Aren’t you afraid, they asked, that an adopted child won’t feel like your own?
Aren’t you worried that your biological kids will feel like he’s not one of them?
Don’t you wonder if you will love an adopted child differently?
I think I was concerned. I must have been. What kind of logic would it be to assume that just because God called, there would be no growing pains in the journey?
But here we sit, five years since our lives were bound together irrevocably with the fall of a gavel. Two children legally added to our number, one ours not by decree but through grace.
I do not doubt they are my own, whatever that term even means in light of the fact that these souls belong to God and not me. I hold every one of my nine children with open hands, loosely, in awe that the Lord has entrusted them to me.
I do not doubt that each of my children accepts all the others. I have seen them share a bowl of popcorn, delight in surprising one another, even bash each other on the head with a board book. In other words, they are siblings– iron sharpening iron as often as building one another up.
But do I love them differently? Are the children given to me by adoption set apart in my heart?
Of course they are.
In the same way that I love Mary Hannah for her generous spirit, her obsession with tidiness, her ability to see my bad mood before I even recognize it, I love Phineas for his curiosity, his need for physical touch, and his desire to see every angle of every happening. Each of my children is unique. How they came to be a part of our family isn’t what defines them, or our relationship. In fact, it’s probably the least important part of who we are.
Uniquely made, individually created for a purpose specific to him or her … set apart by a loving God who ordained that they should call me Momma. I love my children. All of them.