Our Adoption Story: Saying Yes to an Unexpected Calling

In this deeply personal episode, we share the story of how adoption unexpectedly became part of our family’s journey. What started with a book, a phone call, and a lot of prayer quickly turned into one of the most life-changing and beautiful decisions we’ve ever made.

We talk about bringing our youngest daughter home through adoption, navigating the fears and unknowns that came with the process, and learning what it truly means to trust God in parenting. We also open up about the emotional realities of adoption — the grief, the healing, the questions adopted children carry, and the incredible ways God brings beauty from broken places.

Whether you’re considering adoption, walking through foster care, supporting an adoptive family, or simply wanting to understand God’s heart for adoption more deeply, this conversation is full of honesty, hope, and encouragement.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How God unexpectedly led us into adoption
• The emotional and practical realities of adopting
• Trusting God when you feel unprepared
• The connection between earthly adoption and spiritual adoption
• Common fears adoptive parents face
• How the church can support foster and adoptive families
• Why adoption reflects the heart of God

We pray this episode encourages anyone navigating adoption, foster care, or the calling to open their heart and home to a child in need.

Transcript

Lennon 0:01

This is the Home and Marriage Podcast with Lennon and Christal Noland, where we help couples become better at home and stronger together. We are husband and wife, parents and ministers who want God's best for our home and for yours. Well, good day to you friends, whoever you are, wherever you are, and whatever you're doing. Hope that it's going well for you. Uh, we are cruising towards summer- Mm-hmm at a breakneck speed. But before June comes, we just gotta get through May.

Christal 0:30

We do. It's, oh goodness, the end of school year is crazy. For those of you who have kids or a kid in school, you know that there's so many things that go on in May. And on top of that, like we just talked about last week, we have Mother's Day that happens in May, so that's a big holiday. We have Memorial Day. You know, there's all these things that are happening. But last night in bed, we were talking about this thing called Maycember, You looked at me with this blank stare like you didn't know what I was talking about. I was like,"Have you heard of Maycember before?"

Lennon 1:00

I had not heard of Maycember, but when you explained it to me, it did make sense.

Christal 1:04

Yeah.

Lennon 1:05

So if there are any other listeners out there like me- who have felt a tension but not known what they were describing- why don't you give us a, an accurate understanding of what Maycember is?

Christal 1:14

Well, it's a play on words with December and May. You know,'cause December's really crazy with all the holiday stuff, and May can be like a December in some ways There's everything going on from school recitals. We have graduation. That's big for us this year. So graduations, whether it's kindergarten graduation or your senior's graduating. There's, so there's all these programs. There's getting teachers gifts. I mean, all the teachers that are your favorite, you get them gifts and say thank you for all the hard work. Goodness, what else? There's other things that I'm not even thinking of probably right now, but it seems like everything happens in May. And even just with graduation that we're dealing with right now, there's ordering the cap and gown. That's getting all the senior pictures done. There's sending out the invitations. Our daughter has a thing called Senior Sunset, which wasn't a thing when we were growing up You know, senior sunset, senior sunrise. You, the first part of school and then the last end of school year, right?

Lennon 2:17

Yeah. Field trips. All sorts of new traditions. Lots of the traditions- Yeah can we be honest, manufactured so that you can post it on Instagram or something later. Not to be cynical, but-

Christal 2:27

It sounds like the, the joke about certain holidays were just made by Hallmark so that you could buy all the products and the cards and stuff like that.

Lennon 2:34

Yes. Maysember was brought to you by those who didn't feel like parents had enough things to give their kids to.

Christal 2:40

Right. Yeah. So if you're in the thick of Maysember, our hearts go out to you. We get it. It's a busy time of the year.

Lennon 2:48

It is, but you're gonna make it through. Okay. So today we wanna talk about something that we've never addressed in any kinda detail here on the Old Home and Marriage podcast, but it's something that's profoundly affected our life. It's something that has affected the lives of lots of our listeners, and this is adoption. Some of you listening to the show today were adopted. Some of you have adopted as you are adoptive parents. You've brought a child into your house. Adoption has profoundly affected our life.

