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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's words you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to Him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 830 or 10:30 A.m.. If you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find [email protected]. Be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, madison Church of Christ Bible Studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: At the church I grew up at, sunday nights were kind of one of those nights that were relegated towards some kind of, like, special presentation. If there was a missionary that we supported in another part of the world, he would come on a Sunday night and do a presentation about his work and what we were giving towards. Another thing that would sometimes happen is if maybe there was a local nonprofit that the church had supported. Sunday nights were usually the night that that nonprofit would stand on the stage and they would share a little bit about what our giving was going towards and what we were supporting. And one of those organizations that did a presentation every single year of my childhood was Agape of Central Alabama. And similar to Agape of North Alabama that we support and are a part of up here, agape of Central Alabama is a foster care and an adoption agency. They look after vulnerable moms and families and children. And so I remember on those Sunday nights, I would sit just like our youth do in these first few sections, and we would hear that presentation. We would see the statistics. We would look on those screens and see the pictures of the kids. And I didn't want to appear when I was a kid, emotional like that. It was breaking my heart and opening my heart. And so I've tried to act all tough. But let me tell you, the moment I got in the car, my sister and I, we every year said to mom and dad, can we please adopt? Can we please foster? And they would always give us this response. My dad said something like this, andrew, we're not at a place right now where we can adopt, but we are still supporting Agape and helping in different ways. We're just not at a place in life where we can do that. Now, I have to tell you, at that age, I didn't like that answer. Part of me wanted to be like, where's your heart? But I didn't do that. But what I learned from my dad is still something that I really believe. And it's this god has not called every single person to adopt or to foster, but what God has called is for every single one of us to look out for people that are vulnerable, the orphans and the widows and those that are in distress. See, the reason why I want to start there this morning is if I'm in your shoes and I see on the screen or see in the outline that today we're going to talk about adoption or being adopted, I don't want you to feel like the person that's sharing the message this morning that I'm trying to guilt you into adoption or fostering. Now, if that's something you want to do and God opens your heart to want to do that, praise God. Danny and others would love to have you join the Agape family up here. There are so many needs.
But the reason why I want to say that from the very beginning is this this lesson today that I'm about to share is not about me. Sundays are not about me or any person or a personality. This lesson is not about me or my family. This lesson is about God and what we have learned through the adoption process and what it's taught us about the love of our father. But I also want to say though, too, part of the reason why I'm going about it this way this morning is the number one question I get asked. And I was talking with some other families that have gone through the foster care process and adoption as well. They said the same thing. The number one question we get asked is, hey, what does that process look like? In fact, just a few days ago on Facebook, I go to messenger and I have a message from somebody I hadn't talked to in the longest time. They messaged me and said, hey, could you tell me a little bit about the adoption process? To which I replied, here's my phone number, because I can't say it all in just one can't. You know, we need lunch, we need to talk to each other, we need to sit across the table. And it is such an involved process. But as we walked through that and those of you that have, and some of you are in this audience this morning that are currently fostering, we had some this morning at the 830 Service. The Martin family had their foster child with us this morning too. And that as you go through that experience of an earthly adoption, it is an amazing parallel to the spiritual adoption that every single one of us have experienced through Jesus Christ.
While adoption on the outside, yes, and even on the inside has its moments of beauty, it also has its extreme moments of brokenness.
But it's that beauty and that brokenness that are a part of the adoption process that doesn't that remind you of our own redemption story that God didn't save Andrew Itsen and God didn't save you because he looked down and like, man, have you seen that guy?
It was more of like, have you seen that guy? Like, what are we going to do? That's the reality. But yet he still chose us and adopted us into his family. And as we dig into Ephesians One today, what you're going to see is this church just like us. They were struggling with all sorts of things that we struggle with idolatry. They were struggling with sexual immorality. They were struggling with their prayers. They were struggling with gossip. And what I love about Paul, before he tells them how to behave, he first lets them know this you belong.
Because you and I know if you're in the education system, that a lot of times if you see kids acting up, it's usually a sign that what's going on at home, something's broken. Right?
That in order for us to behave how we need to behave, we first have to know that we have a place in the family.
