I’ve wanted to be a dad for as long as I can remember. About
a week ago, in fact, my mother reminded me that at five years old I’d named my
future twins—a boy and a girl, as I recall. Sadly, I don’t remember their
names, but I do remember the sense I had, even then, that I was meant to be a father.
My wife would tell you a similar story. Something in her
bones just cries out “you’re a mom!” And, if you’ve met her, you know she is a mom. There isn’t a runny nose, a
grubby face, a hungry grumble, or a sad gaze that escapes her. She’s not one to
snatch babies up and carry them around, but you better believe she loves on and
watches out for every kiddo she meets. I’m biased, sure, but she’s pretty
incredible.
You can understand our confusion, then, when we struggled to
have a baby. Why would a ready (if perhaps modestly equipped) father and a born
mother not be able to conceive? We aren’t naive to biological processes, of
course. We know there’s science to having a baby; but we believe in powers
bigger than science. Surely God wouldn’t have wired us for parenthood if we
weren’t meant to have a family.
Over the years, confusion led to frustration. Frustration
led to sorrow. And, well, sorrow brought on a host of painful emotions.
Bitterness. Anger. Doubt. Envy. I’m too ashamed to write them all…
But then a funny thing happened. At the height of our pain,
when we felt most like God had abandoned the life story he’d set us on, we
started to encounter (and entertain) a new opportunity: adoption.
You know that feeling when you buy a “unique” car and,
suddenly, it seems like that same model is everywhere? That’s how it was for us
with adoption. God knew we’d be slow to get His ultimate plan, but when the
pain started to fade and our hearts started to soften, man, He beat us over the
head with it. James 1:27—“Religion that
God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans
and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by
the world.”—rang in our ears almost everywhere we went. Scary statistics
about needy children found their way to my desk. There was a church fundraiser
for an adoption agency. Then a boys’ home dinner. Then friends started working
with a children’s home. We met adoptive parents. We met adopted kids.
We weren’t seeking these experiences. They were finding us—all
while I rather obliviously prayed for a “clear sign” about our future. Slowly
we began to think that perhaps our life story hadn’t been abandoned. Maybe we just
misunderstood what God’s next chapter was all about.
It wasn’t about us.
That little phrase changed my whole world. And, laugh if you
want, it finally hit me in a song. At the height of God’s adoption chorus, an
old friend shot me a link to Audio Adrenaline’s new single, Kings and Queens. In the song (which you
should definitely give a listen), Kevin Max sings:
Break our
hearts once again.
Help us to remember when
We were only children hoping for a friend.
Won't you look around--
These are the lives that the world has forgotten,
Waiting for doors of our hearts and our homes to open.
Help us to remember when
We were only children hoping for a friend.
Won't you look around--
These are the lives that the world has forgotten,
Waiting for doors of our hearts and our homes to open.
Boys become
kings, girls will be queens
Wrapped in Your majesty
When we love, when we love the least of these.
Wrapped in Your majesty
When we love, when we love the least of these.
…
If not us, who
will be
Like Jesus to
the least of these?
I listened to the song three or four times that day… and I
cried. Not a manly eye-watering, either, but a full on happy weeping. (At work,
no less.) I finally understood. Little kings and queens were waiting all around
us—special souls, with infinite opportunities, just needing a heart and a home
to open. And we had an extra room.
I’d misunderstood fatherhood. Being a dad’s not about
fulfilling my needs. It’s about meeting someone else’s—about pouring out self
and being like Jesus.
Our incredible friends have dubbed this effort “Beard for the
Blanchards,” and, if you saw us on the news, there was a lot of focus on me and
Amy. (And we are so humbled by all the support; all of you are simply amazing.)
But this isn’t about us. There’s a little somebody out there—a royal in waiting—whose
life, whose God-given story, you are unlocking. We’re ready to bring that
little somebody home, and, through your beards and your support, we’re going to
wrap him or her (or them!) in the love and majesty of our Savior.
--From the Blanchards Soon-to-be-Three: We love you. Thanks
for being Jesus to our family.