Christal 3:19

It really has, in a wonderful way. I, I never thought about adopting growing up. I know some people, that's always in their hearts. They're like,"One day I'm gonna adopt," you know? But for me, and I don't know about you, but for me, I never thought about really a- adoption would be a thing in our life. It was really brought about, it was the Lord, totally the Lord. But I'm so glad it did. I'm so glad that we've got to experience adoption, and our youngest is adopted. She's an amazing young person, and she has brought so much joy and life into our family. I can't imagine, not having her as a part of our family as our daughter.

Lennon 4:03

Yeah, adoption is wonderful. So we're gonna share some of our story with you today, and we really hope this is an encouragement, either because you are in it, you've adopted a child yourself. Um, maybe you're helping with foster care, which is a really precious thing. Or maybe you're just even considering adoption or foster care one day. It's a high and wonderful calling that really came about for us in the most unexpected of ways. And so I think I'd like to begin maybe this way. You, out of nowhere, in the year 2010, whenever we had moved across the country to North Carolina, uh, I noticed you were reading a book that was not the kind of book that you would ever read

Christal 4:47

It really wasn't. I have it on my bookshelf right here by us, but it's called See, and it's by Steven Curtis Chapman, who I always admired and loved Steven Curtis Chapman as a musician. He's a Christian artist. But he wrote a book, him and his wife wrote a book about their adoption stories, they lost one of their adopted daughters in a tragic accident, and I was reading this book about that. And at this time in my life, because I had two little ones, I could not read anything, a story fictional or true, about losing a child or a child being kidnapped or any of that kind of stuff. It was very triggering in a way, and I would just, freaked me out. But this book really drew me in. I really wanted to read it, and really the heart of the book was about adoption and how wonderful it is and how God led them to adopt these girls and what he did in their lives through adoption. It was just really beautiful, and I had never read a book like that before. But I was reading this book, and I remember you thinking, you asking me, like,"Why are you reading that book?" And I, I'm like,"I don't even know, but it just is something I really wanted to read," and it was wonderful to read. It was hard, but it was also really wonderful to read.

Lennon 6:06

So around that time, while you were reading that book, we received a phone call, and the phone call was about a family member of mine who was in a very bad situation, and she was pregnant. Uh, it was pretty clear she would not be able to take care of the child, and so we went from never having considered adoption before to y- right as you're reading this book, this phone call comes, and we begin to talk and pray about whether or not this is something we should do. And we did sense pretty quickly that this was a God-ordained thing.

Christal 6:41

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, and I really believe the reason that book is so important, while we're talking about it, I really believe that the Lord really led me to that book to read to prepare my heart for adoption, because it was not something on my radar, like I said before. It just wasn't something... I mean, goodness, at the time, we had a four-year-old, three-year-old? Three. A three-year-old and a baby. I was... I had a baby that was probably, at the time, around six months or so, six months old, seven months old, and so I wasn't even really thinking we would have another kid for a while. Another thing that was funny about this that I think it was just, like, the Lord putting desires into my heart was after our second kid, I really did want another kid. I was like,"One day, I would love one more, just one more." And of course, my mind, I was thinking a little further out, not anything, like, that close- Yeah'cause we, we didn't have, like, a lot of support around us. We weren't living near family. We were just out there on our own starting a new ministry, so it was a lot going on. But I remember wanting to have another one one day, and then really wanting to have a girl. I was thinking,"I have all these baby girl clothes still that I kept from our first one. It'd be great to be able to dress up another girl." And then the other thing that was on my heart was I really didn't wanna be pregnant again. So-

Lennon 8:09

Yeah

Christal 8:10

I remember telling you,"It would be so awesome to have another one, but not be pregnant again." I was not thinking of adoption, which totally makes sense.

Lennon 8:18

It does make sense, but you're right, you weren't thinking about it. Right. And neither was I. This is, um, this is an emotional moment- Mm-hmm as we talk about this, isn't it?

