LIFE LESSONS: what adoption has taught me

What has adoption taught me?

When you are given a question like this, filling a blank screen with words feels like a daunting task.

So as my cursor keeps blinking and my mind keeps wandering, I find myself with an answer that I don’t really want.

The fact that there is adoption reminds me and teaches me that the world we are in is broken.

For disease should never strike, famine should never kill, and children should never cry with no one to answer. 

And if I let it, adoption could point me further and further down the rabbit hole of brokenness.

But instead adoption points me to some One even greater.

The truth of the matter is that adoption is less about the brokenness and more about the setting of things right.

So when I see adoptive parents dancing with their kids or the smiles of my own children I can’t help but remember the words of a God who would say, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice for they will be filled”.  Matthew 5:6

Isn’t that what this is? 

Isn’t adoption a piece of bringing justice to a world that is unjust? 

Isn’t it just following the footsteps of a God who wants to make all things new? 

Aren’t we now blessed and truly filled because we hunger for what God wants us to hunger for?

So what is it truly that adoption has taught me? 

That I am blessed when I thirst for what is right. 

And I am filled when I fight for what is just. 

And there is great joy in the journey of bringing God’s kingdom to earth as it is in Heaven.

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My name is Brennan Conklin.  My wife of 10 years is Janna. 

We have adopted our three children from Taiwan; Lyndlee, Gavin, and Israel.  We currently serve at Real Life Church in California.