February is often called the love month. I have been blessed to know great love in my life. I was cherished as a child. My husband has lavished love upon me during our marriage. My personal faith is a love affair of the soul. There is another great love story in my life and that involves the remarkable love of adoption.

My husband and I adopted seven children. Three were infants when they came to us as foster children. We had the great joy of being able to adopt them after they had been with us, and after we had already grown to love them. They, being very young, had no real say in the matter, but as they also had grown to love us, it was a welcome and beautiful turn of events for us all.

Our other four children are what is referred to as “older-child adoptions.” The youngest of those came to us at the tender age of 3. The others were certainly old enough to have an opinion about being adopted. They joined us as foster children at 6, 7 and 8 years old respectively, and each arrived with adoption as the plan. They were young, but they were old enough to have a voice and be a part of the decision to be a forever family.

I’d like you to stop and think for a moment of the young children you know. Think of their emotional fragility and tender hearts, their dependence upon the adults in their lives for guidance and self-worth, the way they need affirmation and encouragement. Then, I’d like for you to think of them uprooted, unsure, traumatized, confused, frightened, and suddenly “in the system.” It isn’t a pleasant situation to imagine, is it? There’s nothing pleasant about any child being in such a place, yet you’ve just imagined the real plight of thousands of children.

After being in such a terrible predicament, in some cases for several years, think of them having to answer the question, “Will you be mine?” if adoption becomes a possibility. Think of the enormity of it. Think of the trust required, the risk taken, and the courage needed.

I hear a lot of concerns about the risks that accompany adopting older children. I’m not going to tell you it isn’t risky. Love is risky business. Love leaves you vulnerable. But, the risk is just as real for the children being adopted as it is for the adults who are adopting them.

There are many factors that lessen a child’s chances to be adopted out of the foster care system. Their age is one of those factors. I wish it were not so.

Perhaps there are some of you reading this article who have considered adoption, but feel you are past the baby raising stage. Perhaps you experienced foster care as a child. Perhaps you, too, have witnessed the beauty of adoption as a family is forged together in love.

Perhaps, then, it is time to reconsider the value of an older child, including teens, who are waiting to be adopted. More than 20,000 children a year age out of the foster care system in the United States. That means they simply grow up and are on their own without a family. What a grievous statistic.

Did you know that there are children with parental rights already terminated still in the foster care system? According to www.childrensaid.org, approximately 300 children are in foster care in Alabama alone, “awaiting a loving and caring adoptive home.” Consider visiting www.AdoptUSKids.org and view waiting children from state to state.

If you are very fortunate, as I have been, you may one day have an opportunity to draw a child into your arms who has every right to hesitate to trust and ask them, “Will you be mine?” Their answer will change the lives of all involved.

We chose to adopt all seven of our children, but three of them also chose us. This is the great love that we will celebrate this weekend, and every weekend of our lives. We will celebrate a question asked and the answer given:

“Will you be mine?”

“Yes!”

Stephanie Rodda is an Alabama author, freelance writer, inspirational speaker, and adoptive mom of seven of their former foster children. You can find her blog at stephanierodda.wordpress.com, or her fiction novels at Amazon.com.