Articles
It's More than the Babies
It was a long, hot, exhausting day. However, it was also a beautiful, spectacular, edifying, uplifting day. We spent the day with many Sacred Selections families sharing our stories and being encouraged in our walk of faith. We spent time catching up with old friends who all are bound together by the same thing- faith and adoption. As the day was drawing to a close a thought stuck me that I’ve not really thought about before. You see, reflecting on the events of the day and watching the many children and families play and converse with one another left me in a sense of awe. I begin to realize in that moment that this is bigger than the babies.
You see, I’ve thought before about how many disciples could come about because of kids being adopted in Christian homes, but I didn’t really think about the umbrella affect of what impact this has on others and how many more disciples could come from this. How many doctors and nurses have we had a chance to talk with about our faith? How many birth mothers and families could we talk to about our Lord? How many others can we share our faith with because of adoption? But not only that, I also began to think how many people did it take to make all of this possible? The donors, the supporters, the families, the agencies, and everyone in between. When we all begin to work together for the sake of the fatherless, we see that this is definitely more than just the babies.
Adoption is a beautiful thing and has always been apart of God’s plan. However, our stand as people of God on being “pro-life” doesn’t end once a child is born! We must continue to support the efforts of helping these children to find loving homes and then we must support those homes (James 1:27). It is our duty as disciples of Jesus to care for the orphans and widows and practice true religion.
We need to understand that our work in helping place children into Christian homes is just a part of our work. At times, we have heard that all we care about is the babies. This just isn’t the case. In fact, it’s so much more than the babies. You see, adoption is just a part of our work in God’s kingdom. Yes, we care about the babies. Yes, we want to help these innocent children. But more importantly, we want to expand God’s kingdom. Think of the impact of 400 plus and counting babies being adopted into Christian homes. That is 400 plus souls that will be raised to know the Lord and that means potentially 400 plus souls added to the body of Christ. Not only are we expanding God’s kingdom through the adoption of children, we are expanding God’s kingdom by the impact we have on others involved in this work. 400 plus children, means 400 plus opportunities to talk with birth moms, social workers, hospital staff, and the many other people we meet along the journey. You see, adoption is great. It brings so much joy to the family. But how much more joy is there that through this process, through letting our light shine, that we can add more souls to the body of Christ?
This is also more than the babies when we begin to notice the impact it makes on the church. A work like Sacred Selections, helps us as Christians draw near to one another and work together. We must readily admit that not all people are able to adopt. Maybe it is something that we feel we are not equipped to do. Maybe adoption is something that we might have done years ago, but it simply isn’t possible in the stage of life that we are currently in. These are very valid and logical reasons as to why we might not be able to adopt. However, there are plenty of ways in which we as disciples can still work together. We can help financially. We can donate to organizations like Sacred Selections, or we can donate directly to adopting families. And then we can help supporting families who make the decision to adopt. These families will in need our love, support, and patience. They need our kind words, acts of kindness, and our prayers. We might not be able to adopt a child, or maybe we don’t have a dollar to donate, but we can all offer support.
Perhaps the biggest reason why this is bigger than the babies, is because it gives us a true life picture of what God has done for us. When we talk about children who are in need of adoption, we’re often talking about children who don’t have any real hope for the future. The same truths could be applied to all of us in a spiritual sense when we think about where we were as we lived with the guilt of sin apart from God. Each of us have found ourselves in a hopeless situation because of our sin. Romans 3:23 tells us that we are all sinners and Romans 6:23 tells us of the consequences of our sins. We, on our own, are helpless and hopeless. When we separated ourselves from God through sin, we were left without any hope for a future. Yet, God in His loving kindness was willing to adopt us as sons and daughters into His spiritual family. Everyone who is willing to put full trust and faith in Jesus Christ and be obedient to the Gospel are able to be adopted by God. And that adoption by God gives us hope for the future through our adoption as sons and daughters of God and the inheritance of heaven that comes along with that sonship. This is exactly what we read in Romans 8:14-17. We who are willing to put our faith in Jesus Christ and be lead by the Spirit of God are sons (and daughters) of God. That’s more than the babies. That’s salvation extended to all!
