Let’s Celebrate Adoption

November is one of my favorite months of the year. I love the fall, I love the anticipation of the holidays, and I absolutely love celebrating adoption. I asked, and you?ve answered: how has adoption changed you?? What has it meant to you?? I can’t thank you enough for your willingness to be so open with your hearts! I love the different perspectives families still in the wait, families getting ready to start their second (or fourth!!) adoption, families just home with their first precious baby. Open adoptions. Trans-racial adoptions. Every story is so beautiful, and I can’t get through any of these responses without crying! 🙂 So, here is the first of this series in the words of the families themselves.

We don’t yet know this child that has already turned our world upside down. We don’t even know when we will get to meet our baby, we hope it is soon! But my goodness has God already used this precious child in such a mighty way! Not a day passes that the five of us don’t think about adoption and what it will mean in our lives when we finally move fromadopting? toadopted ! It has pushed us as a family to really appreciate what family is and how important it is. It’s pushed us as believers to see God’s heart for the weak and lonely. It has pushed us as individuals to consider others need and to see how we are called to be God’s hands, feet and heart for those in need. So even though we haven’t adopted yet, adoption has changed us already.

The Jones Family

Adoption has changed our lives in an amazing and really, all-encompassing way. The process itself was so sanctifying- challenging and hard and beautiful- all at once. Clinging to Christ through it all refined us and prepared our hearts to better love our birth mom, and to celebrate the adoption of our little girl all the more! We know Jesus more intimately as a result of adopting- we see the grace and redemption of hard situations in adoption, just as our own adoption to become sons and daughters of God through Christ’s death and resurrection. Elena’s life is a daily reminder of that beautiful grace, and her life is such a treasure in our home. She is a reminder of God’s faithfulness to us, His care and the fulfillment of so many desires of our hearts. God is a God of adoption, of love and pursuing. He pursues us and our process of adopting Elena was just a small mirror of that pursuit. She is six months old and we are still processing all the ways that this journey has shaped our hearts and lives. We praise God for calling us to this and for blessing us with her life.

Jeremy and Kate

This is in Francesco’s baby bookAdoption is love. The love that led us to you, our baby. The love that your birth mother bestowed upon us. The love we feel for her. The love we all have for you. Such an absolute abundance of love. Adoption is how you came to us. Adoption is your how. It is how we found each other. Adoption is love.

Ali, mom to Francesco

I’m so excited to bring you more stories like this throughout the month! My heart could just explode from all the love.