National Adoption Awareness Month

November is National Adoption Awareness Month. In the State of Texas alone, more than 6,000 children and teens are waiting to be adopted, and more than a third of them are 10 years old or older. These statistics are astonishing! How many of these children will never be adopted and will age out of the system? How many of these children (if any) will be prepared to be on their own when they do age out of the system?

Based on my reading and research so far, it appears that adopting a child out of foster care is the quickest and least expensive route to adoption. The drawback for some adopting parents is the desire to adopt an infant. For others it is the fear of adopting a child with potential psychological issues due to abuse or neglect suffered at the hands of his or her biological parents. Having been blessed with biological children of my own, I am open to skipping the middle-of-the-night feedings and the diapers, but are we prepared to bring home a child who, rightfully so based on his or her life experiences, might be afraid of the world and the people in it? I had always thought our potential adopted child would be our youngest child, but maybe that wouldn't be the case. Maybe he or she would fall somewhere in the middle...putting things into God's hands can be so difficult sometimes.