Adopting kids vs. God adopting us

Hi 👋🏽 I’m Natalie and I’m coming into your feed today with a very important conversation. I am sure this will push some buttons, but that’s part of what I’m here for!

Growth happens when someone is able to ask or say uncomfortable things to start conversations.

Years ago a friend explained to me in very simple terms why it is problematic of us to compare us adopting kids to God adopting us.

Once it was explained, it was like a light bulb 💡 went off & I committed to never doing it again. I also committed to calling it out & helping others understand.

I am not attacking you. I am you. We were fed this idea. It is in the air we breathe, especially as Christians.

The notion that adoptive & foster parents are saviors, heroes, rescuing kids from bad bad people is pumped into the air we breathe. Since we were children!

So it’s no wonder we hold tightly to this idea. It was a toxin in our oxygen.

But now that we know it’s a toxin, we must work to see all the ways saviorism shows up in our air, our narrative, our conversations, our subconscious.

I put together some slides touching briefly on some of my own thoughts.

When we are talking about God adopting us, we are always the sinners who don’t deserve grace and yet He wraps us up in it. This is NOT what is happening with our children or their birth family, who deserves grace & love and are just as valuable as we are.

MANY ADOPTEES SPEAK ON THIS.

My hope is to take some of the labor & emotional exhaustion from adoptees & birth parents trying to reach us adoptive parents…and continue uplifting adoptees. I mess up, I’m imperfect, and I get it wrong.

But I’m committed to using my space to do my small part in shifting the narrative, in helping other adoptive & foster parents understand how WE ADD TRAUMA to our kids. So we can do better.

Plus, toxins in air affect us too.

We all benefit from seeing & unlearning this stuff. I promise.

XO

Natalie