So when Lorianne and I were going through our premarital counseling, one of the things that we did was the guy that did it for us, Donnie Hilliard, he gave Lorianne a piece of paper and me a piece of paper, and it had on it our couple goals, individual goals and family goals. He wanted us to write our goals down, but not tell each other what those goals were until we met. But when that time happened, there were some of the goals that she shared that I knew were some of the goals she had for her and our family and our marriage. But what was interesting, one of the goals she wrote down under family goals was that one day she wanted to adopt. Well, when we were sharing that, I shared. Well, that's funny, because I have that on my list, too. That one of the things that I want to do, is adopt. And turns out that at her congregation on Sunday nights, agape of Central Alabama also came there and did presentations. And so I had a plan. And I want to be clear when I say I had a plan.
I know we have some engineers in this room, and so we have a lot of planners. It's great that you like to plan, but you know, right, that sometimes your planning can get in the way of what God wants to do, which is maybe sometimes surprise you, right?
US planners like to write our plans in pen, but God likes us to write them in pencil sometimes, to have the ability for them to be changed and altered. Well, knowing her plans and my plans, I said, Why don't we do this? Why don't we have two biological children and then we'll adopt? She said, that's fine, but I wanted to stick to the plan. And when I keep emphasizing this, I'm trying to let you know, Lorianne's the person you want to hang out with, not me, okay?
And y'all knew that Lorianne gets pregnant with Cruz, and when she gets pregnant with him. My sister made us this little sign that said, coming soon, sweet Baby Itsen. And so what we did is we got a little nail and we put it on the door and we hung this on that door. And every time we saw this sign, we praised God. And every time we saw this sign, we prayed. We knew that there was some little boy, some little girl that we hadn't met yet that was going to be a part of our family.
Well, God did bless us with a little boy, landon Cruz. Itsen he was eight pounds, 22 inches long. And if you're not aware, 22 inches long is actually a really long baby. Lorianne used to sit, like, to her side during worship because he was wrapped around so long. But anyway, he came into this world and has been such a blessing and continues to be. So things, I guess what I'm saying are going according to plan.
So a few years later, we had started trying again.
And I came home from work and I opened the door. And usually when I opened the door coming home from work, you would hear like the Legos or the Hot Wheels, cars fall to the ground and the Pitter patter, the feet running to me. He would run to me and I would pick him up and hug him, but I didn't hear that. I opened the door, it was silence. I was, you know, Anyone home?
And in walks Lorianne holding Cruz, and Cruz is holding. This sign lets me know that baby two is on the you know, we're super excited and we get the sign that we had up for Cruz and we put it back up on the door. And every time I see that sign, I praise God. And every time I see that sign, I pray because I know there's some little boy, some little girl out there that I just haven't met yet.
Well, on the first Tuesday night of every month, the Robertsdale ladies would get together for a girls night. And they got together for this girl's night. And I had crews with me. And I get a call from Lorianne and she said, hey, Andrew, just want to let you know that I think I've had a miscarriage.
And that's something that I had heard other people going through. And even as a minister, when you walk with people through different things, you've walked with people through that.
But when it happens to you, it's completely different than when you walk with somebody through that.
Just full transparency for a second. I learned a lot. That what I said to other people in my attempt to help. It probably hurt that when you go through a difficult time, you don't really want people to feel like they have the perfect answer to your problem because you don't. But at the end of the day, you just want to know that that person cares so I guess what I'm saying is, it taught me about the different varieties of grief that people go through and to be sensitive to those.
But also, I think about this morning, there's those of you in this room that are literally going through that right now, and you have recently.
And two of the most difficult things to accept and go through in life are your limitations or an unfulfilled desire.
And I think about Hannah in the Bible. If y'all remember, Hannah was married to this guy named Elkanah, and Elkanah also had another wife named Panina.
And Hannah desperately wanted a child, and she prayed and she prayed, but yet her womb was empty. But the difficulty was, Elkanah, as he's married to Panina, she was somebody that was basically like a baby factory. I mean, she was having baby after baby after baby.
And so Hannah has to go on a trip with somebody that has all these kids.
If you've traveled with kids, it's obvious you're traveling with kids, okay? It's not like they don't make themselves known till you get there. They make themselves known the entire trip. And so you imagine on this trip, as they're getting ready to go worship, that there's fussing, they're crying, they're changing of diapers, per se. There's all these stops. And all the while, Hannah's seeing this, reminded of what she doesn't have. But she's also having to hear from Panina. That makes it more difficult because she's rubbing it in her face.
And then she prays this prayer. And the Bible says that Hannah was speaking in her heart. Her lips were moving, but her voice was not being heard. So Eli actually thought she was drunk.
Have you ever prayed a prayer like that where your lips were moving, or maybe your lips weren't even moving? You were trying to say something, you were trying to think of it, but no words came to mind.
