My Hope is Built On Nothing Less...

...than Jesus and His righteousness.


NOTHING has me on my knees more than adoption-issues. Not even my diabetes, which is a 24/7 task and disease and cloud and blessing, has me communicating with God more than adoption.

Adoption is, in a single word, complicated.

There's no "how to" manual, no guarantees, no maps, no simple answers, no smooth paths.

I surround myself, voluntarily, with adoption. I participate in an online adoption forum, I read fellow adoptive mama blogs, I run an adoptive moms group, I read adoption books. On a more personal level, I have this blog, we have an open relationship with Miss E's biological mother, and we have close friends who are adoptive parents.

And not one story is flawless. I guess the flaws are also the beauty of many situations----because without them, we wouldn't have our precious children.

For a person like myself who likes control, adoption completely turns our worlds upside down. There is nothing in adoption we can really control, even though it's our choice what we are and are not open to, what we put in our profile books, what promises we make to our children's biological parents, etc., it's not our choice how it turns out. Not really. Because there's so much we can't control----when and if we are chosen to be parents and to which child, how the relationship with evolve with our child's biological parents, what questions will crop up, which answers we will not have.

My hope is built on nothing less, truly, than on God. He is the only rock in an unreliable, unsteady, and uncertain process called adoption.

I got the BEST advice from a fellow adoptive mama one day. I called her about Miss R, a little girl I had "met" online and was itching to adopt. My friend said, "Just pray your way through every step, and you'll be fine."

I realized I hadn't done that, and when I stopped to ask God what He wanted for our family, I knew Miss R wasn't our child. GULP. I should have known. Well, I think I did know, really, but I was ignoring that still, small, patient voice that said, "Nope."

Some days I envision my life full of brown bundles of joy. I'm the crazy mom with the huge van full of car seats. People stop in awe at our big, transracial, beautiful family.

But in reality, I'm not built for it. I just don't think so. I'm too controlling, to structured, too happy with having lots of ME time, to surrender to many children. I'm not sure I'd be happy with a large family, and I strongly believe an unhappy mom equals an unhappy family. Although adoption is addicting, and the thrill of a possibility evokes my mama-heartstrings, I know that the reality is that raising even just one child is a daunting task.

I'm open to the fact that God might drop a child into our lives we weren't expecting or anticipating. I'm open to the fact that some day I might look back at this blog entry and laugh at myself. I'm open to the fact that even though it's fun to imagine a big brown family, God might have something else in mind.

Knowing that there's such a strong need for adoptive families to accept children of all races, particularly black children, is always in the back of my mind. ALWAYS. While I cuddle my one child, a round little girl with brownie-batter skin and a charming personality, I am always aware that there are others who need someone like me---a mommy who is ready to plop another child on her lap and into her arms.

I'm not sure I'll ever stop wondering, imagining, searching. An open mind and heart is a powerful thing. But I know that I MUST put my full trust in God and pray my way through every single day if I'm to be the best mommy I can be.

And it's dawned on me just today that perhaps my job isn't to swoop in and adopt brown baby after brown baby, but rather to begin seriously educating and reaching out to other adoptive families and talking to them about their openness to children of color. Maybe instead of trying to reprogram myself, I need to take what I've been taught, through experience, and share that with others.

I guess that's what this blog is about.