The Adoption Journey

Luther and I had been married a little over four years. Luther was enjoying a good career in the NFL. We had three biological children. Life was good.

While on a trip to Salt Lake City to visit family, I went to work out at a gym with a friend. She told me the night before she had heard about a biracial little boy. He was in transitional care with a private adoption agency but the agency didn’t have a family for him.

My friend told me she felt like the Lord showed her this little boy so that she could share and possibly find him a home. I called Luther on the way home from the gym and told him the situation. Now, Luther and I had discussed adoption before. We both wanted to adopt but for Luther it was down the road a bit.

So, after I told him about this little boy he said, “Let’s pray about it.” I said, “You pray about it while I fill out the paperwork.” I’m a bit rambunctious with these things. I thought we could just fill out some papers and go get this little boy. We really knew nothing about the process. We were totally naive about it.

I spent the next three days filling out forms and meeting with an adoption agency. A week later we took Isaiah home. This opened up the adoption floodgates for us, so to speak.

That Thanksgiving Luther’s mother, who is Samoan, asked us if we’d consider taking a 2-year-old boy from Samoa. This was totally unexpected and shook things up a bit, but she left him with us.

Looking back on those first two adoptions I can honestly say that we were not ready to adopt. I think our hearts were engaged but our marriage was not where it needed to be. For Luther and I, our commitment to Jesus Christ is central to everything, especially our marriage. We needed these both to be aligned so we could be strong for each other and for our family. Were we prepared for such a drastic expansion in our family? Probably not. We thought we just needed to love on this little 2-year-old boy and it would all work out. I didn’t consider the bonding time he and I needed or that he was still nursing and had never slept in a crib.

But you grow and live through the day-to-day and learn. Though there were times of tension as well as a steep learning curve, things continued to progress for the better. 

For us, the opportunities to adopt kept coming. Our hearts were open to it and the Lord continued to present situations to us. The next July we received a call from our agency. They were trying to place a little girl who was biracial, so we took her into our home. Her name is Isabelle, and she is so precious. 

Then, in an extraordinary set of circumstances—as God would have it—we also adopted twice more from the same birth mother. So, now we have Isabelle, Sophia, and Mia. During the times that Sophia and Mia were born and we adopted them, I was also pregnant. I know what you’re thinking and no, I’m not crazy. It’s been an incredible, incredible experience. Taxing, but wonderfully so.

As it happened God was not and is still not finished with our adoption journey. In between our 5-  and 8-year-old children, we received yet another call from our agency about a small African-American boy they could not place. This time we struggled and prayed even more than normal. This one was probably our most intense adoption. But the Lord continues to bless. We now have 11 children between the ages of 5 and 15.

Because of Luther’s work in the NFL, God has allowed us to infuse our passion for adoption into the lives of other professional athletes. Once you make that first step and are open to God’s leading and guidance, then you are able to see clearly what it is he’d have you do in the lives of so many children who need a family. I think Luther would tell you that often his first reaction to adopting is to fight it and that probably for most men it’s the same. But for Luther, he knows what the Lord is calling him to do.

I’ve been feeling the prodding by the Holy Spirit again. I’m sure I’ll be calling Luther again, on the way home from shopping or something, with that question he loves to here: “Do you want to adopt again?”