That's the beauty of the Book of Psalms, by the way. N. T. Wright says the Book of Psalms is kind of like the soul's song book for every moment in your life that you don't know what to pray, you don't know what to say.
Not only does Christ step in on our behalf, but you have these psalms that help us say what we in our longings and our difficulties, don't know what to say. That's why I love Psalm five, by the way. David is actually mourning this very fractured relationship with his son. And in the prayer, this is what he says. God, hear my groaning. Have you ever groaned a prayer? Like, maybe you've been in traffic and like, Lord, please help them. That counts. I'm just kidding.
The other one, maybe you've cried a prayer like, Hannah, you didn't even know what to say. You just were crying it and you've said it.
When I think about those three kinds of prayers, we have three kids, and one of them likes to connect with me by throwing the ball. The other one likes to sit up in the bed and talk and to share stories.
Dawson she likes to use her American Girl dolls to tell me through Samantha what she so anyway, they all connect with me in three different ways. And I want to ask you, which one of those three do you think I like the best?
Yeah, I like them all because they're communicating with me. I don't care if you cry it, I don't care if you sigh it. I don't care if you groan it or say it. God hears it, and he wants to hear from you.
So being that things didn't go according to plan for me, I didn't want to bring this up too soon to Lori Anne. But at the same time, I guess the words just decided to fly out. When we were at the dinner table one night and I said, hey, I hope this is not too soon to bring this up, but you know how we had talked about adopting one day? Well, what if maybe God might be redirecting us and he wants us to adopt right now? And to my surprise, she was like, no, I love that. I just thought you were stuck on your plan. So I love that idea. Like, yes, why don't we do that now? I was thinking the same exact thing. So what we did is we reached out to different adoption agencies in full transparency. Even though we grew up with Agape of Central Alabama, we felt like we needed to do our due diligence, reach out to other adoption.
And all these adoption agencies are amazing. I want to make that clear. But there was something different about the messaging of Agape than any other agency, similar to the messaging of Agape of North Alabama. When we called these other agencies, it was more like, hey, so, yeah, this is what it costs. This is likely the time to get a child. And the things that I was expecting to hear, we call Agape. And what they said is, well, thank you for calling. We want to tell you about our ministry that one of the things that we care so much about are these vulnerable women, these vulnerable families. And when, like, a birth mom calls us, we bring her in, we counsel her, we support her, we go to all of her prenatal appointments. We give her different vitamins and things that she needs. We connect her with the church family, and then we help her make an adoption plan if that's what she needs to do. And then if she decides to make an adoption plan, one of the things that we do is we give her counseling for her job. And we also have people from different church families that walk alongside her and help her now that she's found this job. We even have certain people that will help her make a down payment on a car if she can't afford it. And I'm like, Whoa.
It made me realize this is even bigger than I thought. It's not about me and it's not even only about the child, that it's also about the family.
And so we felt like, wow, this is not just about getting a child, this is about joining a ministry. So we decided to go with Agape. And for us, when we made that decision, I called Agape, I said, hey, we decided we do want to go with you guys and want to start the adoption process. They said that's great. But before you do that, we want you to consider these two things. Number one, we want you to know that we have a lot of needs right now, but you have to be willing to adopt a child right now that's of a different race.
And I was just about let the words fly out of my mouth. Well, of course, yes. She said, before you answer, yes, I want to be blunt and honest with you, and you to be blunt and honest with your family to see if that's really something you're willing to do and to really to take on and to understand before you just say yes.
She said, I encourage you to do a few things.
I want you to make sure that as a family that you can connect with and find other African American families that can support you and give you wisdom and advice, because you have a lot to still to learn. But also you need to ask your families too, and look at to see if there might be any racial tension in the past or even present and bring that to the surface.
Y'all, I want to tell you, those were two of the best conversations I've ever had with my family.
They were real, they were tearful, but it was very healthy. The second thing was they said, we want you to read one of two books. And one of these books is called The Primal Wound. Now, I want to share with you, this is not a Christian book and it's not written by a Christian author. The lady that wrote this specializes in prenatal care and is a doctor and studies the brain and neurology. And one of the things that's very easy to think with adoption, because you look at it from the outside. And for us, we were wanting to adopt a newborn. So our thought is, well, this child hasn't lived two or three or ten years yet, so if it's a newborn, we'll adopt the child and then instantly he or she will see what we see, think what we think, know what we know, and it's going to be just a seamless blend. So we thought, we thought, well, because it's from a newborn. Well, this book talks about that in the womb from the very first month that baby in the womb is making a psychological a physical connection between the baby and the birth mom.
