Adoption: What Can I Do to Help?

Last summer I had the joy of talking with Katie for her Happy Playces Podcast. We started out talking busy schedules, sports, and our faith. But moved onto adoption, parenting, grief, tough love, grace, and embracing the broken pieces of our lives as God puts it together in a brand new way.

Adoption is of course near and dear to my heart. I write about it often here in this space. November is National Adoption Month. It’s a month to which I can’t help but bring attention because God has engraved on our hearts forever the plight of the orphan.  I thought it a fitting time to share the podcast. Katie pulled out pieces of the story that lead up to adoption, but also to the grief and surrendering after coming home. Adoption is beautiful. What God does in our hearts and lives through adoption is the miraculous. Getting there is far from easy, but then again …

The greatest depths of beauty rise from ashes, not from the comfort and convenience of ease.

This month would you make an intentional choice to pray specifically for not only the orphan, but for what role God is asking you to play in the cause of the orphan?

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.” -James 1:27

The Orphan Crisis – How Can I Help?

Pray or the Orphan

• For families to rise up around these children.
• That they experience Jesus and embrace His unfailing love.
• No matter the depth of the rejection, betrayal, neglect, or abuse these children have suffered, they open their hearts to love and trust.
• Their lives are transformed.
• The dysfunction and brokenness of generations stops with them.
• They defy the odds.
• For healed minds, hearts, and souls.

Determine Your Role

• Prayer.
• Tangible day-to-day support of another family currently fostering or adopting.
• Financial support through organizations coming around children and families.
• Volunteering in a local foster program, church, or community. Something as simple as giving up a few hours of your month to provide childcare while parents attend a support group helps significantly! There are so many needs and an equal amount of volunteer options!
• Mentoring a foster child.
• Fostering.
• Adopting.

Places to Get More Information and Ways to Make a Difference

• National Adoption Month/Child Welfare Department/Adopt US Kids
• All God’s Children International (our adoption agency)
• National Adoption Day (November 18th)
• 43 Ways Everyone Can Celebrate National Adoption Month
• Reece’s Rainbow (advocates and finds families for orphans with Down syndrome and other special needs)
• Christian Family Care (a local Arizona agency)

Scriptures Referencing God’s Desire for us to Care for the Orphan

• “Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, “Give them up!” and to the south, “Do not hold them back.” Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth”  Isaiah 43:5-6
•  “A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.  God sets the lonely in families.  (Psalms 68:5-6)
•  “He defends the cause of the fatherless”  (Deuteronomy 10:18)
•  “In you the fatherless find mercy.” (Hosea 14:4)
•  “You are the helpers of the fatherless.” (Psalm 10:14)
•  “It is not the will of your Father that one of these little ones should perish.” (Matthew 18:14)
•  “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.” (James 1:27)
•  “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” (John 14:18)
•  “Whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.” (Matthew 18:5)
•  “Remember those…who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” (Hebrews 13:3)
•  “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us…let us not love with word or tongue, but with action and in truth.” (I John 3:16-18)
•  “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.” (Matthew 25:35)
•  “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves…defend the rights of the needy.” (Proverbs 31:8,9)

Some of the Most Popular Links to Our Family Adoption Story

• Thankful for the Miracle of Adoption
• Am I Strong Enough?
• When http://www.mindanews.com/buy-inderal/ Your Future Seems Unsure
• Our Adoption Story and the God Who Saves
• 5 things Adoption Taught Me About Fighting Fiercely
• When You Aren’t the Mom You Wanted to Be
• A God-Sized Hope to Conquer the Storm
• When You Need the Words to Pray Against Your Child’s Fear

By the way, if you love podcasts (like I do!) stop by and visit Katie! Her joy is infectious and her insight filled with much wisdom! You can find her HERE on her blog or on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!

In the midst of every tragedy, God moves to create a good. A Bible verse I hold tight to is, “Even though you planned evil against me, God planned good to come out of it. This was to keep many people alive, as he is doing now.” (Genesis 50:20 GW) . Adoption begins in the broken. Every adoption story bears grief. Yet in the midst of what the enemy means for harm, God steps in to make a good. A beautiful powerful good.

And He does it everywhere we look.

As you know, our world has recently been rocked by natural disaster after natural disaster. It seemed that as each disaster pummeled another part of our world and we saw image after image of destitution and pain, that “good” was no where to be found. Yet it was there and it began to surface. It was in the people uniting together to help. It was in the people who chose life and refused to give up. God showed up.

This week my blogging buddy and dear friend in real life, Marva Smith of Sun Sparkle Shine shares some of those stories. You see, Marva’s home island of Tortola was struck by Hurricane Irma and again by Maria. What was her place of safety and peace now was no more. Today, Marva grieves all she has lost yet places one foot in front of the other as she goes about the business of rebuilding life and holding onto joy with her family. She says she clings to her faith each moment and knows God is birthing good out of the rubble.

May you, no matter the storm you are facing in your life, cling to God’s Word and know somewhere … somehow … and in some way …

He will make good rise out of the depths of your rubble, too.

My New Book!

Surrendered Hearts: An Adoption Story of Love, Loss, and Learning to Trust is our family’s adoption story. But it’s so much more. It’s how we’ve learned to surrender our will for God’s and how we’ve experienced miracles because of it. My prayer is that as each persona steps out into the unknown, they lean into the strength of Christ and discover something far beyond what they have ever imagined.

Surrendered Hearts: An Adoption Story of Love, Loss, and Learning to Trust

Want more information? The Surrendered Hearts website is HERE! You’ll find the Book Video Trailer and other goodies like shareable images, tweets, and a set of FREE Bonus Resources for the adoptive parent or for anyone needing a little extra encouragement in life!

Want to go straight to Amazon? Then you can click HERE!

The Surrendered Hearts Bracelet

In conjunction with the book, I have partnered with Theresa of  Tees Cherished Finds to create a Surrendered Hearts Bracelet! The message to Live Surrendered means that you are choosing to lay down your fears and live surrendered to the One who makes the impossible possible.  When you choose to Live Surrendered, you are committing to following Jesus where He calls. You are choosing to let go of your way and take hold of His way.  And when you purchase a bracelet for just $15 (look in the right margin), just as when you purchase the book, a portion of the proceeds will go to Lori’s chosen adoption ministries. Just click on the image below. It will take you to the Surrendered Hearts page where you can find out more and make your purchase!

Don’t Miss Out!

If you haven’t signed up yet to receive updates, you can do so right HERE (or fill out the form below).  Subscribing will get you my occasional updates. It also gets you full access to my resource-filled Library of Hope! It has a ton of stuff in it to help you meet life’s challenges head on with the best tool we have – the hope of Christ!