Love You More, An Adoption Story

This post originally appeared on Natasha Sistrunk Robinson's blog, A Sista's Journey, and features Jennifer Grant's Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter:

Hi Friends,

November is National Adoption Month and I did not want the month to pass without discussing the topic here. I love the thought of adoption. I love that as a result of Christ’s shed blood on the cross, I have been adopted into God’s kingdom. My adoption provides me with a new family and has opened a whole new world of possibilities.

One of those possibilities is the reality of now writing for God’s glory. As a result of writing, I have been able to connect with other Christian women who are passionately sharing the love of Jesus through writing and living. Thanks, Redbuds! I was excited to hear about fellow Redbud, Jennifer Grant’s adoption story and wanted to share it with you.

Eight years ago, Jennifer Grant and her husband David adopted a daughter. Mia is their fourth child, and first by adoption. Grant’s memoir, Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter details the journey Grant and her family went through as they adopted Mia. It’s a story about faith, family, and the ties that bind. To connect with Grant and other people whose lives have been touched by adoption, visit her Facebook page.

Today, Jennifer has graciously shared an excerpt from her book and has provided one for me to give away to one of you. For consideration, all you have to do is comment and share your thoughts about adoption (on the original blog post). A winner will be announced next week.

Adopting Mia opened the world up to me in new ways. I look at my little girl, with her sophisticated (and sometimes extremely silly) sense of humor, her love of the natural world and her talent for making beautiful pastel drawings. I see her sweetness and the light she brings to those around her.

She began as a “waiting child” in Guatemala, but if she is of such infinite value, what about other children born to other very poor mothers around the world? Half of the world’s children are born into poverty. There are an estimated 150-170 million orphans globally who live without parental care, are warehoused in orphanages, live on the streets or in child-headed households. Their potential is unseen, like a paper sack of daffodil bulbs, hidden behind a watering can in the garage, shriveling in the dark.

These children starve to death. They die of preventable diseases. They are abused and exploited in unimaginable ways. There is a global orphan crisis; it is a pandemic.

Do I have any responsibility to these children, even though (as was the case with my Mia) I did not bring them into the world? Are they, in some mystical way, my family too? After adopting my daughter, I have come to think they are. Actually, as a mother, a person of faith and someone who has had the privilege – and, concurrently, been given the burden – of visiting some of the world’s poorest places, I am sure of it.

Since my daughter’s homecoming seven years ago, I have begun to wonder whether God has an additional purpose in bringing families together by adoption. Whether parents welcome a child who was born twenty miles from their home or was born half a world away, adoption changes the way adoptive parents look at underprivileged people. Some of us no longer view drug-addicted women who, after giving birth, leave their newborn babies at Safe Havens such as hospitals and police stations as second-class citizens or pariahs. How can we not cherish them? They are our children’s birthmothers. 

For the first time, now that we are family, we might feel a desire to explore ways to bring healing, education and dignity to these women. Indigenous women weaving colorful fabrics in Latin America and living in poverty are no longer curiosities pictured in National Geographic magazine, but our children’s first mothers. How can we, who now know their strength and stories, fail to help them rise up out of the poverty that forces them into a desperate place, a place where they must relinquish their babies?

Is adoption – whether domestic or international – a means by which God opens our eyes to the needs of the world and calls us to love others more?

See Also:

Someone Else's Children
The Colors of Us
Transracial Adoption

Adoption: Human and Divine

Please welcome guest blogger, Sherie Mungo. She begins a two-part series exploring her experiences with adoption. 

When speaking to the Ephesian church about the blessings of being redeemed, Paul wrote that God the father “predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will.” I think that this verse paints a powerful image for the body of Christ: God plans to adopt us back from the grip of the Kingdom of darkness because it gives Him good pleasure.

I feel doubly blessed by this favor since I have been adopted by both humans and the Divine. While I do not presume to say that these two are one and the same, I do think human adoption serves as a powerful metaphor for what God does for His children.