The baby is learning the birth mom's voice, is getting comfortable with her voice and the way she moves, the things she does. And there is a bond being established beginning in month one between the baby and the birth mom.
And what happens is it's kind of like you all probably like me. My dad was on the board of a Christian school, and he heard all the time there would be kids that were going through a difficult time acting out at their schools. And the parents would say, well, we're going to take them out of this school, and we're going to just put them in this Christian school, and that's going to fix everything.
You all understand the reality of that, right? That doesn't just fix everything.
And so what happens is that it's easy to think that since it's a child from birth, that man, their place will go from this family to this family, and instantly they make a connection. But that's not what happens. In fact, a few things happen that children that are taken from the womb and placed with a different family, they go through a withdrawal and they oftentimes it takes years for them to fully bond and connect.
And one of the most common traits of a child that is taken from the birth mom's womb and placed in another family is the child does not want to eat.
And I want you to hold on to that detail.
And so we read this, and as I'm reading this, y'all, by the way, too, I'm like, wait, this is written by a non Christian lady, but yet you're reading about what the baby knows and feels and is aware of. Does that not speak, by the way, to the sanctity of life?
The Bible says, I formed you in the womb and I knew you before you were born. I consecrated you before I formed you in my inward parts. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I'm wonderfully made.
And so we read those two books and so we started the process. And how the process looked for us is you send in a profile book, it's basically like a scrapbook. So Lorianne was going to do that, and it was the pictures of our family and our story, what our interests are, the activities we like to do with Cruz and my extended family, what they look like. And what you do is then they give those books to the birth mom and the birth mom gets to go through all these books and she picks the family that she wants her child to be with. So we prepared that book. We also in that process, we're going through the paperwork. If you're wondering, the paperwork, think mortgage paperwork. It's like that much. I signed so many things, I don't even know what I signed, but it's a lot of paperwork. And then the next part is home studies. And the home study is where the social worker comes to your house and checks out your house. And for me, the whole time, I'm thinking, all right, here's what we got to focus on. We got to make everything look good, right? We're going to get all of our clothes that are downstairs and throw them in the tub upstairs. For those of you that were here a few weeks, know what I'm talking about? But anyway, so we're going to light the candles, we're going to tuck the shirts in. We're going to smile when they come to the door. And so Caitlin, our social worker, was coming from Birmingham all the way down to South Alabama to meet us. She sends me a text and says, hey, I'm going to be there in about five minutes. I'm trying to make sure the house looks good. We're trying to make sure everything looks great. And all these things that we didn't have in our house that were safety things, we bought the day. You know, we're trying to make sure everything looks good. And then we look down at Cruz, and he decided that the perfect time to put Sharpie all over his face was right before Caitlin walks in. So you got red sharpie. And then I get a wet rag and try to scrub it. Then you can imagine what it looks like. It looks worse. Lauren's, like, stop. Just stop. Let it be. So she comes to the door, and it's kind of like what y'all have experienced on a Sunday morning, right? Like, you're in the rush of getting into the building, and you might be disciplining kids in the backseat. You've argued, maybe with your wife. And you walk in and everyone's like, how are you doing? Good. We're good, I promise. I'm like, yeah, all right. And we've all been good before, and we've all had that, but the reality is there was some level, of course, of brokenness behind that. And so she walks in and the home study, yes, it was about our home, but more in anything, it was more about our spiritual home.
We talked about the hardest thing that we went through as a couple, the hardest challenge that we've gone through in our lives, but also how we plan to discipline him or her.
So right after we got through with the home study, we were officially approved. And the question I asked next was, well, how long does it take?
Now, if you're a social worker worker out there, you're laughing at that? Because by the way, our social worker took it so gracious, because I know she was laughing. She's probably thinking, I'm not God. I don't know.
And she said, Andrew, it could be anywhere from, like, two months to two years. You know what I heard? Two months. I was like, we're going to be one of those two month ones. This profile book is going to be so good that we're going to get picked. So so two months rolls by. Six months rolls by. And I remember having a conversation with Lorianne saying, hey, it's been six months and I haven't gotten a call. Can I go through your phone to see if you've gotten a call? Do you think they've lost our number? Should I reach out to make sure that they have the right area? Coach Andrew it's only been six months. Calm down.
