Once in a while...

...someone questions our decision to adopt our daughters.  Some people ask out of genuine curiosity and others ask out of a place of judgment and it is very easy to spot the difference. I realize that there are some who will just never get it and as much as I try to share my heart, it falls on deaf ears. 

Some individuals just cannot fathom bringing a child who is not "blood related" into the family.  This one I find quite intriguing as I am pretty sure most of us are not "blood related" to our spouses (or at least I hope we are not) and yet we can love them fiercely.  Others take issue with people of other races.  Personally, I am grateful that God created all different kinds of people.  How boring would it be if we all had the same skin color, eye color, hair type, and facial features?  Then there is the worry of what might happen with adopted children in the future.  What is ironic about this is that some of the people who have been the most judgmental were, once upon a time, rather wayward biological children themselves.  Perhaps some of their own skeletons are being improperly displaced, but I have better things to do than psychoanalyze the naysayers.  All I know is that God has lavished His love on us and, because of that, a desire was planted in our hearts to love two little ladies who called an orphanage home.

I was mulling all of this over as bedtime preparations were underway at our house last night.  I walked into Sena's room and she and Addie were snuggled in bed looking at a book. 

For me, it was a timely reminder that these girls are right where they are supposed to be.  God took a painful circumstance in both of their lives and made a way for them to have a family.  Once orphaned, they are now treasured daughters and sisters and granddaughters and nieces and friends and all of the judgment and condemnation in the world is not going to change that.  EVER.  It really doesn't matter whether others approve or not.  We know that God not only approves, but it was He who directed the steps that led these two particular little girls from the same village in Ethiopia to the same family halfway around the world so they could be sisters!

Isaiah 55:8-9   "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.  "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

I am grateful that God's ways are higher and that our family is part of the plan that God had for Sena and for Addie.  We would not be complete without them.  When I look at their sweet faces, I just see my daughters. 

When their brothers look at them, they just see their sisters.

And when their Daddy looks at them, it is love. Pure love.