I experienced just how powerful adoption is on November 1st, 1990, when my parents Stephanie and Derek Mungo graciously took me in as their own child. I was three years old, a product of biological parents addicted to crack cocaine with criminal records. My age alone could have been a deterrent for my parents, but coupled with my lingering issues from being a crack baby made me a walking adoption nightmare. They were told that I would need to have special education services and that physical activities would always be a problem for me. 

Despite these inhibiting factors, my parents had an unfaltering faith that I was their child, and even more importantly I was God’s child. This faith gave them the courage to defy the words of man spoken over my life and provide me with hope for my future. Needless to say, twenty two years later I am a graduate level student who has enjoyed a good amount of physical activity (maybe not lately, but I digress). The point is, my parents’ faith helped me to transcend the negative circumstances that I was born into.

So, how does my story speak to race in addition to adoption? When I first started thinking about posting, I struggled to make this connection. I mean, I am a Black woman who was adopted by Black parents; what’s so special about that? Then I remembered two events in my life: 1) my first experience with racism and 2) being asked whether or not my parents were Black.

I do not plan to go into the racist event in detail. Suffice it to say that it was a painful coming of age experience that many POC’s have to go through. I do however want to focus on my parents’ apt reaction to my pain and confusion. As they had experienced similar injustices, my Black parents understood my feelings exactly. They knew the hurt and bitterness that could result from that moment you realize your skin color is cause for mistreatment. My parents responded to my angst with a balance of incisive Black consciousness and Christian grace.

They explained that while racism would unfortunately be an external part of my life, I shouldn’t let that color my view of self worth and value. They also explained while I shouldn’t go looking for racism, I needed to be prepared for its manifestations. Perhaps more importantly, bitterness and non forgiveness were strongly discouraged by my parents. Despite the injustice of prejudice, I had to forgive the perpetrator for their sin of racism just as Christ had forgiven me.

Would my parents have been able to handle this situation with such adroitness if they were not Black? 

In my next post, I explore this question into greater depth. Continue reading...

National Adoption Day

Happy National Adoption Day!

"Today is a day of celebration of adoptive families and an opportunity for courts to open their doors and finalize the adoptions of children from foster care. Since 2000, more than 35,000 children have had their adoptions finalized on National Adoption Day. This year on November 19, families, adoption advocates, policymakers, judges and volunteers will come together and celebrate adoption in communities large and small all across the nation."


Follow events and announcements all day with @natadoptionday

Also find events in your area to celebrate!

See Also:
Transracial Adoption
Someone Else's Children
Abortion and Condemnation
The Colors of Us

Friday Round Up (11/18/11)

On Fridays, we post a round up of the week's happenings.

Feel free to contribute your own links in the comments section, or submit items you feel should be included during the week. Self-promotion is encouraged. 

Weekly Round Up:

• Reconciliation & Justice Daily: Follow for all the latest via @llhargrove!

• Racism, Moral Law and the Penn State Abuse Scandal

• Jay Smooth: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Discussing Race

• Paramilitary attack on Occupy Wall Street: An Eye Witness Account

• Majority of White Evangelicals Oppose Cutting Federal Programs that help the Poor

• All This: an intriguing forum for 10-minute exchanges of time

These are some of our favorite links this week. What are yours?

See Also:
Someone Else's Children
Abortion and Condemnation
The Colors of Us

Someone Else’s Children

Please welcome guest blogger, Linda Leigh Hargrove, writer, speaker, and adoptive mother. She blogs about biblical racial reconciliation at 17Seeds.org. Read more about her books at LLHargrove.com.

My husband and I have three adopted children. Three boys. They call each other brothers of another mother. They’re cool with that and so am I. Unfortunately, precious few Christian African American women would agree with my views on adoption.

