The concept of what “family” means to us has shifted as we’ve come to understand who we are in God’s eyes — no matter who we are, where we came from, or what we’ve done, He has made us His own. He sacrificed more than we could ever understand to make this possible. In reflecting this love, we strongly believe that adoption is the natural next step in our life and faith.
Here’s our story…
We have grown up loving children. David became an uncle at age 15 and since then, 6 times over. Anna did her fair share of baby-sitting and has grown to cherish the little ones God has allowed to be in our spiritual community over the years. When we had that “baby” conversation, adoption came up as something we both wanted to do someday. About two years ago, we revisited the conversation after having been married for about 3 years. Adoption had become a much more serious consideration. We decided that we would start our research and saving, in an effort to adopt in the next couple years.
Last summer, we went on a much needed vacation to Maine. As we settled into “vacation mode” and unplugged our minds from the business of our normal lives, we both started feeling like adoption should probably happen sooner than we had initially planned.
Throughout the week, God spoke through His Word, drew our minds to Him as our Father, and helped us process our doubts and fears. Toward the end of the trip David was pretty sure that God wanted us to adopt before trying to become pregnant. Anna needed a little more convincing and was waiting patiently on the beach for God to write his message in the sky.
We took a day trip to Acadia and stumbled across a beautiful carpenters store that specialized in hand-crafted wooden toys, kitchenware, and other really neat goods. It is a beautiful space and if you know anything about us, you can imagine how excited we were.
Anna looked at the precious toys, remembering her Jesus as a carpenter who desires to draw all his children to himself. It was her writing in the sky…
As we stood there in front of a whole wall chock full of incredibly well-crafted wooden toys, we were thinking the same thing…
So naturally we purchased two wooden toys to get the ball rolling and serve as a reminder that a child we call our own, will play with them someday soon.
The author of the book of James wrote to the early Christians, urging them to commit to faith that is active and genuine. One of the things he points out as being a differentiating factor for authentic faith, is taking care of the orphans and the fatherless. This is actually a common theme throughout the new and old testament, not just in Jesus’ day.
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27
For us, this call means deciding to begin our family through adoption. We can’t do this on our own, so we ask you to support us in bringing the newest Culton into our home!
