Don't you want your own children?

The three we have are our own children! :)  But I know what you mean; you mean "birth children." I'm not overtly opposed to the idea, though I was at one time.  Actually,  Tim and I experienced 1/2 dozen miscarriages or so, though none of those pregnancies were planned. Through those losses we learned that children do not belong to us. Scripture tells us that we are not our own; we are bought at a price.  Children are God's, and He will give them and take them away from our stewardship as He sees fit.  I hear Heaven isn't a bad place... It became abundantly clear during this time that whether a child came out of me or someone else, he or she was God's child; there was no distinction in possession to be made.  And if there is no distinction to be made about ownership, then it became impossible to ignore the fact that there are millions of children already born here on earth in need of a family.   We chose not to create more children, but to raise for Him the ones God has already given the breath of life. 

Do I fault you for birthing children in a world where there are tens of millions of orphans?  Not at all.  If you are a Christian, you are called to care for orphans.  But that care takes many forms; it isn't exclusive to adoption.  Would I think it wrong for me to birth children?  No, but I would not choose to birth more than once or twice knowing that God made me, and put it on our hearts, to adopt. For us to ignore that call would be negligent.  

When you're called to adopt, you know it.  For example, after we adopted two children I thought I was pregnant again.  I was terrified with the feeling that I would never be able to love that birth child the way I loved the children God had given us through adoption.  I confessed to Tim that I knew a birth child would feel second best to his adopted brothers and sisters, and every time I looked at him or her I would be panged with guilt thinking of all of the other children in world who didn't have family.  As it turned out I wasn't pregnant. (As God would have it, I actually was diagnosed infertile years after we adopted.)  I've grown beyond most of those insecure feelings, but I am convinced that it would be impossible for me to love a child more than I love my children now.  

If you are wavering on adoption because you think you couldn't love someone else's child like you love your own, if you don't see all children as God's children and immediately gush with love for the adopted, then maybe you aren't called to adopt.  We're all called to different paths in life, and I encourage people to walk boldly down the path God is lighting for them.