Six months passes. A year passes and then we get to a year and a half, still nothing.
And so when we made this decision, just like we did when we were finding out about Cruise and everything, we put this sign on the door. And what was interesting is in the first few months, this was really easy to look at.
But when you start to wait and you go through a moment of an unfulfilled desire, isn't it interesting how the very thing that at one time gave you comfort, then you start to see it, it gives you pain.
Some of y'all experience that you're going through that right now. You drive by it.
Yes, it's something that gives you comfort. But it's interesting how in the same place in our heart that there can be such joy, there can also be such pain.
And I wanted to take the sign down at times because I didn't want to be reminded, but Lori Anne kept reminding me of the prayer and what we had prayed. And so a few weeks later, I was in Thailand on a mission trip. It was midnight, but twelve here, noon, and I see Caitlin, our social worker calls, I pick up the phone, I was like, hey. She's like, what are you doing? I was like, well, I'm in Thailand. She's like, you're in, you know, what are you doing? And I had to tell her what we were doing. And she's like, well, a birth mom has picked your book.
And I was like, oh, awesome. I was like, okay, the problem is I'm in Thailand, and so it's going to be a few days. She goes, that's okay, we got a few days. And so I called Lorianne, told her we were even talking about names for this little boy and brainstorming and different things like that. That was the longest flight, by the way, from Thailand back to America. We get here, we load up the car with the stuff, we get the car seat put in, and then we find out that the birth mom has changed her mind.
And so we unload all of that stuff. And it sounds weird to be disappointed because children are supposed to be raised by their birth parents, but it still didn't take away from the reality of that pain.
So a few months later we were in Atlanta, and I was speaking at a youth conference. And right before this, I get a call from Caitlin. She's like, what are. You doing? I'm like, I'm in Atlanta. She's like, what in the world? You're in the know? And I said, well, what do you need me to be doing? She goes, well, y'all have been picked again.
And she told us about the situation. She said it'd be a few days. But when we came back home, we loaded up the car, we got everything ready, and then we get a call that the birth mom has changed her mind.
And so, again, that sign that was easy to look at, that sign that brought me joy is now one of those things that, truthfully, I did want to take down. It was like we even went through, like, is this what we want to stay the course with?
And it is interesting, isn't it, that sometimes we can all start things in faith, but then difficulties arise, and it does get us to question stuff.
And so I think about my struggle with patience, and I was reminded of something that Jay Walton, who also adopted, said. You know, no one sells still waiting.
You know, you get asked, well, what's the latest? And you're like, you really don't want to have to go through it, just truthfully. But at the same time, you don't want to show that you can't walk through something either. So it's a difficult place. But as I think about waiting, just in general and my own lack of patience, we focus on waiting as what we get at the end, but we don't really focus usually on what we become as we wait.
I thought I was a patient person before I got married. I thought I was a patient person until I had kids. I thought I was a patient person until I went through the adoption process.
So I know this is an OD question to ask, but what do you think God wants to happen in you while you wait?
So we waited, and we got a phone call. I was about 30 minutes from our house in Robertsdale. I was about to meet some guys from church. My phone rang, and it was Caitlin. And she said, hey, what are you doing? I was like, well, I'm actually about to meet some guys from church. She goes, okay, well, I'm going to change your plans.
We wanted to wait to call y'all with this when the birth mom has signed over the rights and everything, knowing what y'all have been through before. And we just wanted to let you know that there's a little boy in Montgomery, Alabama, that's waiting on y'all.
And the first question that I thought to ask was, what's his name?
And she said, well, the birth mom has already given him a name, but she was very clear that y'all don't have to keep the name. I was like, okay, well, what is it? She said, his name is Cameron.
And so I thought that was awesome for several reasons. One of those is I'm a millennial, and we love monogramming. And so for Cruise, we had the C, and so we could keep the C on all the clothing. So that was a blessing.
Anyway, long story short, here was the issue, okay? So two things she said, cameron is in ICU because he won't eat and they put a tube in his mouth. And if you're going to make it tonight, you have to be here by 08:00. It was four in Robertsdale, and I was thinking, all right, I'm 30 minutes away. And I also wanted to tell Lori Anne this in person, but I didn't have that liberty. I had to call her and tell her all these details over the phone. I'm like, hey, pack up the car, get ready. Like, when I go, we got to get there. She's like, we're not going to make it in time. And by the way, if we wouldn't have made it in time, you all would have seen this report of preacher at Robertsdale climbs through ductwork to get to hospital. Nothing was going to stop me from getting into that hospital that night.
