If the most common first question we are asked when discussing our adoption is about the size of our house, then the most common second question we are asked is, "How will we love more kids?" or more often stated, "How are you going to do that?" After all, most people point out, it's hard enough raising two.
I totally understand this, and back when we had our first three children, I was having a pretty tough time myself. The enemy had convinced me that I wasn't cut out to be a mom of many (as I had always thought) and he had done some damage to my confidence back then. But God turned that "bad stuff" into His good as He taught me that it's my weakness that so brilliantly displays His strength.
"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
To address the question of how we can possibly love more kids, the simple answer is that we can't...in our own strength. We can't love one, two, three, six, or eight kids apart from the love of Christ within us. In fact, we can't do anything at all apart from God.
"I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5
The enemy doesn't like loving, God-honoring families and he doesn't like adoption. He is eager to devour and destroy and he'd love us to feel inadequate to love another child, especially an orphan child. But before I accept his game of defeat, I take captive my thoughts as I remember and replay the words from the Word like a broken record in my heart and mind:
"For nothing is impossible with God." Luke 1:37
"If you abide in me, and my words
abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." John 15:7
"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Matthew 6:33
What I've come to realize as God has taught me His heart is that He is the only source of anything truly good in me. He is the One who loves my kids through me. He is the One my children need, not me. Yes, He chooses to use me as I submit my life to Him, but He doesn't need me.
So, daily (hourly) I seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, I cling to Him, I love Him, I spend time with Him, I worship Him, I talk to Him, I listen to Him....and He lives out His will through me. This is my only explanation for how we intend to love the kids we have already been blessed with. It's the answer to the question, "How will we love more kids?" It's the only way I know how to be or do anything good at all.
I lift a simple prayer, asking the Lord to be my everything. I yield my soul to Him and expect His responsiveness with childlike faith. I acknowledge my inadequacy in all things, but revere God's sufficiency in ALL things. And I believe that God would not have knit more children into our family if it were not His good, wise, loving, and purposeful will for our lives and theirs.
"And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up." Galatians 6:9
When I remind myself that God loves the whole entire world, each individual, somehow my small sphere of people to love feels basic. When I realize that my love, by God's grace, multiplies rather than divides with each new family member or friend I am encouraged. And when I stop looking at myself and fix my eyes on Him, the critical task of maternal love comes naturally. God is love and He supplies our needs as He equips us for that to which we've been called.
"And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:19
May God be glorified through this broken empty vessel of a woman as I give myself to Him (and to as many children as He has planned for me to love). May He express Himself to my kids through me with His perfect, steadfast, abiding love. And, may He therefore be the One to receive the praise as He masterfully loves more kids.
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother." 1 John 4:7-21
