) the possible inconvenient and painful consequences of adopting a teenager.
This adoption could reorder the rest of the lives of every person in that family. It is impossible to predict how Rose will respond to a stable family life and what course her healing might take. She may not be well enough for a traditional education and job; my friend and her husband and children may need to take care of her intensively for the rest of their lives. It could disrupt their activities and routines, home improvements, vacations, marriages. It could toss around the different parts of their lives like clothes strewn unpredictably and recklessly out of a drawer.
After I hung up the phone, it came to me in a flash how short life is. If this family or someone else adopts Rose, there is great potential for pain and chaos. There is also great hope for the dawning of redemption and God’s healing in a human life. The grace and love of the Lord could come washing through Rose, and my friend and everyone in her family would have the privilege of witnessing it, delivering it, taking a part in God turning ashes to beauty. My experience has been that there is no greater joy than that. It might be just glimmers for a while, mixed in with much suffering as they deal with the consequences of brokenness. But the suffering is temporary and the redemption is forever.
It hit me like a brick that life is short and eternity is long. If they adopt Rose, it may be really hard, maybe the hardest thing they’ve ever done. But it will be over so quickly. Standing before Jesus with Rose – and with the others that her life ripples out to - would be a greater joy than they can imagine. No matter how hard this part of life it, it is only a vapor.
My realization vanished as quickly as it appeared, and the pressing concerns in front of me seemed like solid reality again. We are so surrounded by the press of the temporal world that the real reality is veiled. Only in brief flashes of insight, it seems, do our eyes truly fix on the unseen, letting us understand that “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us a glory that far outweighs them all.†(2 Corinthians 4:17)
This friend of mine has been reading Mother Teresa, who reflected that when Jesus summons us to something, we often hesitate: “Whenever He asks for something…people get extra careful about many things — but if the world asks the things are done so quickly.†We all would agree that it is right to carefully consider the cost before leaping naively into the adoption of a teenager. This may not be the Lord’s plan for their family, or for Rose. But my friend is wrestling with why we so often hang back when Jesus asks something of us. To be honest, many times it’s probably because He bids us to take up a cross, lose our life and die with him. But we who belong to Jesus have already died with Him. When we grasp at comfort and security, we are forgetting that our lives are not our own but have been bought with a price.
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.†- Jim Elliot
Please pray for Rose.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
What a wonderful story. I will pray for Rose. As this has been a subject on my heart as well. Thank you for the wonderful words of wisdom you have wrote down, and for reminding me of what is truly important.
Sis Shannon