A Prayer for National Adoption Month

This month is national adoption month. We were able to finalize the adoption of our two youngest boys this month and attend a national adoption month luncheon at Children's Home Society. I was asked to give the invocation and pray for the meal. Here is my prayer:

Psalm 68:5-6 
Father of the fatherless and protector of widows
 is God in his holy habitation. God settles the solitary in a home;


God, you describe yourself as the father of the fatherless in your holy dwelling place. You settle the solitary into families. We come before you humbly recognizing that you are the creator of every person and every thing. You are the rightful ruler of all things and the source of all good. So, we come before you acknowledging our total dependence on you and thanking you for your mercy and care which you often demonstrate - even as we experience it now with each breath we are taking and this meal before us.

As we celebrate national adoption day, we are filled with sorrow and joy. Sorrow because the need for adoptions remind us that all is not right in this world.  We have sought to replace you with ourselves - and that rebellion in each human heart has brought selfishness, hurt, pride, broken relationships, and death. Yet we also have joy because we see your mercy and grace demonstrated in giving a family to children in need. We see you, working through people made in your image, redeeming that which was broken by placing the abandoned into the position of beloved son or daughter. And in this, we see something of your Fatherly love.  We see something of your sacrificial love. You too are an adoptive Father.  You adopt a people out of the misery that comes from our ignoring you and you place them into your family as beloved sons and daughters redeemed by Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection.

So here and now we have joy mixed with sorrow. But we look forward to the day when your perfect kingdom will come and those who enter it will have no more pain or tears or abuse or selfishness but rather will live by the light of your perfect presence because of what Jesus has done. It is in his name we pray. Amen.