Together for Adoption

this weekend brian and i had the awesome opportunity to attend the Together for Adoption conference held here in franklin, tn. it was really incredible to be around hundreds of people with the same heart for unwanted and unloved children.

although some parts were better than others there was no doubt that God was speaking to everyone. all weekend i felt God confirming over and over and over again that we are exactly where we need to be. all weekend (and ever since last summer) my thoughts towards adoption have been "why wouldn't we?" i know every journey is different. brian and i are starting our family with adoption. we plan to have both biological and adoptive children which i don't really know anyone off the top of my head in our same position. i know the general thought is that people who adopt either are done having biological children or they cannot have biological children of their own. well as this weekend continued to confirm to me is that we can't wait around for it to be "convenient" to adopt. why not now?

most of the weekend was focused on adoption. adoption of orphans but more importantly our adoption in Christ. we talked a lot about the body of Christ moving on behalf of orphans. and i'll be honest. it often angers me how little the church does for orphans. now, don't get me wrong. there are TONS of churches that do A LOT for orphans. our own body has an orphan ministry. but still it doesn't seem to be enough considering there are 147 MILLION orphans around the world. but the last speaker of the weekend said something that really caught my attention: we, the body of Christ, have to love each other first. so very true. how often will we reject the person who doesn't look like us, sound like us, walk like us, or whatever reason we decide to judge them on? loving and adopting orphans shouldn't be something we do, it should be something we are. like brian and i say all the time "why wouldn't we?"

God continues to move and we are so excited and blessed to be on this journey. it warmed my heart to see so many other adoptive families. but more importantly, transracial adoptive families. i can't wait for that call when God says it's time to meet our son. our daughter. our children. they're out there and my heart longs for them.