My favorite thing to do as a child was play adoption agency. I would line my cutout magazine kids or baby dolls and get them all ready for their big day. All the kids had smiles on their faces and every one of them was chosen by the perfect family. They got new birth certificates and names, and everyone was happy. I now watch my daughter play adoption agency and hers is run very different. Her adoption agency isn't about babies and families - hers about the person who placed them. Her agency lets me know I am doing something right.
I knew early on I wanted to make the world better. Since a young age, my empathy level was high - like too high. I would see a homeless person or a person crying, and it would literally ruin my day. Today, I feel the same.
I chose adoption as my legacy work because I really believe, like my five-year-old self did, that every child deserves a home. I believe even more that every person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.
Though I am a very faith-filled person, I am not religious. Religion, as I was taught, was full of judgement and sin. God as I know him is full of goodness and only that. Believing in a God like that helps me be bold in my work. It helps me say “Wait a minute. Every person deserves good.”
“What you did to the least of these, you did to me” (Matthew 25:40).
Recently in prayer, it came to me "It is not your reputation on the line, it is Mine". God's reputation is literally on the line. I want people to know the goodness of Him. That God wants well for everyone. It was when I saw my faith alive and well in abortion clinics more than in the pews on Sundays, that I knew my space was doing adoption in the pro-choice movement.
A couple of days ago a local Facebook post had a woman in her North Face jacket and Uggs standing on a street corner holding a sign that said "I am collecting money for the REAL homeless" as a homeless person stood behind her. Hundreds of people applauded her. Many saying they wanted to follow suit. Even more people were condemning over and over again the scam of people begging for money on street corners. It was stated that this man even had a nice car (like a BMW).
I, on the other hand, was furious. My heart literally broke for the man standing behind her. Freezing with his tattered sign. Was he scamming? I don't know. What I do know...
“What you did to the least of these, you did to me” (Matthew 25:40).
His reputation is on the line.
Yesterday I was in Toledo, Ohio for a clinic visit and as I drove past the streets, I noticed dilapidated houses with nice cars sitting in front of them. It made me think of the homeless person who had his so called “nice car”, too. I used to hear all of the time when I worked in the homeless system, "How can they be homeless but have an iPhone?"
This is thick judgement seeping through wonders. How easy it is to point in someone else's direction when almost all of America buys things they really can't afford.
“What you did to the least of these, you did to me” (Matthew 25:40).
His reputation is on the line.
At the clinic in Toledo, I literally got stared down by a protestor. It was scary. I have come across and encountered protestors for 10 years of my life. But this older man had eyes that seared you. He literally would not look away. He just stood there and stared at my car. Not moving. Just staring. He could have been on the cover of a murder movie. The perpetrator of every nightmare you ever had. He was creepy.
“What you did to the least of these, you did to me” (Matthew 25:40).
His reputation is on the line.
I committed my life to this work because I want to be the person who gives all people dignity and respect. And I want homes for kids. All kids. Loving is so much easier than judging or condemning. And we all deserve that. I want to be able to say, “I loved the most broken in this world as I have loved Him.”
I want to change the world to see goodness. To see goodness's reputation is on the line.
