Room to Grow

Dear Person Who Will Never Understand,

Remember the end of Schindler’s List? The part where Schindler is standing in front of his luxury car, having saved hundreds of Jews from the hands of the Nazi’s, saying goodbye to many of those he helped to save. He is given a ring that has been inscribed with, “He who saves one life, saves the world entire.” Schindler begins to cry saying, “I could have gotten more out!,” focusing not on all of those he had helped to save, but realizing that had he given up more of his earthly possessions he could have saved more lives. THIS. This drives me. This touches my soul to the core. To me it speaks to all of those precious children out there with no hope of ever having a family. Who are condemned to never feel loved. No, we can’t save them all, and we aren’t all called to help save them through adoption. BUT OUR FAMILY IS!

My husband and I are unified in this belief. We both feel it is what we have been led to do. Neither of us is dragging the other to follow in this conviction. And we both actively participate in giving 100% to our children. Yes, we are older parents. Yes we are tired. And no, we don’t wish we were spending time in our retirement years sipping cocktails on a beach. ADOPTION IS HARD! And yet we embrace it completely. We embrace the hard, and are willing to embrace it every single day until we die if that’s what it takes to raise these children. 

And no, we are NOT living a ‘works based’ life. We do believe the Lord called us to adopt each of our children. We don’t, however, believe that the more children we adopt, the better our chances are at heaven. Our Lord Jesus already paid that price for us, and our faith in that is what will bring us to Him some day. But the fact that we love Him with our whole hearts and our gratefulness to Him do play a part in our wanting to pour out our whole beings for Him for the rest of our lives in whatever way He sees fit for us to serve Him. 

Yes, we know we are getting up there. We know some of our children may far outlive us. We live within our means, make sacrifices and are making provisions should our children need them in the future. We could be mid-way through our lives, and we might die tomorrow. Any of us really. We have counted the costs of our choices, and every penny, every ounce of blood, sweat and tears are worth it. THEY are worth it.

But I know you'll never understand this. You just can't. But that's ok, because you know what? He does. And that's all that matters.