As a young, married woman 19 years ago, I didn’t have a positive attitude about adoption. Frankly, adoption was the furthest thing from my mind. Both my husband and I were in school full time, working like Hebrew slaves on advanced engineering degrees. Between the two of us we made $18,000 a year in stipends. I thank God for those years (and for that small vegetable patch). Those lean times taught me how to wait on God.

Growing up in the swamplands of North Carolina, I played with trucks and climbed trees. Doll babies and tea sets were never on my gift wish list. After a few years of marriage that changed. It happened one sunny afternoon while I babysat for a college friend. That precious little toddler stole my heart with her sparkling brown eyes and chubby hands. When her mother picked her up two hours later, our one-bedroom apartment never felt so empty.

I soon graduated and tried to replace the longing for a child with a full-time job, volunteering at an urban ministry, church involvement, and writing. But the longing persisted. My husband was still in grad school but he agreed that it was time to start a family. That was 1995; I was 29. One and a half years later and no baby, I hit a wall. I started each day in tears, crying in the darkness of my walk-in closet before work. The crying lasted for most of 1997. On the outside I was doing good things in my church and community racial reconciliation ministry. I was a faithful wife. I was a productive engineer.

On the inside, I was dying. Longing for a child.

At church, someone suggested we consider adoption. I was tired of all the doctor’s visits, the treatments, basal thermometers, and the prayers to God. I wanted relief. I wanted to feel good again, to feel God again. Adoption seemed like a good option.

We did our research. We talked with counselors and social workers. We talked with our friends and parents. We prayed and fasted. We had so many questions about the process, the costs, but especially the kids. What if they’re not black (or black enough), what if they’re retarded, what if they’re violent, what if they’re crack babies?

God answered all those questions with peace. As Psalm 34:4 says: I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.

Along the way my husband and I have met some really wonderful adoptive parents. One couple, Becky and Joe, became part of our family. Our first meeting, though, was a tough one. It was on a Saturday morning in 1997, the year I was struggling with the specter of infertility. As long-time volunteers in an urban ministry, my husband and I were attending a racial reconciliation training conference.

The conference had my full attention until I spotted a white woman holding a beautiful dark-skinned baby across the room. Out of my fragile heart I thought: How could she have my baby! Before long I was wiping tears from my face, crying over the baby my husband and I could have adopted. If we only had money like that white woman.

That white woman was Becky. We were introduced later that day. To my surprise, she was the baby’s foster mother. She and Joe had committed themselves to care and advocate for children ‘caught in the system’. Over the 15 plus years they were foster parents, Joe and Becky fostered more than thirty children--mostly African American and biracial infants.

This older white Christian couple from the Mid-West lived out the ministry of reconciliation described in the Bible. They showed me what sensitivity meant when they learned to properly care for the hair and skin of the little black children under their roof. They demonstrated empowerment and interdependence to me when they intentionality included African American mentors in their lives.

And later, when they adopted two of the brown-skinned children, I supported them, knowing that their heart was centered on seeking God’s will. They didn’t act out of pity for the poor. Their hearts were not shaded with the rosiness of ‘Love is enough’ and ‘There is no color in God.' It is inspiring to see how my two white Christian sister and brother lean on Jesus to help them navigate the treacherous waters of raising black children in America.

Bottom line: Adopting is not an easy fix. For me, becoming the mom of three brothers of other mothers was very difficult. In fact, in the beginning it was like pulling a scab from a wound I thought had healed. But today I have three boys. Not three rejects or three unwanted children. I have three sons. Some people call them someone else’s children. I call them mine.

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Linda Leigh Hargrove is a writer, speaker, and adoptive mother. Her novels include The Making of Isaac Hunt (2007) and Loving Cee Cee Johnson (2008)--both published through Moody Publishers/Lift Every Voice Imprint. She blogs about biblical racial reconciliation at 17Seeds.org. Read more about her books at LLHargrove.com.

See Also:
Transracial Adoption
Colors of Us 
Adoption: Human and Divine