Adam's Story
By: Adam Forgety
I was never AGAINST adoption, it was always an option, but God had to work on my heart to show me that adoption COULD possibly be our only option.
It all started when Khylee and I got back together the second time around. I knew adoption was what Khylee wanted to do ever since she was a little girl, but now that we were back together and knew we were going to get married, the adoption reality was staring at me in the face. Don't get me wrong, like I said before, I was never against adoption. It's just I thought it would be nice for us to start our family off with a couple of Adalees and Khydams...and yes, we did think of those as our kids names...maybe different spellings.
So here we were, Khylee feeling that adoption could be the only way we have children, and me feeling that we should do both. We decided to make a deal that each of us would pray that God would at least make each of us OK with how the other one felt. And that's when it happened! Actually, nothing happened, not for awhile at least. I know you were expecting that prayers would be answered immediately. Nope, it wasn't until a little over a year ago when God began to place people into my life to soften my heart toward adoption. First was a man in our choir who shared with me that they had adopted their first son, which I didn't know they had. Then shortly after that, another member of the choir shared with me that he was adopted, which I didn't know he was. And the crazy thing about his story is that his biological last name was his adopted last name in Spanish! The last thing was I had a surgery. I won't tell you what surgery but I had a surgery. And when I was laying on the couch in pain, I finally realized for the first time that I was never the one in control of even having birth children of my own. This whole time I was making plans for my life that I had no control over. I wasn't allowing God to build the family he desired for me. Now the surgery had nothing to do with infertility, in fact the doctor assured us of that, but the fact is, it could have been a problem. OK God you have my attention!
God did have my attention and what he was showing me was this...Many times, adoption is Plan B for those who cannot have biological children. Not a bad thing at all, but he was showing me through Khylee and these other circumstances, that He wants adoption for us to be Plan A. John Piper puts it this way in his sermon, Adoption: The Heart of the Gospel:
Adoption in God’s mind was not Plan B. He predestined us for adoption before the creation of the world. Plan A was not lots of children who never sin and never need to be redeemed. Plan A was creation, fall, redemption, adoption so that the full range of God’s glory and mercy and grace could be known by his adopted children. Adoption was not second best. It was planned from the beginning.
In our lives, there is something uniquely precious about having children by birth. That is a good plan. There is also something different, but also uniquely precious, about adopting children. Each has its own uniqueness. Your choice to adopt children may be sequentially second. But does not have to be secondary. It can be as precious and significant as having children by birth. God is able to make adoption an A+ plan in our lives. Scripture reference (Ephesians 1:4-6)
I am so thankful I was not Plan B on God's mind. I am so thankful He has put in my heart a love for children who may not look like me, talk like me or have the same type of background as me. But the truth is is that I didn't look like Jesus, talk like Jesus or have the same background as Jesus for God to love me and adopt me into His family, where only four of my brothers and sisters look anything like me!