What We Would Have Missed

It's been over a year now since our beautiful baby boy was born. He has definitely changed our lives for the better. (Go ahead, you can say it-he is so stinkin' adorable!!!!)  If you catch me on any given day, I'm likely to gush about how amazing my son is and how much we love him.  But there's something else that echoes around in my brain and heart about adoption that won't be silent, something that haunts me when I dwell on it for too long; we could have missed this.  We could have missed being this incredible little guy's parents.

There was a time when we thought about adoption and dreamed about it but that was as far as it went.  Every day of everyone's life is busy and adoption was just on the backburner as a "someday" in our minds.  Then, questions of "How will we ever afford this" or "What if the child grows up and struggles with their identity" (don't we all?!) or "What if it all falls through" or "What if we don't feel connected" accompanied our discussions and muddied our thoughts.  Again, we didn't do anything about it.  This is what haunts me: if we had spun our wheels for years and years around those questions or just kept rolling with the busyness of life, we would have never have become Titus' parents.

We would have never sat in a small hospital room in Florida three hours after this baby was born, holding him and whispering to him and singing to him, letting him know he was not alone.

We would never gotten to gaze into these deep dark eyes, loving so fiercely a little person who doesn't share our genetics.

Three big kids would never have experienced what it's like to make him laugh or to help him learn to walk or to care about his birthmom that they've never met or to have their hearts burst with love each time he flashes his handsome smile at them.

We would have never gotten to watch him squeal with delight every time his daddy enters the room or heard him cry with sorrow each time his daddy heads to work.

We would never have gained the awe and compassion we have now for women who make the courageous and selfless decision to give life to a child they won't raise.

We would never have heard his hilarious giggle or watched him delight in being pushed in a swing or watched him hide his sippy cups in the cupboard.  We would have missed it.  All of it.

Every day we are thankful for our little boy.  Every day we are thankful that God moved us from a place of just thinking about adoption to actually becoming this kid's parents.  Still, it haunts me that we could have missed it all.  And it haunts me that you might miss something equally amazing by letting your busyness or your fears or your questions keep you from the gift of adoption.  Please don't miss this.  

If God's been stirring something in your heart about adoption or foster care, don't just sit on it.  Do something.  Take a step.  Talk to someone who can help you think through your hesitations (Josh and I would absolutely love to talk with you about our journey to Titus and how God used Christian Adoption Consultants to help us.).  You will never regret sharing God's heart for children who need parents.  You will never regret all that you would have missed.