We hurry there, we drop off Cruz at my parents house because he's not old enough to go into the ICU. And when we get to the hospital, we put on all the garb and all that kind of stuff, and we walk in. And one of the nurses that, by the way, we knew, she made the connection, and she was the one that had been caring for Cameron and looking after him. And she asked Lorianne as we walked in there and we walked up to him in that little bed, she said, do you want to try to hold him? She said, of course. And so they took out that feeding tube and Lorianne sang to him, Jesus loves me.
And the nurse then asked Lorianne if she wanted to try to feed him.
So she gave Lorianne a bottle, and the very first bottle that he ever took was from his mama.
So don't tell me God is not the one that makes a family.
And so he ate so much, which, by the way, Cameron's a good eater. By the way, he ate so much that we were expecting to stay in the hospital for several days, that actually we were able to go home the very next.
So, of course, from that moment on, it's been awesome to see he and Cruz and their relationship. And I picked the one of them eating because that's the most common.
So we had our plans, right, two biological, to have one on our own. And so now we were trying to figure out, well, we still want to grow our family. What do we do next?
And I'm a list guy. I was trying to make like, a pros and cons list of what to do next.
Do we adopt again? Because we don't want Cameron to feel like the OD man out in the family.
But at the same time, we did have our plans. We wanted to have one of our own, and so we didn't have any more clarity. And so I kept trying to analyze it to death, and I know there's nobody in here like that, but I was analyzing death. And meanwhile, Lauren's like, I appreciate all of our conversating about this, but I'm not getting younger. We've got to make a decision. And so it was the very beginning of September of that year, and she said, Why don't we do this? And by the way, I'm not saying put a timeline on God. God is outside of time and space. We don't confine God to a box. I don't want to serve a God in a box. And I think that he's not in a box. However, she said, I'm not getting younger. So we do got to make a decision. So we said, God, make it obvious to us by the end of October. We're going to pray and pray and pray that he'll make it obvious.
October 30, and some of you know this story. We were sitting at the table with Lorianne's family. We see. Caitlin, call our social worker. October 30, I pick up the phone, walk outside, and y'all know I can't be still. So I'm pacing back and forth. Lorianne sees me on the phone. Caitlin says, Andrew, I know this is random and this is out of the blue, but we have so many needs right now, and we were wanting to see if you guys would come on as an adoptive family.
And I said, yeah, let me talk to my wife. I was in shock that we got that kind of an answer to prayer. And I hung up the phone, and Lori Anne said, Tell her yes. I was like, you don't even know what we were talking about. She? Yeah, I do. You know, we prayed about it. And a lot of times it's easy to think that if God answers a prayer, that specifically and that obvious, that everything should flow smoothly.
So we prayed, and God answered that prayer. And so that sign that we had put up, we put back up and live in anticipation of that little boy, that little girl that we're going to meet. Selfishly, I'll go ahead and tell you. We did pray for a little girl. We wanted a little girl really bad. And so a few weeks later, we get a call about a little girl in Montgomery, and we load up the car. We go and stay at the hospital with her. We bring her home.
Now, in the state of Alabama, there's a law that up until day 14, the birth mom can change your mind.
Now, up until that point with Agape of Central Alabama, they had not had this happen in 30 years. So to us, that was not even on the radar.
And I was in the car on day 14 and Caitlin calls and I think she's calling because what she's going to do is share with me our court date and the next steps because she did say, we'll be in touch.
And she said, hey, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm driving. She said, I need you to pull over.
So I pull over our car and she said, the birth mom has changed her mind.
We're going to have to go and pick. And she said her name her up and we're going to take her back to her family.
And I'll go and tell you it again, part of me does feel guilty for being upset because that's the way it's supposed to be. I still pray for that little girl all the time and her mama, and I really didn't want like, I wanted the Lord to come back between where I was and the way home. I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to have to tell this to lori Ann went home, she was feeding her and I said, hey, can your mom hold her for a second? I went and shared with her what had happened and that's a different type of grief and a whole nother thing I can't really explain, but that little girl drove away a few hours later and they brought her back to Montgomery.
And for me at that time, I kind of wanted just like, should we just stop doing this? The pain attached to it, the difficulty attached to it, but I'll never forget something Lorienne had said. She said, yeah, I know there's pain and difficulty attached to it, but the answer to the prayer has still not changed.
