Getting taken in.

All of you in the adoption community know of Stephen Curtis Chapman. For those that don't know him, he's a musician. He and his wife have three biological children and three daughters that were adopted from China. The Chapman family are big adoption advocates. Chapman is also active in church ministry, and engages the church in his adoption work. This video speaks to his feelings about adoption.
It also makes me cry. I thought some of my readers might enjoy seeing it, and so it's here.

There are a lot of people that choose to adopt a child because they believe that they are "saving" a child. I don't know if Chapman believes that or not. I do know that I've never believed that. Tim and I want a family, and we simply came to the conclusion that adopting a child from China was the best way for us to begin building a family. Our motivations are purely selfish. It sometimes makes me uncomfortable when people comment on what a wonderful thing we are doing, and I usually respond with "We just want to build a family". There are no heroes here.

Do I think God "called" me to adoption? Yes and no. I believe in God, but I also believe that a relationship with God is a personal thing that can exist with or without organized religion. I have no desire to get others to believe. I also don't believe that God sends or gives me direct messages. However, I've always known that I could love a child as my own, regardless of whether or not I gave birth to him or her. I also understand the population pressures that some developing countries feel, even if I don't always agree with specific policies that result. The bottom line for me was that there are kids out there without permanent families, and giving birth was not a necessary condition for me to become a mother.

My partnership with Tim turned out to be one that could not easily produce biological children. Did God send me a message to adopt? Definitely not. Have the circumstances of my life been shaped by God such that I ended up pursuing adoption because somehow I knew, possibly because of the grace of God, it was right for me? Perhaps. I don't know.

I do know what it feels like to be lost, to be searching for a place that can rightfully be called home, which is why I named my private blog "Finding Family". And I am happy that we will be able to give Isabella that, and she will be able to give us that. In spite of all my worries about "breaking my baby", I do believe that Tim and I have our stuff together enough that Isabella will grow to know that she always has a safe home. That she always has a family.

There are a lot of things that I ended up "being" or "doing" because they made sense or felt right at the time...I became a wife, I became an economist, I became a professor. But I didn't NEED to be any of these things. The only thing I've ever felt I needed was to be a mother. It's one of the few things I've ever been certain of. So, in the end, Isabella will be saving me.