Last week, Superhero 1 turned 12. I asked him if, as a right of passage, he’d like to contribute a guest post to this blog. I told him his perspective as a sibling in an adoptive family was incredibly valuable and that he could write about any topic he wanted. Even though writing is not this introvert’s jam (nor is speaking, using more than two words to describe his mood or producing more than a paragraph on any given topic), this passionate superhero jumped at the opportunity to address the question he receives most often: What is it like to have two adopted brothers? This is the uncensored, unedited view of a boy who has had brothers from other mothers for four of the last 12 years.

When we first began the international adoption process to bring home Superman four years ago, sincere and loving and caring, concerned friends celebrated with us.

But many also asked the hard question.

How will bringing a child with medical needs into your family affect the biological children you already have?

It’s a legitimate question, and one that we prayed about and thought about a lot before leaping into life with a superhero who had superpowers that required surgeries, hospitalizations, daily care and weekly therapy.

And the question we kept returning to after hours of prayer was not How can we emotionally afford to bring home a superhero with medical needs when we have other biological children in the house?

It was How can we afford NOT to? When we have great healthcare? When we live in a country with so many resources? When we have a home and a heart and a family that has so much more to give? When there are children literally dying and aging out of adoption systems who are suffering because they need what our children so freely receive?

Safety, security, necessary care and unconditional love?

What do we teach our boys if we value our comfort and our convenience more than our calling to love the fatherless with the very heart of God? The heart that gave up HIS son to make us all children of God?

What if bringing this child into our family is not our children’s greatest burden but actually God’s greatest BLESSING?

What if THIS is actually how they learn to give and experience Christ-like love?

Blog