Day 37

 

Adoption

 

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

 

Romans 8:23

 

 

When Cathy and I were married we both knew that her having children was probably out of the question. First of all her heart was damaged from chemo therapy and having a baby would be too stressful for it. Secondly we were not even sure she could have children. The chemo had not only damaged her heart but her kidneys as well and for all we knew her reproductive organs.

 

We both loved kids so we planned to adopt. We were young and naïve and did not have a clue about the difficulty and the cost of adoption. After we had been married a few years we began to look into adoption and were shocked at what we learned.

 

We learned that we had several things going against us. One was her health. We were not sure an adoption agency would think she was healthy enough to raise a child. A second problem was my age. I was in my mid thirties by then and the window of opportunity for most adoption agencies, at that time,  was forty. That meant we had to find one that would take us as quickly as possible.

 

But the biggest hurdle for us was the money. Back then it was going to cost around $10,000. That was approximately $10,000 more than we had. I was a youth minister and that was close to half of what I made in a year. As a nurse she would have made more money than I did but she was sick so often and unable to work that she didn't make that much either.

 

Despite all that I had faith it would work out. We picked an adoption agency, did all the paperwork and had a home visit. I was at youth camp with my youth group when I got a call from Cathy telling me I had to be home the next day because the adoption agency was coming to tell us if we had been accepted or not. I drove home the next day and my faith was rewarded. We were in.

 

There was still the issue about the money though. Where would it come from? I kept reassuring Cathy that we wouldn't have made it as far as we had if God wasn't going to provide the money.

 

My Dad's mom had to be put in a nursing home about that time. My father had to start managing her financial affairs. He was an only child and my grandmother had a brother and a sister who had no children that she inherited from so my father was in line to inherit from 3 estates. As part of managing the estates before he inherited my father had to reduce the estate to keep from paying inheritance tax. There was a law that said that for tax purposes that you could give a certain amount of money away each year to reduce the inheritance liability. Do you want to guess what the amount you could give away to each person was back then? That's right, $10,000.

 

God had demonstrated to us that he was in control and could accomplish what he wanted to accomplish. What we didn't know at the time was that the adoption agency would have to freeze the adoption process because there were not enough babies being put up for adoption. We also didn't know that Cathy's health would deteriorate so much that survival was the main issue, not adoption. And most of all we did not know that God had something even more spectacular in mind.

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read Romans 8:14-17

 

• What does the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life indicate?
• What does being God's children make us?
• What do we and what will we share with Christ?