Our good friend at Together for Adoption, Dan Cruver, this week highlighted the upcoming movie, The Blind Side. It’s slated for release November 20. Dan’s blog post poignantly named the emotion that I felt also as I watched the trailer. He described the impact of the adoptive mother’s words “My son” as she stood to defend the boy who, outwardly, seemed to share nothing whatsoever in common with her. Dan wrote, that picture “moved me to tears, both because of what it means to me as a father of a multi-ethnic family and because of what it means to me as a son in God’s multi-ethnic family.” I felt the same.
I was also struck by another line as well. It captured very simply the often under-noted consequence of the decision to adopt or care for orphans in other ways. Mrs. Touhys, the adoptive mother, is praised by another woman, “You’re changing that boy’s life.” Touhys shakes her head with a wondering smile. “No, he’s changing mine.” It’s true. When we open our lives to an orphan, the transformation most always happens in both directions. Certainly, orphans do need us. We may need them even more.