We had adopted 2 children and had one space left on our license. The license was temporarily on hold by our choice. We weren't ready to take on more children but pressure was on from the State for us to make a choice quickly about that one remaining spot. We were going to need to either open our home or close our license by a specific date. As we weighed the pros and cons of opening the bed, adhering to strict family rules and home regulations for maintaining licensure, and also dealing with the heavy schedule of therapies we were already committed to, we also had to weigh an internal conflict and moral obligation.
During this season of deciding, we were approached about taking in a specific child.
It's one thing to look at the children of the world who need help and say your hands are tied when you're not truly able or even licensed to help and it's another thing entirely to have THE ABILITY and even the opportunity to do something for a child in need but to then turn that child away.
So we looked into it -- to see if we could take this particular child.
Besides the fact that we had already made the commitment to two other children from the system and were in over our heads with therapies and doctor appointments working to heal their traumas along with meeting the needs of our other 4 children, and besides the fact that we WANTED to help but didn't feel our whole family was ready for such an immediate disruption to the routine we had just barely been establishing post adoption, there was ALSO an additional moral issue that created internal conflict for me.
That conflict is that we were told that this child would have a homosexual couple adopt if we didn't. As a result, my firm beliefs in what type of family is best for a child was put to the test.
Would I do something I knew my other kids, spouse, and myself were not able or ready to do BECAUSE this child needed a mother AND a father?
The child had adoption and trauma needs I had experience with but I also knew it would be a combustible situation with my other children's needs. I knew it wasn't right timing for our family and my husband felt the same way, but by not taking the child, I knew the child would NOT have the ideal family definition I had believed in so strongly. If this child needed a Mom and Dad and WE were the last shot at that, was I being faithless in God's plan for the family? Did I need to leap forward in faith and trust that God would make up the difference simply so I could give this child a Mom and Dad and simultaneously uphold my extremely deep beliefs in what family should look like?
If I personally ended up ALLOWING a child to go into a situation with homosexual parents when I FIRST had the opportunity to help that child and IF I believed that homosexuality and unions like that are a sin that keep us away from God, THEN by not taking this child into my home, I had an extra weight to my moral conflict because I was becoming responsible for something that had been labeled as bad or "wrong" to me. Because I couldn't take the child, I was then participating in allowing them to go to a home that I shouldn't have allowed them to, and so then I was sinning more than just turning a child away--my sin made me essentially guilty of the same thing as these people who are homosexual. Their sins were now my sins and their faults were now mine. Everything they were guilty of, I was suddenly too, because I wasn't good enough to live up to the pedestal or family utopia I had based my beliefs on for my whole life.
If they were bad for being homosexual then I was also bad for sentencing a child to the fate of having homosexual parents. People say they "love the sinner and not the sin", but that approach and method of judgement didn't allow ME any mercy, either. The logically implied justice was the same--if they were sinners for being in a homosexual union, then I was sinning for sending a child to them. If what they were doing was bad, then what I was doing was also bad.
So then I had to decide what I REALLY believe in. Do I believe that the family in its traditional form alone has the power to save children in need? Or do I believe that JESUS has the power to save?
What do I believe?
Does "traditional family" trump all and give us all our solutions or does the Lord's grace and goodness do that?
I have decided to believe in Jesus.
I don't know if anyone out there can FEEL the internal conflict that this particular situation caused me to face and the walls that had to come down inside for me, but that doesn't really matter because I believe this moment in time was tailored exactly for me and my family to show me in a personal way that God Himself is in the details of our lives--no matter who we are or what type of family situation we have.
God Himself is bigger than the capacity we have to serve His children. He is bigger than the ways we try to obediently follow Him. He is bigger than the commandments He's given us. He's bigger than the ways we are capable of following the truths we think we know and try to understand. He knows who we are, where we're going, how to help us, how to bless us, how to teach us.
I still grieve over and consider this child an adoption loss because I wanted to be able to be this child's parent. BUT with all of the considerations of the situation, and with the complexities and dynamics of all the people involved, it was not the right fit for our family. I can rely on the strength from prayer and understand that God knew the end from the beginning. I do in fact believe this child is in the RIGHT place with parents who happen to be of the same-gender and not with traditional family parents. I believe the child went there to heal in specific ways that my husband and I could not provide. I am grateful for the divinely inspired same-sex couple who are able to provide a family for this this child that I do love but am not capable to take care of. Whether we call their family non-traditional or modern or anything else, the point is that they ARE a family and God is able to work in their family just like He can work in mine.
I do not fear for this child simply because this child has homosexual parents instead of a Mom and Dad model that our family has.
I trust in God, and I trust in God MORE THAN I trust in the family model my husband and I still devote our energy to building.
Even if I build a traditional family in the belief that that is what God wants me to do, and even if I do that trying to follow Him, that does NOT make the traditional family model bigger than God or bigger than what God can do for any and all of His children -- across the world in different cultures and religions. God sees much further than we can now see.
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On a different note, since that moment in time where I had to measure what I believe in family and God, my Uncle has since been married to his partner. I am very happy to say that I have 2 uncles in a gay marriage. I am proud to call them both my family. I am learning a lot from them and from the way they view the world. There have been specific times I have been stuck with some difficult conflicts. I said a prayer to ask for help, and shortly later I got a call from my Uncle Warren who happened to have encouragement I needed that day. That was God.
I specifically love people from the gay community because they typically have had to be fighters for authenticity. They have usually been born into a set of life circumstances where under social, religious, or other scrutiny they could not EVER measure up or win--they could not force themselves to not be gay and they also could not force themselves to fit in a box of living in a painfully unauthentic way, so they faced their "rock and hard place" and found a way to be true to themselves and live without inhibition.
Because of this strength that is found in the gay community, I believe that a gay couple was actually MORE capable of showing their adoptive placement HOW to break free from a life circumstance that was imprisoning to that child more than I could. Maybe that couple is more capable of helping that child thru their trauma because they'll know how to empower the child in ways I'm still learning to empower myself. They'll know because they ALREADY walked a path where everything from social status to biology was against them from the moment they were born and they can teach this child how to come out stronger on the other side.
In the darkest moments of our adoption journey, I have found that besides other families who have walked through foster care or adoption, the ONE other group of people who could relate the best and with truest empathy to the types of struggles we have faced have been our gay friends and family; they have been a tremendous strength in our lives and some of the best encouragers to keep on going.
What still boggles my mind is also that after viewing the meaning of "family" with such a black and white lens (with no acceptance or variance from that norm) for so many decades of my life, and then being shown a different side thru a painful, soul-searching, stressful and pressure filled moment of time where I had to also make a choice...all allowed me to understand and accept with peace inside that there are quality families in the world with same-sex parents doing amazing things. That became a catalyst that allows me to accept myself too.
When we learn to accept others and their differences we can learn to accept ourselves. When we can find peace with others, we can feel peace within ourselves (and vice versa).
I believe that God works in beautiful and personal ways to show Himself to us, because we're ALL part of His big and wonderful family. I'm learning that when we can be true to who we are, we are being honest in heart before our Maker. That's when He can take us and make more out of our lives than we could dream possible.
At least that's how I see it.
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