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The Spirit of Adoption™
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By Brian Luwis
The Christian Perspective on Adoption
A Spirit of Fear
My position and purpose as the co-founder of America World Adoption are
actually the result of my wife, Renée's, courageous actions years ago. Unlike
the majority of couples that pursue their adoption plans together, my wife
researched adoption alone—I was afraid to join her.
After three years of marriage, Renée left her job to prepare our home for the
children we hoped to have. As time passed with no hint of a pregnancy, we
sought medical help. Doctors and diagnostic tests gave no conclusive reason for
our inability to conceive. Although I was content to wait and see what God
would do, Renée was ready to be a mom and pressed on. She began to investigate
adoption as a means of having children.
To be honest, I was only mildly interested when she began showing me brochures
about adoption. I believed God would answer our prayer and give us a child by
birth so there was no need to look into adoption. In some way I thought it was
a lack of faith on Renée's part not to wait on God. God said he would "give us
the desires of our heart" and it was truly our desire to have a child by birth.
In spite of my reservations, Renée pressed on in her quest to be a mother.
As we wrestled with God's plan for our lives and our hope for children, I
finally came to a point where I began to support Renée's instincts as a woman.
It came after a birth mother interviewed us to be the parents of the child she
was carrying. She decided to place the child with another family. We swallowed
our disappointment, but it was through this experience that God changed my
heart. I saw, first-hand, a woman in crisis who required the help of others.
Here, right in front of me was a woman ready to place a child in my arms. She,
like other women around the world, was in a position of need and we were in a
place to provide.
As I moved forward with Renée at this point, our discussions about adopting
began to transform into reality. We knew virtually nothing about adoption-only
that we wanted our first child to be as young as possible, we wanted that child
as quickly as possible, and we were searching for a program that was
financially realistic for us. These factors eventually led us to consider
international adoption.
Renée and I were open to any nationality, so we researched a variety of
countries. China was a good match for us with infant girls readily available
and the costs within our means. I truly believe that if it weren't for Renée's
efforts in moving me to accept adoption, I would not be the proud father of
five children.
Perhaps if you could have been in my shoes years ago you might better
understand my passionate change of heart. I was in our home experiencing the
newness of fatherhood and suddenly realized that this child, because of some
ink on paper (or so I thought), was now my daughter. As I carried my daughter
Fei slowly to her crib, she gently patted my back (which was also my way of
showing her affection). With that gentle touch she spoke a thousand words into
my heart and showed me what love is all about. Fei would soon call me "Papa"
and with her smile, fill my heart with a joy that will still bring tears to my
eyes. Through Fei, God would show Renée and me the incredible joys of
parenthood. Ultimately, it was through a new understanding of God's Spirit of
adoption that we would learn that God truly had the best plan imaginable for
our lives and that our children by adoption were a part of that plan.
For those of you who have not yet made the decision to adopt, the most
important idea I hope to impart to you through this story is that God has a
plan to bless you. It is my hope that this story will help you answer some of
your fears. I have laid out this story based on the most commonly asked
questions my wife and I receive about our experience and what God has revealed
through our struggles. It is long and uniquely our story, so it might contain
sections that don't resonate with your story. If that's the case, skip ahead
and look to see if the next section speaks to you.
What is Choice?
As an architect, I have had the privilege of designing and building my own home
and homes for others. My father was also an architect and a builder, so I have
been around construction for as long as I can remember. My favorite toys were
trucks and earth-moving equipment. My most vivid childhood memories are
observing my father sitting at his drafting table with a light over his
shoulder and working diligently on a building plan.
My background in design and building has given me a unique perspective and
interest in why God created the world the way it is. Even if you have no
background in design, it is easy to imagine the countless possibilities that
could exist on this present earth. Most, if not all of us, have contemplated a
world that is absent of pain. In fact, the very existence of pain in light of
an omniscient, omnipresent and all-loving God is the reason that many people
reject accepting Jesus as their Savior. Who wants to accept a gift from a
cruel, sadistic god?
Let us imagine a world where none of these things exist-an Eden, if you will.
In fact, have you ever played out a scene where God created a world where there
was no tree of the knowledge of good and evil? No ability for us to reject God?
What kind of world would this be? I know it would not have pain. There would be
no tears, no death, no suffering. It sounds like a pretty nice place. Yet
everything comes with a price.
We would lose our most fundamental ability, the ability to choose-to choose who
to love, what to say, where to go, what to eat, what to wear, etc. We could
debate for centuries whether it is better to have been given free will (choice)
or never to have known choice. But before even beginning the debate, we must
consider the nature of our Creator and the creation we are a part of. God
created us in "His image" and "His likeness," which means by design we are like
Him and have the ability to choose.
