Adoption

It Should Have Been Me

I have some news.“Did you hear? Alyssa is pregnant!”

“Guess what. My neighbor is expecting twins!”

“Has anybody told you? The Greenbergs are adopting!”

I’m certain we have all been privy to such conversations. In those moments, I have done my best to show genuine excitement for the couple. However, I am falling apart on the inside. That good news should be mine. I should be buying maternity clothing. I should be shopping for a double-stroller. I’ve been eating well, exercising faithfully, attending church on a regular basis. We submitted all of our paperwork to the adoption agency. Birthmothers should be choosing my spouse and me to adopt her child.

If left up to us, our wishes would be fulfilled. The pregnancy test would be positive. The twins would have matching cribs. The adoption process would be smooth as silk. It should be me! I should be the one shouting out such good news. But, no, I’m on the receiving end of good baby news once again.

There’s something else that should have happened to me. I should have been the one who was scourged, spit upon, mocked, pierced, and crucified. Yes, I’m the sinner who has broken every single one of the Ten Commandments. It really should be me who’s dead. I really don’t deserve any of the goodness that has been bestowed upon me, for I am a conceited, selfish sinner, who deserves death.

Thanks be to God that He gave His Son to take that punishment for me. Jesus Christ endured the scorn, the pain, and even the death you and I deserved. During this Holy Week, I humbly bow before the Lord God and thank Him for taking away the death that should have been mine.

crucified

Hagar

Yesterday, many of you sent me a link to a CNN story by Elizabeth Cohen:

“Surrogate Offered $10,000 to Abort Baby” 

Here we see The Sarah Syndrome gone wild.

1 genetic father + 1 wife + 1 anonymous egg donor + 2 IVF embryos + 1 surrogate birthmother + 2 adoptive parents = 1 child alive, 1 child dead, and 1 social and legal mess

I am afraid of the fact that cases such as these are getting court time. The more court rulings that are made on sperm donor, IVF, and surrogacy cases, the more…I don’t know, I guess the more we formally and publicly despise, defile, and – God help us! – abandon the one-flesh union and adoption as the means of parentage in our country. And so may times the children involved in these cases are treated as property with no individual rights of their own.

We are different from the world, Baptized Christians. Always have been, always will be. Remember that.

First Officer

Question Submitted: I’ve noticed that several of your hosts have adopted children this year. Does it hurt that you are the only HRTB host not to have been given the gift of a child? 

Don’t gasp, readers. This is not an audacious question. It is an honest one, and, frankly, I get asked it quite often. So, here is my honest answer:

First, from this website’s conception, my goal was never to have only childless hosts. In fact, if you have ever referred to the host page of this site, you already know that Rebecca, Kristi, Melissa, and Sandra have been mothers for years, whether through the gift of conception or adoption. I invited these sage women to cohost this site with me, because I am terribly aware of my own shortcomings. I am not an authority on every topic we cover on this site, and I rely heavily on their experience, wisdom, prudence, and compassion in responding to such issues as miscarriage, secondary infertility, adoption, and other concerns that touch upon the subject of barrenness.

Now, in response to the hurting portion of your question:

It does not hurt that I am the only HRTB host not to have children; it hurts that I don’t have children, period.

Yet.

It is remarkably easy to rejoice with my fellow hosts in the gifts they have been given this year, because I, too, have been given special gifts from God. I have been given the gift of knowledge from God’s Word that children are His gift to give and that He is wise in His giving; I have been given the gift of faith which trusts in the goodness of God’s giving and His not giving; I have been given the gift of fellowship in the Body of Christ, and I get to participate in the joy of my mother-sisters; I have been given the gift of assurance that my own prayers and sorrows are made known to my Father in heaven, because I have a Mediator who always intercedes on my behalf at God’s right hand; I have been given the gift of a Comforter who, through Word and Sacrament, grants me peace that surpasses all understanding; and, last but not least, I have been given a special vocation in the lives of my fellow HRTB hosts: First Officer of the Starship Motherhood.

What, exactly, does the First Officer do?

The First Officer receives stunned, amazed, blessed, joyous, play-by-play texts when Baby Mayes arrives.

The First Officer gets to share meals with Baby DeGroot and Big Boy Ostapowich.

