May 3rd - The keyword is sacrifice

     There a number of words that come up often when helping lead a church, some of them are grace, salvation, love, the cross, sacrifice, freedom etc and the word that I want to hone in on for this blog enrtry is sacrifice. It has been on my mind much lately, I've had quite a few people mention that what we are doing with adoption is a sacrifice. I like to think that the whole of our lives are sacrifice, simply being willing to give away and lay down what we have. Sure there are sacrifices with something like adoption, time, money, emotion but surely that is all worth it, it is worth having on the block  or laying on the altar.
     So far in this journey we have had to 'sacrifice' some of our time including a month in the US, well that was a great time not exactly something where we felt a huge loss as you would when giving something up. There has been cost and there will be much more to come as the adoption goes through but what better way to spend the money that we have saved and planned for over the years? Ya we could go out and use money on an extravagant vacation, or buy a nicer car or various other purchases but why not use our finance on something as special as life. There has definetely been emotion sacrificed but again it has been worth it, to share in the joys of new relationships we've built through this process, to be able tell stories of how God has set up various aspects of our trip and organizing the whole process. We have had some downs as well as ups, but that is reality, it's not all peaches and cream as they say. So for us there is sacrifice but we are more than willing and ready to offer what we have in all the various ways written about before. I'd rather look at other sacrifices that take place through the adoption process.
     I cannot imagine what the feeling must be for a mother who has carried a life for up to 9 months and then after a couple of days this life is given to another family. An attachment that took around 3/4 of a year is physically severed and emotionally changed over the course of a couple of days after birth. This to me is huge sacrifice to be willing to carry this life, go through the trials of pregnancy, the pain of birth all with the plan of then 'sacrificing' this child in the way of giving he or she to another. What a bold statement, rather than taking the 'easy road' of abortion the mother fully gives life to the little one in the womb. We look with a steady gaze at the day when we adopt, when we hold the one given to us by both God and the brave lady who went through it all, not for her but for another. We look to that day, for now we wait until that lady makes contact with the agency and with us about the life that she would like to offer to us.

Have a listen to 'Worth it All' by Rita Springer