In honor of Veterans Day, I want to begin by thanking our veterans for their service to our country. The sacrifices of veterans and their families continue to guarantee our freedom. May God bless all our veterans and their families.
Stephanie and her twin sister were abandoned at birth, weighing a pound and a half each. They spent months in the Los Angeles County Hospital, suffering from drug withdrawal and recovering from surgical operations. Then, as Stephanie recounts, “[b]y the pure and powerful grace of God,” they were placed in foster care together, were kept together as they moved from home to home, and eventually were adopted together into a Christ-centered family.
Reflecting back on her experience, Stephanie writes, “[t]hrough adoption, my parents took abandoned girls, broken, and unwanted. They changed our names and gave us theirs; They gave us love and acceptance, in spite of who we had been, in spite of where we had come from; They gave us a new and hopeful future.”
Today, Stephanie serves as an attorney at our associated organization, Family Policy Alliance. Be inspired today by reading the rest of Stephanie’s beautiful story of adoption here.
Adoption provides a forever home to children in need. In addition to children like Stephanie in foster care, to children whose birth mothers make the very difficult decision to place their child for adoption at birth. Those mothers heroically chose adoption over abortion or parenting because they believe it is the best option for their child.
To be pro-life means to be pro-adoption.
November is National Adoption Month. Since 1976, National Adoption Month has been celebrated throughout the country in order to increase awareness of the need of a forever home for children in the U.S. foster care system and for children whose birth parents chose adoption placement at birth.
How ironic that as we celebrate adoption this month, some in Congress recently contemplated eliminating the adoption tax credit. This would have made adoption more expensive for most families and prohibitive for many.
Thankfully, after much public outcry, the House restored the adoption tax credit yesterday and the Senate made sure to preserve it in its own tax proposal. Praise God.
To learn more about the importance of the adoption tax credit, see this article by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC).
Over the last few years, the number of children in Arizona’s foster care system has skyrocketed to as many as 19,000 children. These children need foster parents and some need a permanent placement in a forever home.
The need is great. In celebration of National Adoption Month, consider how you might help meet the need.
To learn more about adoption in Arizona, see Christian Family Care, Arms of Love Foster Care, and AZ 1.27.
ICYMI – Latest News & Articles of Interest
- A preterm baby born at 21 weeks and 4 days is now a healthy three-year-old girl. Read about this incredible story here.
- “Another Shooting, This Time in a Church. How Should We Respond?” from Ed Stetzer at Christianity Today.
- “Prayer Shaming and the Church Shooting: Choosing Policy over God” by John Stonestreet.
- “Why Church Shootings Don’t Intimidate The Church” by Russell Moore from the ERLC.