The First Officer gets the privilege of being one of the first people to receive updates and pictures of Baby Leckband in China so that she can post said updates and pictures to Mama Leckband’s website for her while international internet access is limited.

Most importantly, the First Officer receives tender empathy at all times, even from across an ocean in the middle of a sleepless night just after Baby Leckband has been put into the arms of her family for the first time:

“I know there is joy and pain for you personally on this day. Know this, dear sister, you are loved for who you are TODAY. Your worth is found in the shadow of the One who has borne all of our suffering. His gifts are yours each and every day, despite your earthly pains and sorrows. You. Are. Loved!” 

Does it hurt? Not as much as it could, thanks to the compassionate generosity of my fellow hosts who never leave me out but put me right in the middle of the celebration.

I am one blessed, barren woman.

Salute,

First Officer Schuermann

Compelling Distress

“But where there is to be a true prayer, there must be seriousness. People must feel their distress, and such distress presses them and compels them to call and cry out. Then prayer will be made willingly, as it ought to be. People will need no teaching about how to prepare for it and to reach the proper devotion. But the distress that ought to concern most (both for ourselves and everyone), you will find abundantly set forth in the Lord’s Prayer. Therefore, this prayer also serves as a reminder, so that we meditate on it and lay it to heart and do not fail to pray. For we all have enough things that we lack. The great problem is that we do not feel or recognize this. Therefore, God also requires that you weep and ask for such needs and wants, not because He does not know about them [Matthew 6:8], but so that you may kindle your heart to stronger and greater desires and make wide and open your cloak to receive much [Psalm 10:17].” Martin Luther, The Large Catechism, III: 26-27.*

* Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (ed. Paul Timothy McCain; St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2005), 411.

Godspeed, Kristi!

Let us pray…

“Gracious and merciful God…Bless Kristi’s going out and her coming in. In Your name she begins her journey to her daughter; let Kristi accomplish it with You as her constant companion. Let the host of angels surround and guard her like Jacob. Let Your angel stand by her in every danger as he stood by St. Paul. Let the company of Your angels travel with her going and coming, as with Joseph and Mary when they fled to Egypt with the young child Jesus, that she may remain safe from all misfortune, from thieves, murderers, and any other injury. O keeper of Israel, You never slumber or sleep; be a wall of fire around Kristi and her family by day and by night, as You were to Elisha, that no misfortune or disaster come near them. Accompany them all along their path with Your angels’ watch, as You guided the children of Israel through the desert with a pillar of cloud and of fire. Be their companion when they are traveling. Stay with them when they rest. Watch for them while they are sleeping. Yes, Lord, take care of them wherever they go and let them be commended to Your holy protection. Amen”*

* Revised from Starck’s Prayer Book, 362-3.

A “Yes” Answer

YES!Long ago in catechism class, I learned that God answers prayers. He does so in several ways; He can answer YES, NO, and WAIT. As a kid, any time my parents told me to WAIT, I was disappointed. As an adult, I still don’t like to hear the word WAIT. It took my struggles and suffering as an adult to finally understand that God may say WAIT because that is what is best for me.

The Lord has been working on my hard, sin-filled heart continuously since my Baptism. I sin when I reject His Words and His gifts, but I also repent of those sins. It’s such a paradox of the human mind and spirit. I pray to the Lord and ask Him for the desires of my heart. His answers are still YES, NO, and WAIT.

With joy I receive all of His gifts, even if they don’t come when I want them. Today, though, I am preparing to receive a gift for which I have long prayed: a child. The Lord has told me to WAIT for several years, and I have struggled to accept that answer. The Lord has used this time to strengthen and uphold me, to encourage me, to mold me into His child. I have fought Him time and again; I have rejected His gifts. I have rejected the people He has placed around me to share God’s Word with me. I have learned that I don’t have to suffer alone. God has given me so many good gifts, and I am still learning to receive them with thanksgiving.

Now God tells me, “YES – I am blessing you with a child, who will come to you through the gift of adoption.” Why? Did I finally meet His expectations for perfection? No; I still sin daily. Did I finally pray hard enough? No, I haven’t been faithful in prayer. Have I finally suffered enough? My suffering is nothing compared to the suffering of God’s Son Jesus. This child is a gift… from God! I don’t deserve a child; I’m not entitled to such a blessing. Yet He gives this child to our family purely by His grace. There is no merit or worthiness in me. None.