And so we decided to stay on and I'm so glad we did because a few weeks later, god blessed us with Dawson Tiana.
By the way, when I was in here by myself, I did way better with this. This morning at seven in the morning, a few things that this taught me. Number one, that the church is a network of protection. Like me, we all heard and have heard this statement. I don't know how anybody does it without a what a church family.
And for us, there's so many moments, the people bringing meals to us, I think about the pink diaper bag that Lori Ann or sometimes me, carries still to this day was given to us by the different moms at Robertsdale. When that baby was taken from our home, they purchased it and planned it together to get her this pink diaper bag to give to me. Not knowing, they said, Listen, God's going to give you all a girl. And they gave it to me to keep at the house hidden until that little girl arrived.
And I think back to the fact that if you looked at our bank account, we did not have the money to be able to afford an adoption.
But yet at each deadline we had a lady from church that made us a quilt, and we did an auction online and made almost $1,000 off of a quilt.
I asked our shepherds at Robertsdale because the church is right in the middle of, like, the baseball field, the splash pad and everything central to that community. I said, can we use the corner of the parking lot to do, like, a yard sale? Because people will see it to raise money for adoption. They're like, yeah, absolutely. And so what we ended up doing is I said, hey, and this was just on our private Facebook page. I said, if you have stuff you want to get rid of, could you bring it to the church building Wednesday night? Put in my office. There was so much stuff that filled up my office went down the hall, went down the kids hall, and also was in the fellowship hall. What was supposed to be a Saturday morning only yard sale turned into a Thursday Friday, Saturday yard sale. We made several thousand dollars off of a yard sale.
When you hear about the different storms people go through, it's not a question if you're going to go through a storm. Of course we know it's a matter of when. That's why I love the example that I shared with you a few years ago about these trees out in California in the Sequoia forests that stand over 300ft tall. What's interesting, their roots are only six to 12ft deep. So how can a tree that is over 300ft tall, when winds hit it, when storms hit, it still be able to stand here's? Why? Because its roots are connected with trees sometimes five to ten times over.
So when the storms come and the winds come, if you tried to pull down that tree, guess what? You have to pull down the entire forest. I think that's what the psalmist was getting at in Psalm 92 when he said this. You want to flourish like the palm tree and grow like the cedar of Lambdon. Plant yourself in the house of the Lord. I'll tell you, one of the things our world teaches us today, doesn't. It not that the way to grow is to move. Always move. Sometimes the greatest act of faithfulness is putting roots where God has planted you. The second thing this whole thing taught me is the reality of the fact that we all have brokenness to some degree behind those I'm doing great, we're great, we're doing good, is brokenness that every single family deals with. I'll give you an example of this. If you were at the marriage retreat a few years ago, you'll remember this. We had to give a picture to the adoption agency for them to put in their book. And so we got a buddy of ours to take a picture of us. And as you know, Lorianne does photography, so I'm kind of familiar with what goes into that.
And I used to be the guy standing behind the camera for these big family shoots try to make kids laugh. I've eaten leaves. I've poured sand on my head. Anything to make the kids smile.
We go to this field and we take a picture. And the picture I'm about to show you, this one, it's in our home. It's what we gave to Agape. And that was in that magazine that was circulating.
But what I want you to know about this picture that you see here, it's a fraud. Because here's the reality of most of the shoot.
So Cruz is, of course, flipping over Lorianne's hair. Dawson's trying to crawl away.
And from my experience of going to those photo shoots with her, the two most unhappy people in every family photo shoot are the teenage boy that does not want to be there and the father that paid for everybody to be there, but he still doesn't want to be there. But anyway and then Cam, the entire shoot, he makes this face the entire time. And some of you are like, no, he didn't make that face because in this picture he's smiling. Well, my buddy Dylan is really good at photoshop. He found a picture of Cameron going down a slide and took it and put it on this one.
So that's what I'm saying. Every family has something that's going on, right? Everybody has some kind of brokenness. And the reason why I mentioned that is what destroys and hurts families is not imperfections, but it's the attitude that we take towards those imperfections.
But right now more than ever is it like virtually speaking, you get online and everybody projects, hey, it's all good. It's all perfect, right? Our virtual reputation, the gap between that and our reality is oftentimes big, isn't it?
And so I love something that Brandon said at our family retreat. At his lesson, he said this don't let comparison rob your family of its uniqueness. I love that we all carry with us some kind of brokenness. David, a man after God's own heart, great leader of a country, could not lead his family. Think about Jesus'parents, Mary and Joseph. They lost the savior of the know. Is that a perfect family?
