National Adoption Month

November is National Adoption Month. The goal is to raise awareness about adoption throughout the world. For a while now, I have been reading the blog of this amazing young single girl that lives & works in Uganda. She has adopted 14 orphan girls...FOURTEEN! She is single. Which means (if I spell it out for you) that she is taking care of them BY HERSELF. Whenever the fear starts creeping in about adding ONE adopted child to our family, I think about her, her hardships and her heart, and I know that God will enable us to do this. Here is the button to her blog...please consider giving to her organization for Christmas this year.

In her own words...

"And every single day, it is worth it. Because ADOPTION IS GOD’S HEART. He sets the lonely in families. Adoption is the reason that I can come before God’s throne and beg Him for mercy, because He predestined me to be adopted as His child through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

My family, adopting these children, it is not optional. It is not my good deed for the day, it is not what I am doing to “help these poor kids out.” I adopt because God commands me to care for the orphans and the widows in their distress. I adopt because to whom much has been given, much will be demanded. I adopt because whoever finds his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for HIS sake will find it."

This is not a fad or something we are doing for fun. Because let me tell you, we are excited about this baby girl, but this process is hard. The paperwork is hard, the waiting is hard, the fundraising is hard, leaving my boys here when we go to Ethiopia twice is going to be VERY hard, leaving our daughter to come back here after the first trip will be VERY hard, seeing the poverty & desolation in Africa is going to be hard, seeing all of the other children at the orphanages that don't have a forever home is going to be hard....but the fact of the matter is that we can't take all of them home. Thinking that if we hadn't said "yes" to adoption, that our precious daughter might have stayed in an orphanage for her entire life or worse yet, might have died, is unfathomable to me. I think sometimes we wait for the neon sign to tell us what God wants us to do, and I'm learning more and more that the neon signs are all in the Bible already. As our hearts become more and more like Jesus, those neon signs start to light up. Caring for the poor and the orphans is a command...it's not an option as to whether or not you are "called" to that, it's a matter of what you're going to do about it. Maybe you are not called specifically to bring a child into your home, but you need to decide what it is you ARE going to do because the way that so many people live in the world is unacceptable, and that some people are never shown love their entire lives is unacceptable and I am quite sure that it is unacceptable to God when we turn a deaf ear.

In saying all of this I don't want you to think that we, the Cox family, have our acts together because we don't. I don't want to paint a perfect picture on here of our family or of this adoption. I fight the urge to "pat myself on the back"...this is not something that WE are doing, this is something that God is doing THROUGH us. At 30 years old, I am just beginning to really "get it"...what it means to be a follower of Jesus. The fact is that it took years for God to open my heart to the poor and to the possibility of adoption, even when during those years it was in my face and I continued to push it away because of fear and inadequacy. We certainly don't think that because we're adopting one child we have met our "quota" of helping the poor and orphans. I pray every day that God will keep opening up my heart to more and more of His heart, to more and more uncomfortable situations. My flesh wants to stay comfortable but my heart does not, and I know there is so much more that He can accomplish through our family. We are not content to just stop with this adoption...there has to be more because the adoption of our daughter does not end world poverty or mean that all other orphans have a home.

I just have a long way to go. I apologize if this was too preachy for some of you...it's what was on my heart.

Changing the subject, the post below this has a GREAT giveaway that has had ZERO response so far. I have one more giveaway to put on this month but may not do it if this one does not do well. I must have worn you guys out with giveaways in October and I have REALLY generous friends too. :-) PLEASE scroll down and check it out...it's really easy to enter and the deadline is Sunday at 6:00 pm.

(I will get a Halloween post up soon for those that are interested :-)