Yes, God could have created us not in His image and taken away our ability to
choose, yet He did not do that. As our Creator, God gave us the blessing of
free will: to think and to imagine, to design and to create, and to love as He
loves.
You must be wondering how all of this relates to adoption? Well, it goes back
to my curiosity about how things work and why God made the world like it is.
Knowing that God is love and He is not willing that anyone would suffer, then
how do we explain the existence of a helpless orphan placed on the side of the
road? Knowing what I know now about choices, I accept that this world can only
exist with the ability of man to make selfish choices that affect the lives of
others’ choices that we wish others had never made or been allowed to make, yet
God in His wisdom allows all of us the freedom to make them.
If we accept that God has made a world with the gift of choice and yet our
choices are part of a complete divine plan, then we can better understand God's
will for the adoption of children. I believe that to best understand God's
plan, we must first accept God's plan/will as perfect-that God makes no
mistakes. Even if life seems and looks chaotic, God has a plan. This, in
essence, is what faith is all about-trusting in God and His plan-even when it
seems like there is no plan.
Did God’s Plan Fail?
Parenthood was designed to be the outcome of God's beautiful union of marriage.
The path toward parenthood, however, can be as winding and varied as the people
who travel it. For many couples pregnancy is an easy and effortless milestone
in their life. For some, however, the road to parenthood is a long and
difficult path, filled with heartache, disappointment and an ongoing sense of
failure.
In Genesis 3:16 (NKJV) God says: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your
conception; in pain you shall bring forth children . . .”
This verse tells us that pain is to be a part of this world, even in marriage
and childbearing. The broken condition of this world is a reality we must all
face. Knowing the condition of this world is significant to our understanding
of the blessing of adoption. When we know that suffering is part of a loving
God's plan, then we can understand that the existence of orphaned children is
not an accident or failure of God's plan.
How do you view God's plan? Are you like I was, who once thought God's plan had
failed with the creation of this world? I believe most of us assume God created
a perfect Eden and that it was to be our home on earth forever, before it was
polluted by His creation. God, the Master Builder, had somehow not prepared for
the events that were to occur in Eden. He was caught off guard by the fall of
His children and had to patch the hole in his beautiful design. We believe that
God made a world that was to remain perfect, with no sorrow, pain, or hardship.
The results of the choices of His creation could not be part of a loving God's
plan, but the failure of His creation. Or could they?
I am not saying that God is the author of sin, but that God's creation allowed
for the existence of choice, which resulted in sin. Many times I would play out
scenarios of the consequences to planet earth if Adam and Eve did not sin. All
I would come up with were worlds that could not exist. The results were all the
same. We know too well human nature. Eventually, one of us would have made the
same choice as Adam and Eve did. Then the question must be, "Why did God allow
His creation to have the freedom of choice?"
God said his creation was "very good" before the fall. We assume that after the
fall of Adam and Eve that the world would change to "very bad" in God's eyes.
Or are we missing a crucial concept? I believe we are if we do not look at the
root cause of the fall, in relation to God's "very good" creation.
God's creation was very good before and after the fall. God is the Master
Builder and Architect of a world full of natural beauty and wonders of His
thoughtful design, all carefully chosen for His glory and our good. Have you
ever thought of the greatest gift God bestowed on us when He created us in His
image? Your next thought will actually be the exercise of that greatest
gift-choice. Without it, we would be like a computer or a machine, programmed
by our Creator to perform certain tasks. God allowed us choice, to know love
and to be able to love. Love is a choice. To exercise it, we must be able to
choose whether we are going to love or not to love. God is not the Author of
sin, but of love. His "very good" creation was designed for us to know love and
how to love.
In defense of this theological position, we can turn to one of the greatest
minds of the past century. In his book, The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis
rejects the idea that God designed a perfect world that was flawed by the free
will of His creation requiring God to adjust His plan to redeem it.
C.S. Lewis states, "This may raise the ridiculous idea that the Fall took God
by surprise and upset His plan, or else-even more ridiculously still-that God
planned the whole thing for conditions which, He well knew, were never going to
be realized. In fact, of course, God saw the crucifixion in the act of creating
the first nebula. The world is a dance in which good, descending from God, is
disturbed by evil arising from the creatures, and the resulting conflict is
resolved by God's own assumption of the suffering nature which evil produces."
Does God Place an Emphasis upon Genetic Relations?