God, in His mercy, has said YES! And when God says YES, I will receive this child with joy!

Abortion: The “More Right” Thing to Do?
abortionrallyQuestion submitted: In a recent conversation with a single friend of mine, she mentioned that if she ever got pregnant she would just have an abortion. I told her that I was pro-life and reminded her that she would have other options, like putting the child up for adoption, if she felt she would not be able to take on the responsibility of being a parent. She went on to say that kids who are adopted often have issues because they do not live with their biological parents, so getting an abortion would be the “more right” thing to do. How would you respond to this?

I’d grab this girl by the shoulders and shout in her face, “What are you thinking?!?! Do you hear what you’re saying?” Well, that’s what I would like to do anyway. What I should do is start asking questions. Stand to Reason is an organization that provides a great training in how to engage in these conversations by asking specific questions. It’s called Making Abortion Unthinkable, and it is something I encourage all Christians to look at.

First, find out what your friend thinks “the unborn” really is. The state of South Dakota has regulations in place that require abortion doctors to share with their patients that an abortion will “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being,” (NPR story from Jan. 22). This is a FACT supported by scientific evidence. People who consider abortion should have to wrestle with this.

Second, ask your friend what should happen to a two-year-old whose parents die tragically. Would it be better to kill the two-year-old, too, than have him be adopted or raised by people who weren’t his biological parents? This would be absurd, of course. But by using these kinds of examples it forces people to realize that the unborn are children, too, they’re just smaller than a two-year-old. The Making Abortion Unthinkable curriculum calls this method “trotting out the toddler.” It’s a very effective argument.

The goal of having an ongoing conversation with this friend would be to help her see the following logic and come to agree with it:

1.  It’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings (e.g. the two-year-old).

2. Abortion intentionally kills innocent human beings (e.g. scientific evidence).

3. Therefore, abortion is wrong.

Abortion is not right, or even “more right.” It is not merciful or a better option. Stories of troublesome adoptees are about as much justification for abortion as stories of troublesome biological kids (which, I would argue, are equally present in our gossip circles). People believe whatever will ease their consciences, no matter how unfounded the story might be. When abortion is used as a form of contraception, as this woman describes it, she must find a “good” reason to justify it because her conscience needs her to.  I suppose you can be grateful that her conscience is still active, it’s just incredibly misinformed. Perhaps you’re in a place to help remedy that. Pray for guidance and courage from the Holy Spirit to love this friend, keep talking to her, and help expose the lies that she is believing.

(Another great resource for preparing for abortion debates is Peter Kreeft’s The Unaborted Socrates: A Dramatic Debate on the Issues Surrounding Abortion.)

Family Ties

Can you see the similarities? Those tell-tale,

family resemblances between an aunt and her niece?

IMG_1217

No? Look harder.

IMG_1217

Ah, yes.

They have the same smile;

the same eagerness to hug;

the same love of books and trees and the outdoors;

the same ability to turn Barbies into heroines;

the same preference for berries over candy;

the same irritation with Veronica Salt and Edmund Pevensie;

the same tendency to be a little too honest and blunt;

the same adoration of a certain Uncle Michael;

the same Baptismal markings of redemption on their foreheads and on their hearts;

and the same confession on their lips of Christ crucified for sinners.

They may have been born on different continents, but have no doubt. They are family, and their ties run deeper than flesh and blood.

Have you and your husband considered adoption?

A Bit of Joy

Smiling CashierAs I was paying for some travel items in the store last week, the clerk asked where we were going on our trip. I replied that we were traveling to China to receive our little girl. The clerk’s face lit up. “Oh,” she squealed, “do you have a picture of her with you?” Slightly shocked, I pulled our little girl’s picture out of my purse. The clerk beamed as she looked at the picture and said, “What a sweet little girl! You be sure to bring her into the store so we can meet her, okay?” I grinned and thanked her for the congratulations.

I was caught off-guard because I’ve been reluctant to share our adoption journey with others. The process of international adoption has become so lengthy for us that every conversation surrounding adoption brought me pain. So it’s nice to receive a bit of joy, even from strangers. The clerk certainly understood the blessing of a child, even if she didn’t come right out and say so.