We might not get a white baby.

There, I said it.

People seem to have very roundabout ways of asking us the same question: "So, did you put any preferences on race?"  "Are you uh, adopting from another country?"  "Is there any kind of baby you wouldn't take?"

Or sometimes it's totally direct: "You're getting a white kid, right?"  Usually that question comes before anything else- before even questions about gender or age.  Nobody has been rude to us, and my feelings haven't been hurt at all.  I'm just not sure I understand the preoccupation with the color of our future child.

Truth be told, we didn't mark any race restrictions on our application.  We could get matched with a white baby, and we would gladly take one.  Chances are good that we might not, though.  We marked what we felt would be best for our family, understanding that what is a good fit for us is certainly not a good fit for anyone else, or vice versa.

I may end up having to learn a lot about another culture, or needing to ask for help on hair care (Lord help that child; I'm not even good with my own hair).  I'm just convinced that I'll have to learn a lot any way that this thing goes down, as every new parent does.

I think that what most people want more than anything else in this world is to be fully known and simultaneously fully loved.  No one wants to hear, "I love all of these things about you, but that one thing makes you less than desirable."  I'm glad that my parents didn't do that to me when I was born.  I'm thankful that my husband didn't do that to me when we got married.  And I'm forever indebted to my God, who didn't do that to me when He chose me before the foundations of the earth.

We get a lot of questions about the practical aspects of adoption, and I am glad to answer those.  But I don't talk often enough about the why's of adoption.  There are times when the process is lengthy and painfully frustrating, but at the end of the day, I have to remind myself that this is all a picture of the gospel.  Andrew and I are going to display a pretty terrible picture of it, but I hope that it is a picture nonetheless.  To us, this whole thing is about looking at a child and saying, "Of all of the children in the world, I want you, exactly as you are."  Like Christ did for us.  Even though we share his name ("Christian," which means, "Christ-like"), we are not like Him at all- and He welcomes us into his family anyway.