The Benefit of Adoption
2 Corinthians 4:15 "All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God."
"For your benefit." "Grace reaching more and more people." "Cause thanksgiving to overflow." We discover this is to increase God's glory. Paul is speaking about belief and outward expression of that faith in context of the resurrection of Jesus and the believer's future resurrection which ushers us into the presence of Christ. My experience is that the Word is not limited to one context, so today, let us apply this verse to life in general as well as to the adoption journey.
God has bestowed numerous privileges upon us, too many benefits to be contained in thousands of volumes of thousands of books. We are the children of an Everlasting Father. His favor rests on us to accomplish the work of adoption and parenting. He is our light, our truth, our way. He is our help. He is our sustainer. He builds the house, your family and mine, in perfect wisdom and love.
Speaking of building the house, I thought our family might be complete after Joy was born in 2008, yet I try to prepare myself for God's plans taking a different route than mine. And so it happened through a phone call to a friend, Tiffany, whose two Russian-born children are adopted through Buckner. Upon calling, I learned that her daughter had just enjoyed a visit from three friends from her orphanage who were being hosted through Buckner's Angels from Abroad program. I asked how many children returned to Russia without referrals. She replied that seven boys of the fifteen children were without families, and my heart sank! How could they go back to life in the orphanage after they had experienced life in a Christian family? I cried out through the Holy Spirit, "Please pray that Stoney would be open to one!" My husband, Stoney, was wide open and so we spent two weeks seeking the Lord about this decision. What followed was eleven months of paperwork, waiting, travel, meeting our new son, paperwork, waiting and more travel.
"All this is for your benefit, " is my personal experience through the adoption process. The difficult times have grown us into His likeness by teaching us patience and perseverance, plus we have seen more of His majesty as God opened doors and paved ways that could only be from Him. New relationships are another benefit. Forever friends have been formed with other adoptive families, missionaries, Buckner staff, and translators met abroad and at home. These relationships are a great support and sweet fellowship. Another benefit is the homecoming and celebration of our new son, Nikita, and our relationship with him. Such a blessing is he to our family! His siblings adore their new brother, and he is bonding well with them. He is a role model of courage and helpfulness. He is taking on household chores. He fixes things around the house. He is happy, funny, and affectionate. Strange, we added a fourth child but the load seems lighter. Crazy to think this adoption was for our benefit. His ways are higher than our ways and there are benefits to giving. After all Jesus said, "It is better to give than to receive."
"His grace may reach more and more people." It is amazing how many people this one adoption has touched. A check out girl at Old Navy teared when I told her the purchase was for our son in Russia. Strangers at the baseball park listened to our story and offered their prayers as we waited for travel. A Muslim man from Kuwait in flight to St. Petersburg commended me, a Christian, for this deed. Doctors, nurses, and medical administrators in the U.S. and Russia were faced with His grace as they completed exams or paperwork. Probably a hundred more in grocery stores, parks, banks, planes, trains, and more were turned toward His grace as they listened to our story or observed us walking through the adoption.
Adoption causes "thanksgiving to overflow." From the orphanage staff in St. Petersburg to the Buckner staff in Texas, from Russian city and court officials to U.S. immigration officers, from Nikita to his mother and father, from the angels to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there is an overflow of thanksgiving.
If you are considering adoption will you step out in faith and taste the benefits? If you have adopted, will you speak in faith of the benefits? If you accept the call in James 1:27, to care for the orphans, God has promised His grace will reach more and more people, thanksgiving will overflow and He will be glorified!
Elizabeth Thomas, along with her husband, Stoney, are parents of 4 children: a son and a daughter, ages 7 and 3, are biological, a daughter, age 14, was received at age 7, from Texas foster care, and a son, age 11 , was adopted internationally through Buckner, August of 2011.