National Adoption Day

Today is National Adoption Day.  November 21, 2015.  We will celebrate today by giving thanks for the progress that Patrick has made since his surgery.  We are now in a room (semiprivate ugh… but still out of the ICU).  Today he is having his chest tubes and pacemaker wires removed.  Every day he has moved forward faster than we could have ever imagined.  He has also been an AMAZING patient.  He has cooperated with the staff.  He is eating and drinking, and we went for a long walk today around the nursing unit.  I hope we will get to ride around the hospital a little today to change his scenery a little.  There is a pretty cool aquarium downstairs and a few other kid friendly sites to take in. 

While I am thankful for all of this, National Adoption Day saddens me a little too.  I have the rest of my family 1200 miles away and I miss them.  I think Patrick misses them too.  Honestly he seems a little depressed at this point in the process.  Everyone tells me its normal, and I’m sure it is, but that doesn’t make my heart hurt any less. Reflect for a minute on the last year of Patrick’s life.  He was in an orphanage that was not ideal but familiar.  On his 3^rd birthday some strange people come in and take him away from those familiar surroundings.  He loved us from the start, but can you imagine the confusion in his mind?  During the first few months in a new country, with a new language, and a new family he goes to multiple doctors’ visits and gets stuck and poked and put to sleep.  He wakes up with bruises and bandaids that hurt.  Then he gets on another airplane to fly to an unfamiliar place where he has open heart surgery that lasts 13 hours and wakes up with a breathing tube in his throat.  I’m not sure this is what he signed up for.  Yes we know this is all for the best, but he is 3 and all he knows is this really stinks (I wanted to use another word but I thought it was probably inappropriate.) 

See for adoption to happen brokenness has to occur.  For Patrick to join our family he had to lose his first family.  For his heart to be repaired he had to endure some hurt.  Sacrifices have to be made by everyone involved.  So why do it you might ask? Because my family would be incomplete without adoption, and because it is what our Heavenly Father did for us. For us to be adopted into His Holy family and become children of God, brokenness had to happen.  Jesus HAD to die for us to be accepted.  There isn’t another way.  Jesus had to endure unbearable pain so that we could be saved. But He did it willingly and graciously. Remember he asked God to if there was any way to remove this burden from Him, but in the end He knew the Father’s will must be completed and he accepted it. 

So on National Adoption Day I ask that you continue to pray for Patrick’s healing and strength.  Also pray for his precious heart and mind as he tries to comprehend all that has happened to him.  Pray for his brothers and sisters at home as they miss him and long for us all to be together.  And finally pray for those who have adopted or have been adopted.  Pray that God will heal their hearts from the brokenness that they had to endure.  Pray that they would understand why they were abandoned by their first family, and help them to understand that they will never be abandoned by their Heavenly Father.  Pray for those who are adopting.  Find a way to support and encourage them.  Help them to show the love of Christ to those who may never see it otherwise.  And one more finally: Pray for those who are considering adoption for their family.  Pray that they will clearly see the calling of the Holy Spirit, and if led that they will take that step to bring a child home.  A child that has suffered unbearable loss, but who can be restored by the love of a family.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

                                           Ephesians 1:3-10