Christal 8:26

Mm-hmm.

Lennon 8:26

So we got that phone call, and things progressed fairly quickly because my family member was really close to, um, to giving birth. And so Lizzie came into the world, and we walked through the whole process of how do we bring her into our home. Now, she was across state lines, so Lizzie was born in Texas. Mm-hmm. We're in North Carolina, so that provided some extra steps that had to be gotten through. But one of the things that really I think worked in our favor is the foster care system and those who were involved, they wanted to see Lizzie placed with family if possible. Mm-hmm, right. And that really, that really made some things simpler for us.

Christal 9:09

It did, because it made... You know, whenever they place a child with family, which is their first goal, it makes some of the process simpler. And we still went through all the home visits. They had to make sure we were legit, you know, good people that they could put this child with. So we went through all of the process of the paperwork, the visits. I remember being so worried that they would come on a day that it was more chaotic in the house, and there was a lot of mess, and they'd come in thinking,"This lady, how is she gonna take care of another baby?" You know, but it really wor- went well. And we were gonna go to Texas. To get her once all this stuff was finalized, but we got this call one day,"Hey, we decided we're just gonna fly up there and bring her to you." Which was wonderful, but also, wow, th- this is really happening. It took about three months for her to get to us. In that time, she was staying with a foster family, which we could not have contact with, you know, legally. We couldn't check on her, see how she was doing, or get updates or anything. And so that was a l- a little bit of a weird time because I really wanted to make sure this baby was, was taken care of, she's, she was okay, and we just couldn't hear anything for three months. And then we get that call,"We're bringing her to you." And then I get pic- we get pictures in the mail. I don't know if you remember the pictures that came in the mail as soon as- I do that was released.

Lennon 10:37

I do. It

Christal 10:37

was really, really neat to see our baby for the first time.

Lennon 10:41

And crazy. I remember the day that she came to us, um, meeting the social worker there at the door, holding that carrier that she had- Yeah that she had brought her in and, and gone on the flight with. And it was the craziest thing to wake up that day saying,"She's coming today."

Christal 10:57

Mm-hmm.

Lennon 10:58

And then by that evening, social worker's gone, and we are a family of five-

Christal 11:03

Right

Lennon 11:03

instead of a family of four.

Christal 11:05

Yeah. I remember our oldest putting her down for a nap and telling her,"Hey, when you wake up, you're gonna have a baby sister." It was just the, the craziest thing, and she was so excited. And she woke up from her nap, and she wanted to come see her baby sister, and she held her. We have this really sweet picture that we treasure of her holding her for the first time, this little three-year-old holding her new baby sister.

Speaker 3 11:28

Yeah.

Christal 11:28

And it was really surreal. It really was. And at first, we're just like,"Wow, I can't believe we have another child." And our youngest one before she came was 10 months. So they're like seven months apart, our two youngest, and the cool thing about that has been they've grown up as really good friends. And they... It almost felt like we had twins for a while. What they call Irish twins.

Lennon 11:55

Yeah.

Christal 11:55

It felt very much like twins because they did a lot of the same things pretty close in age together.

Lennon 12:01

Yeah. I remember really clearly just what it was like going out in town with three that age. Specifically, I'm thinking of being at a mall and- Yeah you, you needing to buy some clothes and me trying to give you a minute to buy some clothes. And I remember walking through the mall with a double stroller with two kids in it and one strapped to my chest.

Speaker 3 12:22

Mm-hmm.

Lennon 12:22

And people just looking at me like, oh, my gosh. Yeah. Like it was the craziest thing in the world. I mean, some people have way more than three kids.

Speaker 3 12:29

Yeah.

Lennon 12:29

But three three and under was, was quite a big deal. Um, what would you say adoption has taught us about, I don't know, about the heart of God? Mm-hmm. About parenthood?

