How To Adopt Without Ruining Your FamilySample

Tip #2 - You’d Better ALL Be All In

Jesus tells a parable to underscore the importance of counting the cost before embarking upon a building project (Luke 14:28-29). What a tragedy if the builder were to begin and not be able to finish because he had not projected the cost of building! What about the labor required? Or how taxing would the project be on him personally?

What ambition! Jesus finds no fault in the pursuit. But tower-building is not something one attempts haphazardly. Building a tower is not a work for the faint at heart or for the careless contractor. This is what makes it such a powerful comparison with discipleship to Christ. Jesus calls those who might follow Him to consider the cost.

Sometimes following Jesus leads you straight into the path of adoption.

Counting the cost in terms of adoption requires the disciple of Christ to recognize that children without families are not perfect children who simply need a family. They arrive with baggage. Ugly stuff. You will not be starting with a clean slate or at Ground Zero. You will be climbing up to Ground Zero for a really long time. In fact, the bonding alone can be as taxing as building a twelve-foot tower with toothpicks and a glue stick. It is an all-embracing venture. It will be challenging emotionally, physically, and spiritually. You must be together on this one.

Allow me to offer you the same encouragement offered us. Contemplating whether or not to adopt a sibling set of four, our agency connected us with another family with similar circumstances. After asking several nitty-gritty questions and listening to how they were able to manage life amidst the chaos big families create, the father’s best advice to me was this: Don’t do it.

It wasn’t bitterness talking, just a voice of admonition. “Sister, unless you understand and are willing to do what it takes, just don’t.” He knew firsthand the irrational actions associated with trauma, the added stress and responsibilities to come, as well as what we would be giving up. His best advice sounds harsh until we realize Jesus offers the same hardball approach (Luke 14:33) at the end of that discourse on tower-building and cost-counting about following Him.

Considering adoption? Wait for His timing to lead you together.

Currently in adoption? Talking often and praying together can be most effective for landing you on the same page.