How very blessed we are

I've had some requests on my other blog for the following blog post about the TRUE cost of adoption. I was only going to post it there, but reading it again made me realize how very blessed we are. It doesn't hurt to get it read by many people. Julie, who wrote the following comments on her blog, had to make her blog private until their adoption is completed. Apparently, a family in process with Ethiopia (not hers) was denied their children (already referred) because of some comments the government officials read on their blog.

However, she has given me permission to quote part of her post on my blog. So here you go...

Thoughts by Julie...
How Much Does Adoption Cost?

...this is the answer that has taken me some time to really formulate in my mind. The question is pretty basic and largely very innocent, but the answer is fundamental to our core beliefs and perhaps not what most people who ask it are expecting to hear.

One of the most frequent questions we get is: "How much does adoption cost?"

Philosophically, the first answer to this question is that adoption, by its very nature, will have cost our child everything. Our child will have suffered more in his short life than we have ever, and, by God's grace, hopefully ever will. Our child, through the lens of three, four or perhaps five years of childhood, will have witnessed the death of his parents; will have perhaps been forced to wander the streets for food and shelter; will perhaps have been taken in by a stranger and then dropped in an orphanage where there is no familiar sound, smell or smile -- he will have experienced the kind of fear that causes you to close your eyes to shut out the desperate world around him. Adoption will have cost him everything.

I've heard several people comment that our child is so "lucky" to be adopted by our family or how "good" we are to be "doing this." I understand the heart of these comments -- and honestly, I think before I really started learning about children who have been orphaned, I probably would have had the same thoughts -- but when we stop to think about it, NO child is lucky to be adopted, because to be adopted one must first be orphaned.

What adoption is, however, is God's hand of love and grace and mercy on a child who, through no fault of their own, has lived in the depths of our fallen world where tragedy and death are realities. Adoption has nothing to do with US and it has everything to do with God. This is not a story of what WE are doing. It is a story of what GOD is doing. God loves this child SO much that He is giving him a second family. For reasons I do not necessarily understand, God has chosen us to be part of HIS plan for HIS child. As a result, God is putting HIS love in our hearts for HIS child. We will love him as our own. But he is not lucky and we are not good. We are, however, both loved beyond measure by our Father in Heaven and we are being used by Him to fulfill His perfect plan for us.

Now, before you get frustrated with me, I understand that most people are asking about our financial cost, however, and the answer to that question is: "a lot." :-)

If you'd like to reach Julie, I think you can get to her here: These Are Days Her blog, as I mentioned, is private, but you can request to read it.