Christal 12:44

I really think adoption is a calling, like anything the Lord puts before you in your life or asks you to do. Like, will you go with me on this adventure? Will you do this thing? Will you adopt? I do think, and for us, we weren't prepared in a way of knowing this is gonna happen one day. We didn't seek it out, and some people do seek it out, and that's a calling too. So however it comes about, I just think the Lord puts it in front of you like,"Here's the thing. Are you gonna do it? Would you wanna do it?" And, and you say yes, and so you may not know all of the details or answers after that, and that's okay. Just like anything in life, sometimes the Lord asks you to do something. You say yes to that calling, and then you trust him with what's to come because he's gonna be there to help you. And I really believe, first of all, scripture talks a lot about adoption and how it's on his heart, and how we ourselves as believers are adopted into his family.

Lennon 13:40

Right.

Christal 13:40

Right?

Lennon 13:41

That's precious. That's something that only began to be meaningful to me when we had done this ourselves. Um, the fact that it's really the only way into the family of God is through adoption.

Christal 13:54

Mm-hmm.

Lennon 13:55

Because through sin, we are separated from him. Uh, we're enemies and hostile in our minds toward God, the scripture says, but he's poured out on us the spirit of adoption by which we say,"Abba Father." We cry out to him. And so yeah, this was a wonderful thing. It made me think of very much like our, our official standing with God. I was talking to a man in our church one day who came up to me and he said,"I struggle with this adoption thing. Am I an adopted son with God or am I a son?" And the answer is yes. It's, it is both of those. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. That we are in the family of God because he has done what it took to redeem us, opened his heart to us while we were yet sinners. And so adoption, or if you're helping with foster care, this is one of the ways that we get to minister God's love to the world. There's nothing more, I suppose, godly- Yeah than to open your heart to someone who is in need, and you perhaps have every reason why, man, we're so busy. We, we have kids that are already really demanding. I don't feel like we have enough money. What if we can't do a good enough job to bring this? All of those things come into play.

Christal 15:12

And we were in that situation where we were in a new season of our life. We had a lot of little kids. We did not have a lot of money. It, it... If you're just looking at the perfect situation, it wouldn't have been the perfect situation as far as, you know, the best time to adopt, but it didn't matter to the Lord. This is what was happening, and- The question I think was would we say yes? We said yes, not because we're heroes, but because we want to please the Lord and do what He's asked us to do. But He came alongside of us, and He took care of us. He provided for us, and even in really stressful times of our, of that season in our life, He took care of us. He took care of our, our daughter, Lizzie. He did a lot of, uh, really miraculous things in this, and that's her story to tell. But He, He worked in ways that I never could have foreseen, and it doesn't mean that it wasn't hard sometimes or we were like how are we gonna get through this, you know, month well financially? But He did help us And so there may not be a perfect scenario for each adoption, and but I don't think that means you need to not do it if God is calling you to do that.

Lennon 16:28

Right. Yeah, it's, it's never a perfect scenario. Certainly on, on behalf, on the side of the child being adopted because there is no good situation where somebody needs to be adopted, in the sense that it means that someone wasn't able to fulfill what you would hope is the most basic role, that you grow this child within you, and you have an opportunity to raise the child with the support of the person who took part in this process with you. And so just knowing that hasn't happened, that gives really a default setting of that's, that's painful to come out of. So every child that is adopted will have questions about their origin, you know? Yeah, yeah. Why, why couldn't they take care of me? Did they not want me? And that's something that we had to find ways to answer in age-appropriate ways many different times through the years.

Christal 17:25

Right. There's a loss there, however it may have come. Maybe the parents passed away. Maybe they had made bad decisions. There's different... Or maybe they were very young. There's different reasons why it may be, but there's some, there's always a loss there that the adopted child is gonna deal with. And that was new for us because we, we didn't maybe have all the perfect answers and still don't, but we navigate that as best as we can with the Lord and through prayer with our child about those things'cause there will be a loss and a sense of grieving, But also, just like Isaiah says, the Lord can turn beauty from ashes. He can make something beautiful out of, out of a really hard situation, and He's in the business of doing that, and it doesn't mean, like, everything is perfect rainbows and sunshine. You know, there's gonna be some really rough moments or some things that look ugly. But- We put our hope in God, and we know He has a plan. And so we... That's a part of parenting. We talked about that last week, with trusting God in our parenting and really relying on Him for the questions we don't have answered, like the things that we don't know how to answer. There were many times where our daughter asked us questions, even as a young child, and we didn't know the answers perfectly. We did our best to answer them, but sometimes we don't have a beautiful answer to a hard situation. But we always point back to the Lord and how He has a plan for your life.

