Adoption reveals Lord's love
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Adoption is an eternal principle, said Sister Bonnie D. Parkin March 13.
Speaking to childless couples and unwed mothers at an annual adoption conference sponsored by LDS Family Services, Sister Parkin said, "Our trials are unique, but our charge is the same: We must all turn to the Lord."
Sister Parkin, Relief Society general president and a member of the LDS Family Services board, offered the keynote address at the 2004 Families Supporting Adoption Conference, telling the hundreds in attendance that adoption "reveals the Lord's love for every single one of His children."
Sessions during the two-day conference, held in downtown Salt Lake City, addressed issues such as waiting for adoption, raising biological and adopted children, understanding loss and grief, special needs adoption, the adoption tax credit, and telling children about adoption. The conference also featured panel discussions from birth mothers and teens who were themselves adopted.
"You can't go through adoption without being aware that Heavenly Father loves you and is aware of your tiniest details," said Sister Parkin during her address.
Speaking of heartache, Sister Parkin said that she knows being pregnant and unwed or childless is an incredibly hard thing.
"It tests our views of who we are and what we are suppose to be," she said. "It strains things within a marriage and within a family and relationships dissolve.
"What if you are pregnant and unwed?" she asked. "Remember that you can be forgiven. You can move forward and you can receive blessings promised by the Lord to His faithful children. Seek for that sweet forgiveness. I believe it is difficult, it can be painful, but it will happen and it can happen."
To the parents of a pregnant and unwed child, Sister Parkin said that a child will never be allowed to progress spiritually unless she is allowed to make her own decision concerning her future child.
"If a birth mother is not allowed to choose the fate of her child, how can she grow out of a bad choice by making a better choice?" she asked.
Finally, Sister Parkin asked couples who are childless to be patient.
"Remember that Heavenly Father has a plan for you because He loves you," she said. "I know that to be true. I know it is not easy for me to say that and for you to even hear it, but I know that it is true."
It could be, she said, that the lessons couples without children are learning can be taught no other way. "I think we need to learn to forgive unkind and insensitive comments from other people," she added. "Learn to laugh, learn to rely on the Lord, then look for that silver lining. Enjoy your time right now when you don't have a child. Serve others, including others' children. Take time for each other as a husband and wife and have fun together."
Sister Parkin also spoke of dear friends who have adopted children and felt the Lord's love as their children were sealed to them in the temple. She spoke of adoptive parents knowing their children were meant to be raised in their home. She shared the story of a birth mother who wanted her son to have a mother and a father. She quoted First Presidency statements on adoption.
"Adoption is an unselfish, loving decision that blesses both the child and the birth parents in this life and in the eternities," she said.
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