[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 05/December/2021]
I have always been fascinated by adoption and fostering, devouring every book I could find on the subject. At age 11 my favourite fantasy was about a big family with 6 birth children, 3 adoptees and 3 foster children. The adopted and foster children had joined the family at different ages, from babyhood to age 12.
When I joined the adoption community more than 20 years later, I met families quite as remarkable as the one of my childhood fantasy. One lady found herself alone after her birth children had grown up and her husband left her. She asked God what she should do and soon after that she saw an appeal for adopters and went on to adopt a little girl profoundly disabled with cerebral palsy and a teenage boy with learning disabilities. She also fostered 2 more teenage boys. Since then my own cousin has built a family with a mixture of birth, adopted and foster children. Whilst I have no birth children, it has been a huge privilege to bring up 2 adopted sons and more recently offer short term care to young people as a volunteer host. Last year I felt that God was calling me to be a respite foster carer, but after one very difficult placement, followed by another which seemed to be going well but suddenly broke down, I felt too bruised to continue and wondered whether I should stick to hosting. I was then asked to host a 16 year old who they felt was a perfect match for me and within a week of her arrival I agreed to be her full time foster carer, something I never thought I could do, especially at age 65, but God’s timing is perfect.
In many ways the church is like the big mixed family of my childhood imagination. We all join the family at different ages. Some have been very damaged by their previous experiences and need special care and love. Others, who have been in the family since babyhood, may find it hard to understand why those who join it later struggle to fit in, yet I believe that God has a special place in his heart for the most difficult and damaged people who come into his family and in his eyes no-one is unadoptable.
1 John 3 v 1 says: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
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Contributed by Helen Ruffhead; © the Author