Lennon 18:52

yeah, it's, it's beautiful and precious. So, I, I wanted to, on the last part of this episode, I wanted to ask kind of three common questions that people have about adoption- Mm-hmm that we can really, that we can try to answer. You'll notice, hearing us tell our story, friends, that there's obviously a lot we're not saying. So much of this is Lizzie's story to tell. Mm-hmm. Who knows, maybe one day we'll have her on-

Christal 19:16

Yeah

Lennon 19:16

and talk about that. But we don't wanna over-reveal things that are specific to her life. Mm-hmm. But there are some things that are common, uh, experiences for anyone who would open their hearts to adoption or even foster care. So one of the questions that's asked a lot is this: Did you ever feel unsure or scared about doing this?

Christal 19:36

Well, I think you should go first on that. What did you... What have you felt? Have you felt unsure, scared before?

Lennon 19:42

Yeah, certainly so. I mean, especially because for us, there was not a long lead-up to this. Mm-hmm. This isn't a dream that we had been smart enough to stir up in our own heart. Right. It wasn't something we had researched exhaustively. And so I also know that depending on the different scenarios of adoption, international adoption-

Speaker 3 20:04

Mm-hmm

Lennon 20:04

local, within your state, some of the hurdles are really complicated. Sometimes a lot of money is involved, and sometimes not a lot of money is involved. I think that the things that help with feeling unsure or scared I feel like this is the privilege of Someone who trusts in God, it's a sense of calling, that if He has called you to it, um... I remember a missionary telling me once during our missionary years, he said,"God's will is God's bill." Mm-hmm. Which just means that you don't have to manufacture all the provision for- Yeah these purposes God has called you to. He's gonna do it. So yeah, we felt unsure or scared at certain points, but those feelings don't change what God's purposes are for you.

Christal 20:47

Yeah. In, parenting in general, you're gonna feel unsure and you're gonna feel scared sometimes. And so I know adoption may have some unique type of, worries or concerns, but through it all, you still trust in the Lord as a parent, and He's gonna be with you, and He's gonna help you. He- you're not alone in parenting, And so even when you're feeling unsure, which we have felt of, uh, unsure as in like, what do we do in this situation? Not ever unsure that, we wanted to adopt her, but the unsureness of we don't know the answers to every situation, or worried about the future. But we always return back to the Lord. So I think the encouraging thing is you're going to feel those feelings sometimes, and that's a very normal part of even parenting. So as long as we're going back to the source, we have a help in someone who's there with us. This question, this next one, is really interesting to me too,'cause I think it's something a lot of people ask themselves when they have had biological kids, is will I love this child like I love my biological kids? That's a very common worry or fear.

Lennon 21:57

Yeah. I remember hearing a dad tell me this about having his second biological child. Adoption wasn't part of their story, but he said,"I was terrified when we had our second daughter coming that there's no way I would be able to love her with the same intensity that I loved our first. And then whenever she was born, there it was." I think that with adoption, it'd be dishonest to say that the universal experience of bonding with the child that you've brought in through adoption is the same as the universal experience of having a biological child. Um, but I would also wanna encourage any adoptive parent not to give too much credence to that. In other words, it's been the case with too many adoptive parents we've talked to that their situation was, was intense or it was messy, and they felt really terrible about ways they were feeling at times. Like- Mm-hmm oh my gosh, have we made a mistake? I remember us talking to some friends whom they had brought a little boy into their family through adoption, and he was suffering greatly. He was acting out really intensely, and actually in their home it made things really chaotic for a bit. And so I remember we're talking to that mom, and one of the things that, through our experience, you know, we were able to encourage others. That's part of the gospel, that we get to comfort others with the comfort that we've received. And one of the things I told her at that time was,"Don't feel bad about being confused and scared right now. The real you is the mom who opened her heart to this little boy that needed a home. And this is a tough moment, but you're gonna get through this moment. So to answer this question, do you love them the same as your biological kids, I would say absolutely yes, and understand that you are going from a different starting point than you do with your biological kids, of nine months of planning and dreaming and, oh, look what's about to happen, to a circumstance where you're redeeming someone from a scenario that may be very complicated. And so don't be surprised if some of your feelings are complicated as well.

