Meet the Anderson Family

When You Adopt a Child, You Can Adopt a Family

By Matthew Anderson

Our two sons — one whom we adopted at birth and one whom we’ve been fostering for about a year — turn 2 this month, so we threw them a party Saturday to celebrate.

At that party, which was attended by about 30 family members and friends, including our son’s biological father and our foster son’s mother, my dad said something that I haven’t stopped thinking about since: “When you adopt a child, you can really adopt a family.”

I’d add that when you foster a child, you can adopt a family, too.

The funny thing is that we told ourselves — and God — three and a half years ago that we’d never adopt domestically or care for foster children. Too much potential for hurt, and besides, who wants to get close to parents who don’t take care of their kids properly, especially when we’ve suffered so much trying to bear children of our “own”?

How wrong and self-focused we were. We’d sought kids to make ourselves happy, but the Lord turned us toward a better endeavor: caring for children in their need. And He also taught us — contrary to what we’d believed — that the adults in these kids’ lives are every bit as valuable and worth knowing.

We’ve found more happiness than we ever expected in adoption and foster care, and even some of the downsides we thought we saw turned out to be pretty great.

This post originally published on November 19, 2014. 

Posted in Adoption 11/6/2014 at 8:13pm by Jen Rittenhouse