We remember first meeting each of our children. Those treasured moments are significant, tender, and full of joy.

We first met Jude, not in a state of exhaustion after hours of birthing labor, but instead exhausted from three days of flights and car travel. Meeting this new child was a less painful experience for my wife! We had an entirely different sense of nervous anticipation—yet still incredible and life-changing.

We had first seen Jude’s picture and description three weeks earlier. Eve (our third child) began sleeping with his picture immediately, and our other two kids took his picture everywhere and told everyone about him. Over ten months later, Eve is still sprinting into his room the minute she hears him awake.

This all came about through the impact of Scripture. It was not related to any specific passages about orphan care. It was Nehemiah 1 and 2. Nearly two years before I held Jude for the first time, I had challenged our church to consider that God might be calling us to leverage for something after his heart. It could be our time, resources, influence, money, etc. The challenge stuck with me and I prayed about it regularly. What did it mean for me? For us as a family?

As the question continued to come up, Candra and I attended a leadership conference where some people spoke briefly about adoption. We looked at each other, overwhelmed with the sense that God wanted us to expand our family. Until then, I had felt we were through having children. Almost in an instant, my position changed dramatically.

What did we have to leverage for something after God’s heart? Something he was already using and will continue to use—a loving and stable family, a warm and suitable home, and the resources to provide for another child. Psalm 68:5-6a says, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families…” I understand that passage differently because of adoption. Maybe I am the lonely one who is being set in a family, more than my children. God is giving the gift to me, horizontally (my family) and vertically (with him).

Holding my youngest son for the first time I realized powerfully that, in Christ, God gives us all that he is and has. Even then, everything I was and had became available to Jude whether he knew what it meant or not. He was adopted and enveloped into our family. How amazing that God does this in an even greater way for each one of us!

I understand that one reason some husbands are slow to consider adoption is that they wonder if they could really love a child that “wasn’t theirs.”

None of our kids are really ours—that’s our approach to parenting. They are God’s and he has entrusted them into our care. He loves them more than we could and wants far more for them than we could ever imagine. As a reflection of God’s heart, we want the very best for each one of our children and would do anything for them—regardless of how and when we first met. They are each amazing gifts.

Rev. Riley Sexton is pastor at Journeys Church in Saskatoon, SK.

More Featured Articles