Adoption has given Mother's Day new meaning for me. This day is no longer just about honoring my own mother and receiving sweet handprints and homemade gifts from my kiddos. It is impossible to approach this day without thinking about the most sacrificial decision that a mother had to make. This year mother's day falls on Z's birthday. A year after bringing him home and I'm still trying to reconcile. I'm not sure I ever will. Not a day goes by that she doesn't enter my mind. Not a day that we don't pray for his first mama. The mama that gave him life and the mama that believed the best alternative for him was to be raised by another family. A family thousands of miles away and the almost certainty that she would never see him again. I just can't even go there. This was what she felt best for him. She saw no other options. Can you just sit with that for a minute? I've sat with it a lot and I can tell you that every time I come out on the side of selfishness. There is most definitely tragedy in adoption.
Z's adoption has opened my eyes to the enormity and complexity of orphan care. Adoption is just one small piece of a much larger puzzle. It is hard, it is beautiful and in many cases it is the only and best option. But knowing what I know now my heart is burdened to do more before a mother or father ever have to make that decision. I am so thankful for our son and cannot imagine our lives without him. It is truly a privilege to raise him but when I hear that sweet "mama" leave his lips I see her face every.single.time.
Last year Jen Hatmaker did an excellent series on orphan care and this quote so resonated with me:
It is unacceptable that poverty makes orphans. That is a gross injustice at the root of these astronomical numbers. If you must relinquish your child because you cannot feed, educate, or care for him, the international community should rise up and wage war against that inequity. Every family deserves basic human rights, and I should not get to raise your child simply because I can feed him and you can’t.
I don't have answers. I'm just stumbling through and praying that God continues to break our hearts and open our eyes. It was not coincidence that circumstances aligned the way they did in Ethiopia and I was able to look into the eyes and hold the mother of our son. It was Providence. Today on Z's birthday and mother's day I am especially thankful for the beautiful mother that gave him life.
