My friend spent the whole day thinking about whether she should adopt the child, and somewhere along the way, she began to feel that she was being selfish.
She wondered why she couldn’t seem to find enough love within herself. She even found herself thinking about the child’s appearance—if she didn’t feel drawn to the way the child looked, she didn’t really want to adopt.
Then she began to criticize herself.
God calls us to love. Why am I being so selfish? Why am I like this?
But as I thought about it, I began to wonder whether there might be a lot of worldly anxiety mixed into all of this—and perhaps even a kind of spiritual pretending.
The source of love is God, because God is love.
We are able to love others when we ourselves are filled with His love until it begins to overflow. God calls us to be vessels of His love and vessels of His blessing.
Love is not something I have to force out of my own heart through sheer effort.
And I also believe that passion without wisdom from God can sometimes do real harm.
We need spiritual discernment—not only in how we see ourselves, but also in how we think about the child we may be called to adopt.
There are people who willingly adopt children with disabilities or significant medical needs. That can be an incredibly beautiful expression of love.
But my friend is not particularly strong physically, and she is especially sensitive to pain. She knows that she does not want to adopt a child with significant disabilities.
And I think God understands her limitations, too.
What stood out to me most was that she kept expressing two fears.
The first was:
“What if I can’t adopt a healthy child?”
And the second was:
“What if I choose not to adopt? What if that means I’m going against God’s will, and He disciplines me for it?”
But I don’t think a decision this important should be driven primarily by fear.
If she chooses to adopt, I hope the motivation comes from love—
because she loves God, and therefore freely and willingly chooses to love this child for His sake;
because she genuinely desires to care for a child who needs a home;
because the love she has received from God has begun to overflow into another life.
Not because she is terrified of what God might do if she says no.
After all,
we love because He first loved us.