Adopting vs. “having your own”

Transcript of a short talk by Pierre Queripel

I sometimes hear people say “Why adopt when you can have children of your own?” One of these days I will respond by saying “Why go through morning sickness and child birth when there are other ways to get children of your own?”.

Over the last few years, God has given Donné and me a burning desire to adopt needy children. A number of you have been involved in the decision-making process. Most people we’ve spoken to have been very positive about our plans to adopt. Others have raised concerns, usually out of love for us.

Let me tackle one major misconception about adoption. It is common to make the distinction between adopting and having children ‘of your own’ but I think that the sooner we do away with this false distinction, the better. For one thing, when we talk like this, we alienate children who’ve been adopted.
What we’re saying is that children we adopt are not really ours after all. Sadly, much of society thinks this way.

So, I’m told that amongst African cultures it is commonly believed that the ancestors don’t recognise adopted children as legitimate. Often, these children are not treated as true members of the family. Also, amongst westerners, there is this assumption that adoption should be a last resort if you cannot have children by natural means. Now please do not misunderstand me; having children by birth is a wonderful thing, and of course there is nothing wrong with wanting this. But listen to what someone once told us: “I could never love something, that’s not my own”. She clearly thinks that her own genes are basically different from other people’s genes. She believes that her genes are more valuable than others. That view is not compatible with Christianity. It is Darwinism at its worst.

Let me say that when we adopt a child, he or she will become our real child, just as Bethany is. We will be the real parents. A child that we adopt will be equally loved and he or she will be entitled to an equal inheritance. Our own legal system goes along with this. We will be getting a piece of paper from Pretoria saying that this child we have adopted can now be regarded as our “birth child”. In the eyes of the law, then, adoption overrides biology.

The Bible takes the same view of adoption. Did you know that Jesus was adopted? His father, Joseph, was not a blood relative. Remember that Jesus was born of a virgin. Matthew, in ch1 of his gospel, makes the crucial point that Jesus is a descendant of David. But the way he does this is surprising. He does this by showing that Joseph is descended from David, thereby including Jesus in David’s family tree. Matthew did not think it necessary to point out that Mary too was descended from David. In the eyes of the Bible, adoption overrides biology.

This should come as a great relief to children adopted into a Christian home. It should also come as a great relief to all Christians, since we have been adopted by God. When God adopts us, we do not become his “adopted” children, we become his real children. We are not second class citizens in God’s family. On the contrary, God loves us just as he loves Jesus. What’s more, adoption is not God’s plan B. Ephesians chapter 1 says that God planned to adopt a people before the creation of the world. Adoption is at the heart of what God is doing in the world.

It may be that you are not a Christian. You have not been adopted by God. Why remain outside his family? Speak to someone here who is already part of God’s family, and I am sure they will point you in the right direction.

If you are already adopted by God. May I encourage you to consider showing that same love to one of the million or so orphans in this country. Adopting children is not the best option for everyone – and there are other ways of loving orphans – but may I encourage you to at least consider adoption as one of those options.

Donné and I have set up a website linking to resources that have helped us to think about adoption from a Christian perspective.

Books for Christmas 2009

Hi all,

If you are planning to spend money on Christmas presents this year, buying Christian books is one way of making an eternal investment. Sam, Deane and I thought we’d take the opportunity to suggest considering one or more of these books.

By the way, if a loved one gives you a book called “You Can Change”, please don’t be offended.

Pierre

Are You a Sluggard?

Read Raymond Brown’s challenging talk on Work from the book of Proverbs here.

Anna (a short essay)

By Sarah Groves

We played “Pass the Parcel” in the garden, my sister, my husband and I.  The present
was my 19 month old daughter, Anna, wrapped in pink but turning blue then purple.
She had been sitting on my lap at the lunch table when suddenly she grabbed my
shoulders, shook her head and “hoohoooed”.  Annie is prone to joking. She can rival
Rowan Atkinson for funny faces.  So by the time I was certain that she wasn’t laughing,
she had already stopped breathing.  Eyes white, face like an unconscious Buddha, we
passed her.  Hoping one of us would know what to do.  Hoping one of us knew a
Heimlich manoeuvre that the others hadn’t yet tried.