I want to dispel a myth that is entrenched in many of our thoughts about God's
chosen people. It is my belief that this will help you view adoption as a
natural process designed by God. In the book of Genesis, God calls Abraham out
from among his kinsmen to a new land. Abraham was to be the father of a nation
from which his physical descendants (the "chosen seed") were to be the "keepers
of the covenant." From this, we assume it was God's plan to redeem man through
Abraham and his biological descendants. This is not the case. When God chose
Abraham He also chose his entire household and not just Abraham's physical
seed.
Genesis 17:12—“And he that is eight days old will be circumcised among you,
every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought
with money of any stranger, which is not of your seed.” (NKJV)
Through this verse we can better understand what God meant when He spoke of a
"chosen seed." Abraham's household was truly a blended community, integrating
relatives, servants and strangers from a variety of ethnic groups. When God
chose Abraham and his descendents, it had nothing to do with genetics. Abraham
was chosen because of his faith, as was his "seed." God was not trying to
create a special ethnicity of people based upon genetics, blood type or DNA.
Instead, God wanted to cultivate a people who would be universally known as His
children by their spiritual heritage, not by their skin color or genetic
makeup.
Galatians gives further insight into this truth. Galatians 3:7 says, “Know
therefore, that they which are of faith are the children of Abraham,” (NKJV)
Galatians 3:29 says, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and
heirs according to the promise.” (NKJV)
When we consider these verses in light of Ephesians 1:5 (NIV), "…He predestined
us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His
pleasure and will," we begin to see adoption for what it really is…God's
relationship builder and His chosen means of bringing His fallen creatures into
a permanent relationship with Himself and a perfectly natural means for God to
place a child in your family.
We see in these passages that a true descendant of Abraham is defined as
"someone who has a personal relationship with God." We also see that it is our
spiritual relationship that gives us an eternal place in God's family. Just as
being a physical descendant of Abraham did not secure a place for someone in
God's eternal family, a child is not guaranteed a secure relationship with his
or her parents. Relationships are built on trust, time and commitment, and have
very little to do with biological or genetic connections. When we understand
that God defines relationship in terms of spiritual traits like love, faith and
hope, we realize that genetic bonds are insignificant. God wants us to embrace
His Spirit of adoption in our relationship with Him, as well as our
relationship with our children.
Ultimately, it is only through spiritual adoption that we are able to cultivate
a permanent relationship with our children…and with our God. After all,
adoption is the mechanism by which we enter God's family. It is the only bond
that will last forever with our children.
“Is God Punishing Me Through Infertility?”
I ask this question because it is how I felt when we failed to have children by
birth. If you have never struggled with these feelings, you can skip ahead to
another section. But if you are like I am, perhaps this tough language is
something you may need to hear.
In the beginning, God commanded that Man be fruitful and multiply. Obeying this
command for most couples is a matter of deciding when. Not so with the couple
that is dealing with infertility.
Couples struggling with infertility often experience failure upon failure,
month after month. In many cases these failures cannot be explained by
technology or medical professionals. These couples are faced with many hard
questions:
“How far should we go with modern medicine?” or
“How many attempts at treatment should we pursue?”
They may begin to think that God does not want them to have children.
As Christians, we believe that God is sovereign, and if so we might easily
think that He has closed our wombs as some sort of punishment. Feelings of
inferiority and depression can turn the dream of childbirth into a nightmare.
Just attending a baby shower can become emotionally overwhelming for a woman
struggling with infertility.
Yet, it need not be that way.
For Renée and me, release came from a change in our basic beliefs. We once
thought we had a right to children by birth, but our experience with
infertility convinced us that children are God's miracles to give. It took me a
very long time to come to terms with the fact that God's promise for children
in my life would be fulfilled according to His plan not mine. When I realized
this, I found comfort in God's word when it says,
Jeremiah 29:11—“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD,
thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (NKJV)
Remember, God is not punishing you by ignoring your pleadings for conception.
He has other ways to fulfill the desires that He puts in our hearts.
“If I Desire to Have a Child and Can’t Conceive, What is God’s Plan for Me?”
When Renée and I first began considering this question, we were studying
Scripture that expressed the joy and happiness of having children.
Psalm 127:4-5—“As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the
youth. Happy is the man that has his quiver full of them.” (NKJV)
Passages such as this led us to believe that a desire to have children was
good. We knew God wanted people to be fruitful and multiply. But what does this
verse mean to those who cannot conceive?
We also found verses such as Psalm 37:4 (NKJV), “Delight yourself also in the
Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” At first, we
held on to this verse, believing that if we loved God He would eventually
answer our prayer for a child by birth.
