Erdmann Baby

Last spring, a friend of Mark’s family felt led to pray for Mark and me to conceive a child. In fact, I think I even remember him praying that we would conceive a child, like, that night. While I was grateful for the prayer, at the time we were already in the thick of our home study, and that was more my focus. I certainly wouldn’t have minded conceiving at that time, or at any time before or since, but at that point I would have rather had prayer for the adoption process.

This has happened a lot since we committed to adoption. For the most part I don’t mind if someone feels led and asks to pray that we would conceive a child. What bothers me a bit more is when we specifically ask for prayer for the adoption, but people end up praying for conception. Don’t get me wrong—we would be thrilled to find out I was pregnant. But when we want prayer for adoption and people end up praying that we would conceive, it can feel like the pray-er is assuming that we would prefer to get pregnant, and adoption is a second best option. Yes, I am disappointed that I have been unable to get pregnant so far, but I am not in the least disappointed to be adopting. It is something I would have wanted to do anyway at some point.

Anyway, as that friend prayed, he brought up the lineage that Mark comes from—a strong line of Christian men and women, some pastors, many people of prayer, including his 100 year old grandmother who has always been a prayer warrior for her grandchildren. Something in the way he prayed this seemed to highlight the significance of the fact that this baby he was praying for would be born into this lineage.

When Mark and I were first talking about adoption, he was somewhat disappointed that an adopted child wouldn’t share this biological ancestry. He mentioned this concern to a wise friend of ours, who gave Mark some wonderful words of encouragement. Our adopted children will still be a part of this line of Christ-followers. The way we raise our children will be influenced by the way we were raised, and that was influenced by the way our parents were raised, and so on, back and back and back. Our son will grow up with family traditions that go back generations. And not only traditions, but mannerisms, values and habits have been passed on through our parents, and will be passed on to our child. Prayers that have been said by generations of Erdmanns for children and grandchildren will apply to this child every bit as much as to any children we may have through pregnancy. There may not be a biological connection with our first, but I would argue that the biology isn’t the important part anyway. Faith and character are not genetic traits.

This is very much in line with what Paul said about adoption versus birth. The author of the article “Blessed are the Barren” that I have mentioned in previous posts, even claims that God cares more about adoption than He does about birth. She points out Paul’s argument that while he was a “Hebrew of Hebrews” and came from a biological line that set him up to be a “Pharisee of Pharisees,” that meant nothing compared to his adoption as a true son of God. Our child may not be born into the wonderful family that Mark was born into, but his adoption into this family is no less real and no less powerful.

It is interesting to point out that the timing for this prayer by Mark’s family friend happened Memorial Day weekend of last year. Exactly nine months before our baby’s due date. Could it be that he did hear from God that our child would be conceived that night, and just assumed that meant conceived by us? Who knows. But this child will be ours, and he will grow up to carry on the lineage of his father (and his mother), whether he carries an Erdmann gene or not.