My husband screamed, “Don’t leave us Annie, don’t leave us.”  As though she was
being thoroughly disobedient. And I thought: “This is what its like when your child dies.
They drop through a hole, suddenly, and then life goes on in a deformed way. “

We broke the game to rush for the car.  Her body hung on my arm.  Dead, I thought.  But
then she was breathing.  And as she sat on me again her eyeballs flickered.  I began to
sing: “Lovely pop a dooo pop, Annie pop a dooo pop.”  While my husband flashed
lights with one hand, hooted with the other and signalled to cars with the third. We
entered the car park like James Bond.  Stand arounders scattered.  I fled down the
hallways and swing doors, delivering Anna up with a burst, to the safe world of green
sheets and white towels.

Their plain faces and slow feet were so reassuring: “A febrile convulsion, high fever,
admit her.”

Now Anna lies in the bed next to me, snoring and muttering, as though nothing has
changed. But I am making all sorts of promises: “I’ll never snap at her again, I’ll stop
rushing and start playing more, I’ll always be grateful for her company.”

I know that in one week scar tissue will have grown over this panic.  And life will resume
on the surface of this dead skin – broken promises and all.  But still, something has
changed. Something there is that wasn’t there before.  Is it that I’ve moved into a new
subset of people?  The ones who realise that the gap between life and death is a turn of
the page, one step, a few seconds.  The grandfather who watched his granddaughter
going blue, arms at his side, remembering his own baby’s last sigh. The grandmother
who came to see me red-eyed.  The father who couldn’t get his 6 year old son to
hospital in time as he laughed and choked on an apple.  The old lady in the emergency
room who gave me a pained thumbs up as I covered Annie’s chest with a wet towel.

“There can be nothing worse”, my dad explained slowly and softly.  I know.
I almost know.

Book Review: Heaven Misplaced

Do I really believe that, prior to the return of Christ, the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea?  Do I really believe that all the nations of men will stream to their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? Do I really believe that Jesus Christ is the desire of nations?  I really do.  And I hope by the time we are done with this short book, the unconvinced reader will at least be able to say, ‘One hopes.’

This is the introduction to Douglas Wilson’s new book, Heaven Misplaced: Christ’s Kingdom on Earth.  Avoiding the really poor joke, and excuse, that everything pans out in the end, Wilson makes a convincing case for what he calls “Historical Optimism. “  Others call it Post-Millenialism.  I didn’t have all my hermeneutical guns cocked whilst reading this book, but he seemed to make a good biblical argument for this view.  Using many Old and New Testament Scriptures he reasoned that the gospel would win the
world.  For example commenting on 1 John 4:14 , “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Saviour of the world,” he says this:

Jesus did not come in order to try and save the world if the uncooperative world would only let him…the fact that Christ will save the world does not mean that He will save every last individual who ever lived in it .  But it does mean that He will save the world and we need to take the word world in such a way that encompasses more than a tiny huddled band of the elect, consisting of no more than thirteen or fourteen people.

But even if you are not convinced by Historic Optimism, you will still find this book encouraging.  Wilson evocatively reminds us of what Jesus’ death and resurrection actually accomplished.  He really is the Lord of all nations.  He really has been given authority over all powers.  All we have to do is declare the authority and power that Jesus already has.  If you are serving in what looks like a fruitless situation, these reminders are timely and life-giving.

There are two weaknesses in this book, in my opinion.  Firstly, it was sometimes unclear where each chapter was heading until it ended.  This is unlike Wilson’s other books, which I have found to be very easy to follow. Secondly, he mainly quotes from the AV, which in South Africa is pretty challenging for most people to understand.  Otherwise I think you should read it.  Even if it’s just to remind yourself that

Christ is not the Lord of some invisible heavenly place; He is the Lord and Master of the town where you live – and of course everywhere else.  He purchased this world and it’s inhabitants with His blood and no impudent magistrate is going to successfully deny Him.  He will have it.  Fix it in your minds: Christ rules here.

Reviewer:  Sarah Groves