Why Would We Want to Adopt an Adult?
Recently I was asked why my wife and I would ever want to adopt two young ladies who have been a part of our lives for many years.
I am going to address that question, but before I do, I want to say that I think this can become a teachable moment. The answer has a great deal to do with something found throughout God's Holy Word and, in many ways, at the very core of what the Bible teaches us about belonging.
Way back when, God chose a people whom He would call His own. The Hebrew nation was given the honor of being God's covenant people. Throughout their history, God demonstrated His faithfulness, His mercy, and His desire for His people to belong to Him.
Yet we also know that God's people repeatedly failed Him.
God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, whose sacrifice opened the way for forgiveness and reconciliation with God. Through Christ, people who were once outside the covenant family could now be brought near.
Romans 8 speaks of believers receiving the Spirit of adoption, and Romans 8:17 tells us that we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.
Think about that.
An heir belongs to a family.
Those of us who believe the Gospel of Christ—His life, His death, and His resurrection—and who have placed our faith in Him have been welcomed into the family of God.
So why adopt at all?
At the heart of nearly everyone is a desire to belong.
We join groups. We gather with others at lunchtime. We add friends online, write letters, make phone calls, share photographs, and create things so that someone else can hear our voice and know that we exist.
We want people around us who share our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our laughter, and sometimes our tears.
We see that most clearly in family life.
Families share beliefs, values, memories, traditions, struggles, successes, and a legacy. A child knows who they can call when something goes wrong. They know where home is. They know who their people are.
Sadly, not everyone grows up with that security.
For many different reasons, some children grow up without a stable mother or father. Some experience foster care. Some move from one home to another. Some endure circumstances no child should ever have to experience.
Whatever the reason, a child can grow up wondering where he or she belongs.
That is one of the saddest things imaginable.
My wife and I were blessed with four children of our own. Each one is as different as can be. They have their own friends, their own likes and dislikes, their own personalities and dreams.
But they share some important things.
They know their parents.
They know their grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers, and sisters.
They know where they call home.
Most importantly, they know they are loved.
Over the years, other young people have come into our lives who did not have that same sense of belonging.
Two young women in particular became part of our family.
Their histories are theirs to tell, so I will not tell all of the details here. Both experienced instability and hardship when they were young. Both came into our lives needing something that money alone could never provide.
They needed somewhere to belong.
One came into our lives as a teenager. She eventually became part of our household and began calling us Mom and Dad. She became a sister to our children and, as the years passed, simply became one of us.
Another young woman came into our lives under very difficult circumstances. She, too, eventually became part of our family and began calling us Mom and Dad.
Today, both are adults.
Some people have asked us, “Why would you want to adopt someone who is already grown?”
The first answer is easy.
Because everyone deserves to belong to someone.
Being an adult does not suddenly erase the desire for a mother or father.
Turning eighteen does not make a person stop wanting somewhere to call home.
There are birthdays, Christmases, illnesses, marriages, children, accomplishments, failures, emergencies, and ordinary Tuesday afternoons when it matters to know that there is somebody in this world who will say:
“You are my daughter.”
“You are my son.”
“You are family.”
And that is what these young women became to us.
Family.
Not temporary guests.
Not charity projects.
Not people we once helped.
Our daughters.
There are also practical reasons why legal adoption can matter. Depending upon the law and individual circumstances, legal family relationships can affect inheritance, medical decisions, insurance, and other important matters.
But those things are secondary.
The real reason is love.
Remember what I said about our adoption into the family of God?
Scripture does not describe believers as people God merely tolerates from a distance. We are brought into His family.
There is belonging.
There is inheritance.
There is permanence.
There is a relationship.
That is what we wanted these young women to understand.
It was never enough for us simply to say, “They are sort of like daughters to us.”
They are our daughters.
We wanted the legal relationship to reflect what had already happened in our hearts.
Even more than that, we love them so much that we wanted to be able to say without qualifiers that they are our children.
They have our hearts and always will.
And family, I have learned, is not defined only by blood.
Blood can make someone a relative.
Love can make someone family.
My wife and I have never had much money.
There came a point in our lives when we could no longer work as we once had. We learned very quickly how to live without many of the things other people consider necessities.
We learned to stretch every dollar.
We have received clothes, shoes, groceries, and other necessities through the generosity of others.
There were times when more than half of our income disappeared into rent and bills before we ever thought about anything else.
We have lived on a shoestring and a prayer.
Despite that, over the years we have opened our home to people who needed one.
At one time, we took in an entire family.
At other times young people came through our doors needing somewhere safe to sleep, something to eat, or simply someone willing to tell them that they mattered.
There have been times when our home held far more people than our income seemed capable of supporting.
Some stayed.
Some left.
Some relationships endured.
Others broke our hearts.
But I do not regret loving them.
We learned to live below our means and make every penny count. We learned not to be ashamed to accept help when we genuinely needed it. We learned to recycle, reuse, repair, and do without.
Most importantly, we learned what matters.
Family.
Friends.
Faith.
And helping others.
If you looked only at some of the possessions in our home, you might think we were financially comfortable. But nearly everything has a story.
Something was given to us.
Something was purchased secondhand.
Something was repaired instead of replaced.
Something came from someone else's generosity.
So could we afford to add two more people to our family?
Financially?
Probably not.
But neither could we afford not to.
Because they were already our children.
We were already doing whatever we could to help provide the things they needed.
And they gave something to us that cannot be measured in dollars.
Joy.
Laughter.
Fun.
Excitement.
Love.
They are as different from our other children—and from one another—as they can possibly be.
That is exactly what makes a family interesting.
But there is one thing I want every one of my children to know, whether they came into this family through birth, marriage, adoption, or simply because somewhere along the way love made the decision for us:
You belong here.
There is no asterisk beside the word daughter.
There is no footnote beside the word son.
There is no lesser category called not really ours.
They are our children.
We are their Mom and Dad.
We are family.
And I am proud of every person God has allowed me to call my own.
