What's Jesus Done For Me?

In my profile I state that we have seven adopted children. What I don’t say is that we have a daughter who is 30-years-old and a son who is 27-years-old. The next ones in line are two 6-year-olds, two 5-year-olds and one 3-year-old. Before we adopted the little ones, we were free. I was able to retire at age 51 with enough money for us to do what we wanted, go where we wanted, buy what we wanted - all within reason mind you, but still, we were free.

Years earlier in our marriage we had been foster parents. We got out of it for a bit and after retiring we thought, ‘eh, why not.’ It was time to give something back again. After all, fostering isn’t a forever commitment. So there we were, one cold February day. Just one day after we’d returned from a Mexican holiday, Social Services called to say they had a 2-month-old boy for us. "This will only be for a few weeks," they said, "a couple months at most." A year later we added his little sister who was 2-days-old. Again, we were told that they would only be with us for a little while as DSS worked at “rehabilitating” the parents so that these two kids, and 6 other siblings could be returned to the family.

Four years later the children were permanently apprehended and they became eligible for adoption. Guess what? Kids who are 4 and 3 years old don’t have many people eager to take them into their homes. At any age, adoption is a long, long commitment. And I don’t mean just the kid’s age.

You might be thinking, 'What heartless people! Didn't they love the kids?' Of course we'd grown to love them, but love is not impractical. My wife and I were now in our mid fifties. What child deserves parents who are in a nursing home by the time they graduate from high-school (a bit of an exaggeration but not by much)? And yet, we were the only parents these kids had ever known. They loved us. They trusted us. Besides, the only other parents who were willing to adopt were also in their fifties. If your going to live with old parents, surely it’s better to be with ones that you already know. So we applied.

To say that I was so torn between what I knew that I should do and what I wanted to do would be an understatement. Rather than going on and on, I’ll get right to the point of this blog. I was sitting out in the backyard, grumbling away to myself. I am so very selfish. I knew that this would be a commitment that would carry on literally until the day I died. So I prayed, “Father, my attitude stinks. How can I possibly do a good job of this when I want just the opposite? The children deserve so much better than what I’ll be able to give.”

In the blink of an eye, my attitude was changed. In an instant, I was taken from hating something to looking forward to it happening. In a jolt that actually jerked my head backward, Jesus changed me from a self-obsessed, narcissistic, self-centred fool, into someone who was and is able to love these children more than I love myself. While it's at times an overwhelming task, I love spending my retirement raising and nurturing these chidlren. Naturally our friends who are our age are off doing what I thought would give us the most fun in retirement. Now, I can see that we are the one who have been blessed beyond imagination.

Jesus is real. Jesus is alive. Jesus is in the business of saving souls and changing lives. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.