Christal 24:07

Yeah, I really, I think that the experience of bonding is even different with every family, depending on... they may adopt this child as a baby like we did, or they may come as a, a kid or, or a teen. And so With that, there's different emotions and process that you go through. When you make a decision to love someone, love isn't just feelings. We say this with marriage stuff. Love isn't about feelings. Feelings are a part of that, and they're important, but it's about choices you make. I'm, I'm gonna love this person. And it's the actions. It's the way you're patient with them, the way that you're taking care of their needs, the way that you spend time with them and you teach them. All of this is love, you know? And so I think sometimes we get so, so consumed with the, the feeling, the instant emotional feeling, that we're not seeing the big picture of what love really is as a parent.

Lennon 25:06

I think that's great. I think it's a great way to put it. Okay, the third and final question that we have is just, I'm intrigued by adoption. Where do I even start?

Christal 25:18

I do think you start with prayer. You just ask the Lord,"What do you have for me to do?" And He will guide you and show you. And there's different avenues of adoption, like you talked about earlier, whether it's domestic, international. There's different ways, but I think first of all, if adoption is something you want to be a part of, you pray first. And sometimes things do come in the way it did for us, suddenly, but it was the Lord. And then sometimes the Lord puts a seed in your heart or plants a, a vision in your heart and mind about it, and then you pray about that, and you go from there, and h- let Him guide you. I really do think, though, that every Christian should somehow be a part of adoption in some way, and what I mean is not all of us are called to adopt. But- If we know of a family that's fostering or adopting, maybe we can be the one to bring them over some extra diapers or send them a gift card because adoptive families need all the support they can get. Maybe you know of a family and you pray for them and you are a consistent prayer warrior in their lives. They need that prayer. And so I just think all of us as believers can be a part of adoption in some way, whether it's a friend that's adopting or ourselves, we have been called, or maybe you're a grandparent and your kids are talking about adoption. You know, just being a support for them, I think is, is definitely being involved. It makes me think a lot about not all of us are going to be called as missionaries to go overseas or to be a missionary, but we can all be a part of missions by supporting them with prayer and finances or childcare for, for adoption. I will tell you a lot of times those adoptive families need a break Maybe they're adopting and just the transition or the change has been a lot. And so being able to have someone there who could take that child or baby for a little while and let them go have a date or let them get out of the house for a while, that mental break can be everything they need in that moment. So I think all of us can really be a part of it in some way.

Lennon 27:24

So friends, that's a little bit of our story. Vague though it may have been, we wanted to share a little bit with you because adoption is a wonderful thing. It's the best thing that we've ever done. And if you're giving it some consideration, it is a worthy and wonderful calling. So pray about adoption, adopt, help those who have adopted. You can't go wrong with either of those three things. So friends, don't forget to follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode. We drop new ones every Tuesday. If today's conversation encouraged you, would you please take a minute and share this episode with someone you know? It really helps people find the show and join the community. You can visit homeandmarriage.com for more resources like our Six Habits of Happy Couples course. And if you'd like us to come speak at your church or event, you can schedule us through the website. You can also follow along on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. All those links are in the show notes.

Christal 28:19

Thank you for joining us on the Home and Marriage podcast. We really do believe that home can be your favorite place. We'll be back again next week with more encouragement and wisdom to help you become better at home and stronger together.