Here's the final thing, and then the lesson is yours. The brokenness and beauty of adoption is also a reminder of our own spiritual adoption and our own redemption. Like with Option, it's got some of the highest of highs, but it also has some of the lowest of lows. But if you think about your own walk, it's got some of the highest of highs and it also comes with it the lowest of lows. Well, how do you handle the good moments? How do you handle the difficult moments?
Remember when I shared with you earlier what Paul is doing? He's writing to the church in Ephesus. They are struggling. They worship God on Sunday, but sometimes they also worship Artemis on Monday. They struggle with idolatry there's gossip happening in the church. There's gossip happening in the community. There's sexual immorality. They're struggling with all sorts of things. And he doesn't start his text in Ephesians one be like, stop doing this, stop doing that, stop doing this, stop doing that. Before he tells them how to behave, he first lets them know this. You belong. He says this in love. He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.
What God is saying in this text, before I tell you to behave, I first need you to be reminded that you belong. When we hear the word adoption, it does mean a lot to us, but it means something different to this audience, because in their Roman culture, if, like, a Roman family had a baby, the mom would or the servant would put the baby there, and the Roman father would look at the baby. And if he wanted a son, but it was a daughter, or if the child had some physical disability, if it was a child he didn't want, he would walk away, and the child was left up to the fate of the gods to decide.
So they would put those babies on the streets.
They would put them at the temple, but one of the most common places they would put the babies was at the edge of the city, so they could die.
By the way, if you study back in your Christian history, you'll find out that the people that were going to the edge of the city and getting those babies, guess who they were?
It was the church.
And so when he says this here, it strikes another chord with them that no matter what you've experienced and gone through, what makes you maybe at times feel disconnected, the defining moment is not what you've been through, what you are kicked out of or whatever, but it's about the one that brought you in.
As we conclude today in Luke 15, there are three different things that are lost. There's a lost son and there's a lost sheep. And for a preacher, it's so easy just to want to preach on the sheep and the sun, because we get that right? Because if we have a dog outside of one of our dogs that we had growing up, Baxter, I didn't want to search after him. But anyway, usually if it's an animal and it's lost out there, we want to go find that animal because we love our animals. So we get that. And when there's a son out there, we get that. But think about this. Something different about the coin.
The son willfully chose to run away, and then the sheep was looking for something better.
But then you have this coin.
The coin didn't choose to be lost.
And that's what makes it so interesting to me.
But it's also interesting because in their culture, you know how we keep change, like in our cup holder or if it falls in the little crevice of our car. We don't think it's a big deal. To them, it was a huge deal because the coin had an image on it.
So Luke 15, it says, or what about a woman? She had ten coins. And if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house until she finds it.
See, there was probably the crevices in the ground and the floor. And as John shared this morning, there was no light. So she is literally getting down on her hands and knees with this light, listening for a cling and a clang of a coin.
And it says that when she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors saying, rejoice with me for the coin that I had that was lost has been found.
That doesn't seem to make sense.
Like, all of that for a coin.
Why? Because just like with whatever it is that we're waiting on god, if he knows we're out there, he's out there, she's out there. The search is relentless, yet the coin is lost, but the image is not lost. Still there.
And so can you imagine as she's inviting her friends, like, going to your mailbox and be like, hey, honey, who gave us mail today? We got a piece of mail from Martha. It's an invite. To what? Martha says, please come to my house next Monday to celebrate that I found my coin. Like, what she's going to spend more than a coin to celebrate a coin?
It doesn't seem to make sense. It seems like a very illogical approach to value. And God's like, yes, that's my point.
Because you're out there, he's out there, she's out there. And so because of that, the search is relentless.
Maybe you're here today and you're struggling like we all do, to behave. Maybe you just need to hear this. You belong.
Maybe for some of you, part of the reason why you struggle to behave. You're trying to do it on your own. You can't.
One of the things that the Bible says is when we put on Christ in baptism, in Acts 238, we're given the gift of the Holy Spirit, that's God with us, that you can't do life alone and you can't do life without a church family.
That in order for you to behave like you need to, you also maybe need to make that decision to put on Christ in baptism, to be joined with Him, to let him belong in you, to know that you have a place. So, like we all do when we have those moments of difficulty or we choose things we shouldn't when we do things we shouldn't, that we have a place to belong. So if you're here today and you're subject to that invitation in any way, please come. Always stand and we sing this song.
