Why don't more families adopt?

This question has plagued me since my little six-year old self stepped foot into an international orphanage for the first time, facing children my exact age and children that could have been me. I couldn’t comprehend it. My friends in America had houses with enough room, enough toys, enough clothes, enough food for another family member. And yet no one I knew wanted to bring them home.

Some twenty-five years later, I again stepped foot into an international orphanage, but this time as a mama. A mama who’s heart broke for the 100+ precious souls I had to turn my back on and carry just one precious son out.

Maybe they don’t know? If only people could see these sweet little faces, they too would come running.

And so I re-posted. Every advocacy resource. Every possible little soul available for adoption. And yet, I still see the same precious faces popping up again and again, year after year, languishing and waiting.

Maybe it’s faith? If people just knew that you don’t need to have a lot of it, just a willing and obedient heart. A heart ready to listen and learn and grow.

So we’ve shared our story and so have many, many others. Of how we are the blessed ones. Of how we can’t imagine life without this precious child. Of how are are oh so grateful that we didn’t miss this. But there are still millions, millions of precious children just like our son without a family.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t know why families don’t adopt. I’m not God and that’s not my job. But I can tell you why we almost didn’t start this journey to our first son and why some days we shake in our boots and want to pull the plug on this endless waiting to bring our next son home from China.

Comfort.

Adoption reveals all of your idols. Not because this precious child you’ve been staring at in a picture for years now suddenly turns into a little monster. But because it shows you the ugliness in your own heart. Your own self-centeredness. Which is not comfortable. At all.