Unneccessary Families

I wish that adoption was not necessary, I wish that the plight of the fatherless did not weigh so heavily on my heart. What would the world be if no foster or adoptive families were needed? What if parents could care for and love their children despite their circumstances? What if none of my students were living without parents and struggling with their pasts? What if families came along side other struggling families in all countries to allow them to love and raise their children?

I suppose a world like this, would be a world before the fall of man. I suppose that part of the reality is that men are unable (unwilling) to be fathers and women struggle as mothers, the temptations of this world are greater than the temptation to raise and love and grow our children. If the reality is that there are children who do not have parents, if the reality is that mothers and fathers die of aids and genocide and drugs, than we will adopt. We will take the fatherless and provide the most love we can, all the while knowing that love cannot erase the past. I weep for the children whose parents do not love them, whose communities have abandoned them and who hold little hope in themselves or their future.

I know that I talk about adoption and orphans a lot, but that is because I believe, with the every depth of my being, that it is our call as Christ Followers to take up these children and love them and raise them as children of Christ and changers in this world. I will never stop loving, I will never stop grieving, and I will never forget the plight of the fatherless.