Reflection by Mary Lou Edgar for November 5, 2023.

Here it is November. Halloween has passed, Thanksgiving is coming, and Christmas is looming. In addition to all this, we celebrate National Adoption Month. Most of you know that this is a time near and dear to Dan’s heart and my own. All year, we focus our energy on trying to find homes for children who are waiting. There are around 400.000 children in our country in foster care waiting for a family. I have never done this, but I’m going to share a poem with you that was written for our children. I hope it helps you remember those children who at this important time of year, don’t have a family.

WILL YOU?

Will you take this child for me?
Will you love her while you may?
I’ve touched her with my sunshine,
With a golden, tender ray.
Can you hold her close for me?
And teach her how to pray?

Can you love a child not born of you?
If her eyes are brown while yours are blue?
And should there be a cross to bear,
If I should send her, will you share
The best of all my love and care?

The grace, the love, the strength, I’ll give it all
And will you give her back if I should call?
Give me your tears, your pain, all your care upon me cast
I’ll carry it all for you, if only you will ask.

I’m coming back again, much sooner than you think.
And I’ll remember, in my Name, even a cold drink.
Much love I have to give, but for this place and time
Will you – with your love – freely give her mine?
Many precious ones I have; they are included too,
When I said, “Love one another, even as I have loved you.”

— Sandra McGlothin

I Was Called To Adopt

Sandra and I became friends while waiting for our daughter, Karen, and her daughter from Korea to have surgery at the University of Virginia Hospital. I shared with her that we had always wanted to adopt but had been turned down in Virginia because we had two children by birth. Things have certainly changed! I had always felt called to adopt and now I was afraid that was not meant to be. She sent this to me, Dan took a job with Dupont, and we were fortunate enough to add three children by adoption to the two we had by birth. God truly blessed us. This month, think a bit about “our” children. By that I mean all the children who do not have permanent, loving families. They belong to all of us! And we are all adopted. Scripture says “you have received a spirit of adoption through which we cry “Abba Father.” —Romans 8: 15-17.

Take time to pray about those children waiting. Not everyone can open their home and heart to a child by adoption. There is much more to do. Mentor a child, contribute to a group where adoption is their primary focus. Our agency is A Better Chance for Our Children, but there is also Children and Families First, and Children’s Choice. Learn more about what adoption means and why our children have such tough beginnings and such challenging lives.

We are all children of God, but these children are in great need of the love and resources we take for granted. Children are our hope for the future – these kids have much to offer if only we give to them.

_____________________

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mary Lou Edgar, MSS, is a clinical social worker who founded A Better Chance for Our Children, an adoption and foster care agency that works to find permanent homes for children in the foster care system.  Mary Lou was the Executive Director of ABCFOC, but she is now retired.  She graduated from Neumann University and Bryn Mawr School of Social Work and Social Research. She and her husband joined SsAM in 2021.

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