I also love the independence that 9 year olds bring. I love that my Bigs can stay home alone. I love sending kids to the showers alone. I love big kid games like Apples to Apples and One-on-one.
I like indoor rock climbing with the Twins.
I like shopping with my Mini-Me.
So here I am. I'm processing what Adoption has cost me.
My hubs and I have had to make adjustments the whole way through, of course. You can't add any kids to your family without adjustments. Bio, adopted, whatever. They all change your family.
A warm night after dinner last week, we decided to play wiffle ball as a family. With flip-flops for bases and a broken purple bat, toss in a couple of kids who had never hit a ball before, and you have some kind of fabulous! But the end of the game found me in the sand pit with the baby and the bored preschooler.
Not a big deal. I have nothing against sand. Or hanging out with my Littles.
But in that moment, The Cost sank in.
It is not that adoption cost me wiffle ball. But adoption did cost me freedom. For anyone that has had a 5 year old and a 10 year old, you know what I'm talking about. There is a hundred years between them, isn't there? I see friends whose kids are the ages of our older ones and I know what my life would look like without Round Two of little kids.
Aren't those Round Two's the cutest?
Yes I knew that adoption would cost us. In more ways than one. But as I process the cost in this particular season, I really feel like it is a sweet spot with God. Typing these simple words on my lit-up screen, I know I cannot fully convey the deep work that Jesus is doing in my soul.
I'll try to explain anyway.
Jesus said to his followers:
"If people want to follow me, they must give up the things they want. They must be willing to give up their lives daily to follow me."
He also said:
"You must be willing to give up everything you have to be my follower."
When we said yes to adopting our kids, it was because Jesus asked us to. We counted the cost the best we could and we said Yes.
And right here and now, right in the middle of the hard, right in the middle of feeling the cost of saying Yes, I want to say
Jesus is worth it!
He is so worth it! Very very worth it!
No matter what following Jesus costs me, it is worth it. Every. Time.
Adoption might seem like a small cost to you, and truly it is. There are far greater costs that many of you have paid for saying your Yes. But it is my Yes and it feels costly to me in this season.
I know there are many of you counting the cost of your Yes too. You are asking if it will be worth it. You are asking yourself if you are really ready. And no matter how small or humongous, the cost is there.
I know that Jesus asks all of us to give up everything to follow him.
Jesus asks us to give up sin.
He asks us to give up comfort.
Money.
Habits.
Time.
If you are standing on the edge right now, counting the cost before you take the plunge, please know that it is worth it. Know that whatever it is that Jesus is asking you to give up, He is totally, completely worth it.
Don't let fear hold you back, don't let yourself stand in the way.
Jesus is worth everything we could think to offer.
And now my baby needs his bottle and I have some poop to clean up and Jesus rocks. All the time.
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