Beyond Politically Correct

You run into some friends you haven’t seen in awhile and in catching up, you discover they are adopting a baby boy. “That’s wonderful,” you say. “Where did you get him? Will you get to meet the mother? Do you know why she gave him away? How long will it be before you get him? Gosh, my friend at work had to wait years for the adoption to go through. And oh, was it expensive. Hey! You know what’s going to happen, right? Now you’ll get pregnant!”

Hopefully none of us have grilled someone about adoption as relentlessly as this, but most of us have to admit that at least one or maybe two of those phrases have come out of our mouths upon hearing about friends’ plans to adopt. There’s a better way to talk to your friends about the adoption process.

Five Ways Your Church Can Support Adoptive and Foster Families

The biggest encouragement for adoptive parents is the feeling that their church “gets it”: That church leadership thinks adoption is awesome; that they love and want to help foster kids; and that they are cognizant and supportive of couples who struggle with infertility. Sunday morning messages on adoption-friendly topics are a start, but there are a variety of ways you can create an adoption-friendly church.

God first loved—and adopted—me

by Paul Franklyn

When our daughter was five years old, she began to understand what we meant by the existence of her birthmother. We realized one evening during an Advent bedtime story that she grasped how someone other than us gave birth to her. As she listened to a story about the birth of Jesus, she startled us with a remark that Mary was the birthmother of Jesus.