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Wednesday, April 4, 2012

What do our boys think about all this?

One thought in the back of every parent's mind when it comes to big decisions we make is, "how will this affect my children?" When it comes to this adoption, I would say the biggest area we struggled with is assessing what impacts this decision will have on our boys. Specifically, we realize that the adopted children will require a large amount of focused attention, even more so than a new born child, and therefore, a lot of our time. We obviously do not want this change in our availability to take away from our boys' growth and development. Ultimately this drives me to ask REAL questions like, "what is best for their growth and development?".

So what do our boys say about this? David our 4 year old: "They don't have a Mom and Dad and they need a Mom and Dad. And I will share my toys with them, but they probably won't be big enough to play with my remote control Mustang though (his biggest and favorite which we tell him he is now big enough to play with ;-))." Joseph our 7 year old says, "So Dad, that means they will come and live here right? They can sleep in my room (he & David are in bunk beds in one room and his old room is still full of his stuff, including his bed) and they can have bunk beds like us."

They get it! In their mind, God wants us to do this, so OK let's go! They look at the situation and immediately see and connect to the need! I look and immediately see all the obstacles to overcome in order to meet the need! Why can't I have that simple "child-like" faith!?! Way too often, when I see the need and God's call to do something, I think about all the "How's", meaning how are we going to do this or that, or how is this going to impact our family, my time with my boys, etc.

One favorite verse related to parenting is Pv 22:19, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it." The word for "train up" is the same word for "disciple". It is abundantly clear to me in the case of this adoption that we must train our boys to see God's will and respond in FAITH and not see the obstacles we will face in order to address the need(s) at hand. The only way we can train them to do this is for them to see this mind set and heart attitude in action. We cannot simply tell them about living life this way and hope they do. They must SEE it in us! What a great lesson I hope and pray these boys will get out of this process as it will change the rest of their lives if they grasp it.

Following in faith,

Andrew

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