We soon began to realize that a deeper look at this passage revealed that our
own relationship with God should be placed first. When we focused on the bitter
fact that God was not giving us the desire of our heart, we were completely
missing out on our own responsibility in this verse…"Delight yourself also in
the LORD"…and then "He will give you the desires of your heart."
This was a huge breakthrough for us, especially for me. I realized that
although I had been following Renée in her pursuit of a family, I had been
dragging my feet. I was a reluctant companion on this journey. Over time, Renée
and I both began to learn that by putting our relationship with God above our
hopes, above our dreams, and even above our sorrows, then we could give God the
freedom that He needed to reveal His plan for our lives.
I realized that God knew this world would be filled with the consequences of
sin-war, famine, poverty and other ills that would leave children orphaned. Yet
God chose to create this broken world and the resulting effects. C.S. Lewis
eloquently captured this truth when he said, "It is not the best of all worlds,
but the only world possible." God's purpose in bringing us through the trial of
infertility was not intended to be a dead end on our path to parenthood. It was
an opportunity to embrace the boundaries God placed on us and experience the
limitless possibilities of His plan.
These were the questions we wrestled with before we adopted. As our lives as a
young family began to unfold, God lent his wisdom to the new questions that
would arise.
“Is Adoption God’s Plan B?”
Because we believed adoption was God's Plan B, we became unsettled when our
child by birth was born. We so deeply loved and were bonded to our first two
daughters by adoption, yet we were concerned. Could we think less of them now
that we had a daughter by birth? Obviously our perception of adoption as Plan B
was flawed.
What did the Scriptures have to say about the subject?
Have you ever considered the fact that Jesus was adopted? Yes, Jesus' earthly
father Joseph adopted him. In fact, the Gospel of Matthew traces the bloodline
of Jesus not through his biological mother, Mary, but through his adoptive
father, Joseph. Even though one might easily pass over this fact as
insignificant, this detail reveals something amazing about God's nature. God
does not make mistakes, and He certainly doesn't need a back-up plan. Through
this footnote in history we see that for Jesus, adoption was not Plan B.
God's plan of redemption for an imperfect world was set in motion through the
very concept of adoption. Not only did He ordain his son Jesus to be adopted,
but He made adoption the only way we could become a part of His eternal family.
It was His good pleasure to adopt us. In fact, it is His ideal mechanism to
establish relationships.
Renée and I struggled with this realization for quite some time, because we saw
adoption to be second choice, next on the list after biological birth, the
first choice. But if infertility is perceived as a curse, and adoption is only
a last resort for those who struggle with infertility, then how do we interpret
Psalm 113:9?
He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise
the LORD. (NIV)
This verse doesn't say that God makes barren women fertile-although that is
certainly within His power. The key phrase is "happy mother." A "happy mother"
is God's Plan A. How can a barren woman become a happy mother unless she
adopts? Just as God has decided that some couples will experience parenthood
through biological birth, He also has ordained some couples to experience
parenthood through the miracle of adoption. If Renée and I had realized the
full meaning of this concept earlier in our journey to have a family, we would
have saved ourselves an abundance of sorrow.
“What Is God’s Definition of ‘Mother’ and ‘Father’”?
Renée and I began studying the Bible to see what God's word said about
parenthood. Not surprisingly, what we found was completely in keeping with
God's character.
Proverbs 22:6 says “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old,
he will not depart from it.” (NKJV) We read in Ephesians 6 “. . .
fathers do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord.” (NKJV)
In these verses, God defines "mother" and "father" as teachers, instructors and
disciplinarians. Interestingly enough, no verse stresses the necessity of a
biological connection.
This concept was made clearer to us after we had our daughter by birth, Sophia.
When Sophia was born, we realized that the love we felt for her was exactly the
same as the love we felt for our daughters through adoption. The genetic
structure of each of our children is different, with variations in hair, teeth,
skin and eye color. Yet, each of them had the exact same need for love,
affection, instruction, and discipline.
After experiencing the joy of giving birth, Renée and I realized how easy it is
for a parent to view a child as his or her own accomplishment, not as a gift
from God divinely placed within their care. If we focus on the biological
connection we have with our children we overlook the deeper bond we develop
through our relationship with them.
Families, after all, are built from relationships. The quality and depth of the
relationship has no bearing on the blood connection. If we lay aside our
preconceptions of what it means to be a mother and father, is the correct
definition not simply "to love?" Real love, of course, covers all aspects of
how our heavenly Father gives us His protection, His blessing, His hope and His
discipline. When we define a mother or father as one who loves and takes
responsibility for a child, then it truly does not matter if the child is a
child by birth or a child by adoption.
