Created for Care

This past weekend I had the blessing of attending the Created for Care retreat. It was indescribable to be surrounded with 430+ adoptive mothers all united in worship and sharing our stories of how we came to adoption...our journey to our children. God was certainly there, as He is in every step of each of our stories.

I had many takeaways from the weekend, but there were three primary things that pertained to my children that really seemed to hit home for me as a mom. The first was that God did not call us to "fix" our children. God calls us to love our children with the same love He has for us. We are to meet them where they are. It sounds so hard, but really isn't it simple? When my daughter is fearful of everything and I don't understand why and get so frustrated with her, I don't need to fix that in her...I need to love her where she is and work with her fears and one day she will learn to not be afraid by the love of Christ I am showing her. There are many examples I could give but that is a daily struggle in our house...fear of everything.

The second thing that was said in one of our sessions was that JESUS is our child's Savior. We can't save them and nor should we continue to try to. He is the only one who can and we can only model the Salvation in the way that we love our children and the way that we daily love others.

The final takeaway regarding my children was that in teaching our children about the Lord if you make religion or the Lord a forced part of everyday it becomes LAW and not love. Children don't buy into law, but they do buy into love. Her meaning of that was...if prayer isn't an active part of your day everyday, forcing them to do it at dinnertime becomes law. If praying with them before a big test, a dance at school, finding Mr. Bunny, etc. isn't a part of your everyday activities with your children and they aren't used to seeing that...forcing it on them becomes LAW.

I can tell you this, I don't want to fix my children, I want Jesus to be their Savior and it is my prayer that they are living in a house where the Holy Spirit is felt on an intimate level.

Created for Care is a weekend that I am so blessed to have attended the last two years and look forward to attending next year! If you want more information on Created for Care and their next retreat, you can go to their website: http://www.createdforcare.org