A sweet, passionate internet girlfriend has a link in her signature line that asked me that question - Is Adoption Really a Christian Duty? 

The link was https://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/382078.aspx  if you want to read the whole article.

Basically, it was saying because there is so much poverty, disease, tragedy, Christian families should remember that adoption is mentioned in the Bible.

Now, I've been thinking about this, and maybe my thinking differs from a lot of what's out there, mainly due to my friend Lindsay, who is also a homeschooling mom of many little children, but who also, as a teenager, had a baby out of wedlock and felt forced to give her baby up for adoption...

Thinking through this article, and having thought for a long time about Lindsay's situation, I think i've come to what, for me, is the crux of the issue.

In James 1:27
 the Bible tells us "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

(Which kind of makes me wonder why most churches are more about self perpetuation and franchising than about widows and orphans and purity...)

God also assures us in Jeremiah 49:11
Leave your orphans; I will protect their lives. Your widows too can trust in me."

And i think He is talking about His own supernatural provision and protection as well as His hands and feet here on earth, His people, whom He has taught all through the Bible, such as in  Exodus 22:22
"Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan."  As well as shown through numerous stories how His eye is on widows and women in vulnerable situations, such as Hagar, Tamar, Dinah, Rahab, Ruth and her mother in law, Naomi, Elijah's widow friend etc etc...

But i wonder sometimes when the "church" starts pushing adoption, are they even on the same page? 

Madonna (the celebrity) has adopted two children from Africa - and here is the point i want to make.  Both of the children she has adopted (David and Mercy) already had parents and families in their own country.  They were not orphans. 

When Christians emulate the world in adopting these children out of what we see to be hard circumstances, we may be blessing underprivileged children - but we are also taking the one thing of value that their own family still has.  Not only that, we are doing it with a spirit of "here, i'll take that burden from you".  Instead of crying that our heart has coveted something beyond value and of inestimable worth.  Instead of helping the family itself, and enabling them to care for their own children.

Orphans - YES!  We should adopt!  If there are children with no mother, father, or family - what a blessing to be brought into a family where they will be taken care of and loved and find significance as a member of a family.  But to steal someone else's child, even if we think we are "helping"... may be more cruel than to leave them where they are.

When i had my first child, my mom said to me "Don't expect me to babysit".  Which was bizarre, because the literally *last* thing on my mind was ever getting a babysitter - i was soooo excited to be pregnant, and when he finally was out of my womb, i didn't want to let him out of my sight for a minute.  I didn't want to miss a second of his babyhood (to the point where i was severely sleep deprived!) - But i asked my mom "what do you mean?" and she told me "I wouldn't want to take that from you."

I've felt that way before.  I've been asked to do daycare for little boys whose mom really did need to work - and i helped out for a little while - but it felt wrong to me to "help" her by caring for her children, when a true loving response would have been to help her find a way to stay at home with them.  They needed their own mom so bad.  And all little children need their own mom so bad.

Children are a treasure, far more valuable than gold or dollars, or stocks.  They are riches.  When i see my little brood of seven beautiful, healthy children, spreading out around the lake, exclaiming to themselves, i feel like Cornelia,

One day a lady from Campa’nia called upon Corne’lia, the mother of the Gracchi, and after showing her jewels, requested in return to see those belonging to the famous mother-in-law of Africanus. Cornelia sent for her two sons, and said to the lady, “These are my jewels, in which alone I delight.”

E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898

Poor mothers as well as rich ones, take delight in their children, and adoption is only a Christian duty when the children are true orphans...  Charity can mean taking in children in desperate circumstances, but to embrace wholeheartedly the collection and repatriation of children from the poor to the rich is not what is referred to the the Bible, and can't be called a Christian duty...