born in my heart

Mallory and I recently had a conversation ... well, not really a conversation, but an e-mail strain. We have realized that we are exiting the "wedding phase" and entering the "baby phase". Everyone around us is now married and launching head first into babyland (And when we say everyone, we mean EVERYONE ... my sister, her brother, 4 of my co-workers, countless friends from college ... you get the picture E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E). We are not among them. We are simply DINKs (dual income, no kids) and are happy with our status. Anyways, the e-mail strain revolved around the phenomenon of the "baby phase" which many of our peers are entering along with a few of our favorite future-baby names. Hearing about new babies, holding them, hosting baby showers etc. has made both Mal and I think about our future families, naturally. In my slew of "baby phase" friends, there are a handful who are considering adoption, have adopted, or think they might adopt someday. Then I ran across this article which encouraged Christians to live missionally. "Missionally" you ask? The article defined it as this: "To live "missionally" is to express the Gospel holistically in the way you live - every day and in every thing. It is a way of life, not a program. It means living like Jesus lived. If you know much about Jesus you know that includes helping to meet the emotional, physical and spiritual needs of others. Living missionally means making a conscious decision to live each day with others in mind, rather than yourself." Sounds pretty solid to me! Anyways, it linked this to adoption (citing James 1:27) which I appreciated because I feel like I need to seek wisdom on what place adoption has in my and Dominic's future family. Then there is the whole discussion of international vs. domestic adoption. What are the benefits of each? What sector is in more need? Also, I wonder what the most strategic way to introduce adoption to a family is ... should you have one child first then adopt, adopt first then give birth to others, have one and adopt one the same age ... I am sure there are many philosophies about this and realistically the bottom line is once a child becomes a part of a family it doesn't really matter how it arrived there. Some children are born via pregnancy and others are just born in our hearts. Just thoughts. Something to pray about.