Most importantly, a genetic connection does not automatically establish the
kind of rapport between parents and their children necessary to develop them
into men and women of God. If we have a godly relationship with them, however,
we can do the most important thing a parent will ever do for a child-teach them
who God is.
“Is a Child by Adoption my Own?”
Renée and I faced this question as newly adoptive parents. When Renée gave
birth to Sophia we likewise questioned if God considered her to be more "ours"
than Fei or Gwenn were "ours."
We read in 1 Corinthians 6:19—“Do you not know that your body is the temple of
the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your
own?” (NKJV)
If we are not our own and God owns us, then He must own our children too, for
it is by His grace that we move, live, and have our being. We have children by
His grace, adopted or by birth. God entrusts them to us. He is their true
Father in heaven. We are their earthly parents
This seems like such a logical conclusion, but I think when we hear "that's my
boy," more attention is often placed on the "my" than the "boy." That child is
God's boy, and God entrusts him to us.
I feel especially blessed because when I proudly look at my children
(biological or adopted) and proclaim, "That's my girl," my first thought is to
praise God for allowing the miraculous gift of calling one of His children
mine. I thank God that He allowed us to adopt children first, so I could see
that we never really own our children. We raise them as best as we can and
strive to teach them about God to the fullest extent.
God’s Word goes further to show we are not our own by calling us His children. “Yet
to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right
to become children of God.” John 1:12 (NIV)
God calls us "His children." If we are His children, then so are our sons and
daughters. We can take comfort in knowing that the ownership of our children
(by adoption or birth) belongs to the Creator of the Universe, our Eternal
Father.
The next challenge that Renée and I worked through was prompted by our oldest
daughter Fei when she asked Renée:
“Why Was I Not Born in Your Tummy, Mama?”
Most children by adoption come to a point in their life when they ask this
question. Fei asked us when she was five. We wondered how best to answer this
question. How could we help all of our children understand that there are two
ways to come into a family: the "planes, trains, and automobiles" method or
"through a local hospital."
As we searched for biblical insight to this question we came across this
passage in Psalm 139: “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the
secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes
saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.” (NIV)
These are powerful words to anyone who reads them, especially to a child by
adoption. It's amazing to think that God has already ordained each detail of a
child's life before that child is born, whether that child be a child by
adoption or a child by birth.
I understood this even more fully one day when I was thinking about what it was
like to be present when Sophia was born. I remembered being up late at night in
the dim hospital room and how incredible it was to cut Sophia's umbilical cord.
It was truly a breathtaking experience to see this innocent little girl come
into the world. For me, being there to actually cut the cord enabled me to
connect with God's will in placing this child into our hands.
I was not there to cut the umbilical cords for my children by adoption. I
consider this a loss for all of us. But God revealed something even more
powerful to me through Psalm 139-that our position as the parents to children
by adoption had been sealed by God before time began.
God Himself actually cut the cord between our children by adoption and their
biological parents, freeing them to be placed into our hands. When we became
their mother and father, it was not though our efforts or by chance, but by
God's mighty hand in our lives and the lives of others. Every detail of our
life now is evidence of God working to redeem the broken things of this world
to fulfill His plans and not ours.
What a beautiful answer to the question, "Why was I not born in your tummy,
Mama?" to be able to tell your children, "God did not forsake you. He never
leaves you; God has a plan for your life and all of our lives and it was His
plan to place you with us."
Through the years, Renée and I have had the opportunity to play a role in
hundreds of adoptions. We have seen that God consistently shows adoption to be
close to His heart. He is closely attuned to our needs and the needs of the
orphan. We now thank God for our inability to conceive. Otherwise we never
would have been given the privilege of raising children by adoption. Each of
our children is unique, precious and full of life. It is only now, in light of
what God has taught us through the Spirit of adoption, that we are able to stop
seeing childlessness as a curse and see it for what it really is-an opportunity
for God to bless us, and an opportunity to pass this blessing on to other
families.
I don't know for whom it is God's will to adopt, but I am confident that
adoption is not a second best choice for couples coping with infertility. It's
not a last resort and it is certainly not Plan B. God only works with one plan,
and that is His divine plan, established before the foundation of the world.
Just as He predestined the birth child's existence, He also predestined the
path of the child by adoption.
It is awesome to think how God orchestrated all the events in the universe for
us to know our children and be their Mama and Papa. God's Spirit of adoption
can do the same for you.
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Spirit of
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The Desire Of My Heart
In His Time
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The Adoption Gene
Fei's Journey
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