Counting the cost

I realized in trying to explain yesterday why we are adopting, I did a pretty poor job. I'll just blame my negativity on PMS.

I told them adoption was hard, WAY hard.
I told them adoption was stressful, WAY stressful.
And I told them adoption was expensive, VERY expensive.

I also told them that were it not for God's leading, I probably would have given up a long time ago.

(Well aren't I just the warrior for Christ that I thought I was 12 months ago??)

Truth is - while it is hard, stressful, expensive, and about 26 other negatives I could think of to describe my feelings and experiences - it isn't all about me anyway....

While the reality of the fact that having 4 kids will probably nix any plans for neat vacations like New York City, cruise ships, trips to Jamaica, etc. --- will sacrificing those be worth the cost of feeding / clothing / loving another?

While the reality of the fact that having kids share rooms, closets, and clothes will make things a little more cramped and uncomfortable - will my children sacrificing that privacy be worth them being able to see what the love of Christ is capable of? To grow up with a heart of compassion?

While the reality of the fact that saving for adoption means less money for eating out at nice restaurants, less money to buy new tennis shoes we may want, less money to have to put my little girl in a dance class or little boy in gymnastics - at the end of the day, will those things be missed or even remembered? Will my lack of a gym membership ruin my life completely? Will we miss not being able to go out to the theaters and settling for $1 RedBox movies instead? Will my lack of an iPhone damage my ability to parent a child who has come from nothing?

No -- our sacrifices aren't really even sacrifices when you sit down and list them out. Minor inconveniences maybe. Small disappointments that last a day or week, perhaps. But will my children, ANY of them, truly miss any aspect of their childhood because of the cost of answering God's call to help the 'least of these'?

No -- I think it is when we, as the world's elite, choose those little pleasures that add up, and leave no scraps to throw to the poor or needy; innocently ignoring these little ones because we are too engrossed in our own lives to see, that there is a cost...


Not everyone is meant to adopt. Not everyone is meant to travel to a third world country. I'm just as guilty as the next at not doing enough. But if you are a Christian, if you claim Christ as your own - has it cost you anything? Or is it costing them?

Job 31:15-17; 28.
"Did not he who made me in the womb make them?
Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?
If I have denied the desires of the poor
or let the eyes of the widow grow weary,
if I have kept me bread to myself,
not sharing it with the fatherless .....

Then these also would be sins to be judged,
for I would have been unfaithful to God on high."


**Take time to read this eye-opening post that will be bothering me the rest of this evening. Amy has a much better way with words than I do.