The ability to allow yourself to be loved and love deeply is a gracious gift for God. In that same beautiful gift are a lot of tests that will challenge that love, your relationship, and so much more. I so often have women reach out to me spilling their guts about the call God has placed on their heart for adoption, and then they go on to tell me God has not placed that same call in their husbands heart.
In conversations like these, I can’t help but share our own testimony to God’s timing and vision that played out so perfectly. Not perfectly by my timeline but looking back I get it! The time wasn’t right and this was BIG – I mean, we were about to open our home to a child that we didn’t know, had no earthly connection with, and would soon be the one we would be taking endless amount of selfies with, losing all sleep over, and cleaning up after 100 times a day.
After I share our testimony, I always tell these beautiful women that I see myself in so clearly:
Your marriage has to come first, 100% of the time.
God didn’t place this on your heart as a mistake. Now here is the tricky part: you don’t want to give up on your dream and you want to fight for that, but you also want to not push something on your spouse they aren’t fully ready to commit to doing. Because let me tell you, you want your husband or wife to be fully IN THIS with you when you feel like you are in the trenches, when you are tired of paperwork, when you are trying to find the right wording to write to an expectant mom that is about to look at your profile book, when you get that email that you weren’t chosen, when you get the call that you were.
Adoption can be one of those tests I mentioned above. There will be challenges and struggles that will be only natural to take out on the person you are closest to emotionally and physically, which usually tends to be your spouse, but because I have been there and have already done those things, I am here to warn you to guard and protect your marriage through your adoption journey. The enemy sees the beautiful thing you are doing, he sees how you are being obedient to the Lord, and he feeds on moments of weakness and knows where it will hurt the most: in your marriage.
So when you feel like things are hard (and they will be), I have a few pointers to refer back to:
- Remember the real enemy here (spoiler alert: it isn’t your spouse).
- Refer back to scripture.
- Remember that it will be hard, but Jesus did a really hard thing for us, so we can do these hard things too. He has already given us the strength to get through this.
- Remember the expectant mom and baby whose lives you have the chance to impact in the most Christ-like love way imaginable.
- When you are struggling (and you will), seek refuge in your spouse and in the word. Go there before you seek it anywhere else.
Jesus never gave a command for which he didn’t also supply the grace sufficient for obedience.
I would say the most important thing I can tell you as a married couple as you are about to journey into adoption is the enemy will find a moment when you are tired, overwhelmed, and frustrated. You will look up and you will see your spouse, so take a deep breath, say a quick prayer, and know that your spouse isn’t the real enemy here. Be prepared and protect your marriage from the very beginning with date nights, prayer, diving into scripture, and taking time for yourself to rest as the Lord has commanded us too, even when it seems like you could never find the time.
There is beauty on the other side, friend.
We make it a point to let our kids see us kiss and let them be grossed out because at the end of the day, it means we faced some hard stuff, and with the Lords help, we won.
We always will.
With love,
Casey
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