Book of the Week: Adopted for Life

This week’s book of the week is Russell Moore’s Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches. Dr. Moore is the dean of theology from my alma mater, Southern Seminary.  He has adopted two boys from Russia.  We got this book back when we were considering adoption.  The only problem was that Amanda was reading it while I was at work and every 15 minutes she would call and say, “Babe! I’ve got to read this one to you too, it is so good!”

So I kinda read it a while back via my wonderful wife, but I wanted to read it myself.  Great book on adoption – our own and the one’s we can provide.

You can get it by clicking on the book and ordering from Amazon and we also have it available at the North Side bookstore.

Top 5 Lines:

  1. “Of all the disturbing aspects of the orphanage…you could hear the sound of gentle rocking — as babies rocked themselves back and forth in their beds.  They didn’t cry because no one responded to their cries.  So they stopped.  That’s dehumanizing in its horror” (52).
  2. “Not every believer is called to adopt children.  But every believer is called to recognize Jesus in the face of his little brothers and sisters when he decides to show up in their lives, even if it interrupts everything else” (81).
  3. “…there are more children needing homes than loving Christian parents who are willing to take them in.  You are not taking a child away from another prospective adoptive family.  To the contrary, if the Lord does lead you to a child through adoption, this adoption could very well be a catalyst to create a more adoption-friendly environment in your church and neighborhood” (107).
  4. “Can any of us honestly believe it would be better for an African-American child to remain in this bureaucratic limbo than to be a child to parents whose skin is paler than his?…This approach loves the abstract notion of ‘humanity’ more than it loves real, live human beings” (155-156).
  5. “I was gentle and loving with the children, but I was constantly correcting misbehavior — including those things that weren’t defiance or disobedience, just immaturity.  My problem was as simple, and as devilish, as pride.  I didn’t want to be embarrassed.  I didn’t want all those people who thought our adoption was foolish to be proven right” (205).