"I Formed You..."

Backlog #2

September 11, 2012

There are things about anticipating adoption that are very different from the thoughts and feelings you would expect when anticipating a birth of a biological child.  I have never been pregnant, but it's easier to sympathize with and understand that kind of anticipation because most people have experienced that and most of those have written or at least talked about it.  Here is an obvious difference: with birth, you generally have about nine months to prepare, question, worry, get excited, etc.  Unless the baby is born early, you pretty much know when to expect him or her.  With adoption, you could be looking at a couple of months or a couple of years.  This is just one difference.  There are many.

What I've been thinking about lately is that in addition to the ways adoption is different, DSS adoption is even different than other ways of adopting.  Recently, I was in our infant room at work where a co-worker has beautifully decorated a canvas with words from the Bible, in Jeremiah 1:5, which says, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you..."  I've seen and even thought about that verse many times; but that day I was seeing it in a new light.  I know many parents think about their newly forming baby and hear those words.  God destined this child to be.  He took a bit of you and a bit of another person and intentionally created a new person for whom He has a plan.  Sometimes God's plan involves someone else raising that child.  I recently watched a couple of episodes of a new show called, "I'm Having Their Baby."  It's a heart-wrenching reality show about moms who decide, for various reasons, that their child would have a better life if someone else raised them.  I encourage everyone to watch at least one episode of that show (but be forewarned - you will need tissues).  It gives a very candid picture of the agonizing choice some women make to hand over their babies to another person.  So, back to the verse... sometimes God says, "Before I formed you in the womb [of one woman], I knew you [and directed her to know that I needed you to be raised by another]"  But in the case of DSS adoptions, it isn't the loving choice of a mother that has caused the need for adoption.  In these cases, the child has been forcibly removed from a dangerous or otherwise unfit home.  So as I am praying for the child God will entrust to us (who may or may not already be born) I realize that it is a sinful world that will cause me to be able to be a parent.  My child is most likely going to be in harm's way before coming to me.  Maybe he or she is being hurt right now.  And as hard as it is to fathom, that is also God's plan.  "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you... [I knew that you were going to be born into unsafe or even toxic conditions.  I knew you were going to have to be uprooted.  I have also made a way for you to be safe, but it won't be easy]."  How do I pray for this child?