The old gray-haired Bapto-Appalachian-American preacher is pondering Isaiah 56:5, “I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off” (NRSV).
Names are a big deal in the Bible. The Isaiah passage talks about non-Jews who connected with the Jewish people during the Babylonian exile. These people were “given a name” later in life to take their place alongside those given that name at birth.
I pondered this most of yesterday, went to sleep thinking about it, and woke up thinking about it because the preacher-brain made a connection. It’s what preachers do. It’s our stock-in-trade.
We take an ancient text and apply it to current situations. We do that because no Baptist church ever split over the question of whether to eat meat sacrificed to idols, but many have split over what an old Baptist confession calls “matters of less moment.”
I started thinking about the Isaiah passage because of disparaging comments certain unnamed politicians have made about step-parents. I am confident these politicians will get around to denigrating adoptive parents, foster parents, blended families and grandparents raising grandchildren.
The election is three months from Friday. They have time.
Marilyn and I are adoptive parents. We adopted our three daughters in 1980. I worked for 13 years as an adoption case manager with Polk and Haralson County Division of Family & Children Services (DFCS).
I know the significance of a name received later in life that bestows a status equal to one given at birth. But Georgia law makes no distinction between the status of one’s biological child and one’s adopted child.
From my experience as an adoption case manager, I will tell you that some of our best adoptive families were blended families where people already had experience loving a child who was not their biological offspring.
I remember a blended family in Marietta who adopted a 14-year-old girl from my caseload. The adoptive father had a college-age son from a previous marriage and the adoptive mom had a 9-year-old daughter from a previous marriage. When they adopted my 14-year-old, they gave her their last name.
I also observed a beautiful relationship between this man and his wife’s daughter by birth. I witnessed spontaneous hugs she initiated for no apparent reason.
I heard her groan and then laugh at his corny dad jokes. I commented on it.
He replied, “The only ‘steps’ at this house are the ones up to the front porch. There are none inside the house.”
The 9-year-old is now a young adult. Her first big adult decision was to take the last name of a man who loved her more and treated her better than her biological father did.
Heritage Baptist Church in Cartersville abounds with blended families, great stepparents, and adoptive families. One of my preacher friends coined the term “cobbled together families.” At Heritage, we welcome cobbled-together families.
I worked many good adoptions with foster parents who adopted children already in their care as soon as the children became legally free for adoption. Many years ago, few cases moved to court-ordered termination of parental rights and many children lingered in the system for years.
I knew a brother and sister who kept cycling back and forth between their birth mom and the same good foster parents who kept their home open so there would be a familiar place when (not if) they came back into care. The foster parents were more than willing to adopt if the children had been legally free for adoption.
These children were young adults when they came to visit their former foster parents. They asked their former foster parents, “Would it be OK if we changed our last names and took yours?”
In a tearful embrace, the former foster parents replied, “If you will let us pay for it.” They wanted the name and the former foster parents gladly gave it as a gift.
I remember a biological father who floated to the surface just as we were preparing to serve him by publication and file termination of parental rights to free a 15-year-old girl for adoption by her foster parents. In northwest Georgia DFCS parlance, he was “fixing to be off the island.”
I sat at a conference table in the Cedartown DFCS office with this girl who wanted to be adopted by her foster parents and the foster parents were eager to do it. My supervisor and another worker had her notary stamp ready to notarize the voluntary surrender of parental rights paperwork already printed and on the table. The girl’s biological father was also sitting at the table.
DNA had confirmed the biological father’s generous contribution of one sperm cell. He was a business owner of abundant means. He tried to bribe his way back into her life or rather, into it for the first time.
He had never bought her a “Happy Meal” or an ice cream cone, but he offered to buy her a new Mustang or Camaro when she graduated from high school. He had the means to do it.
The girl gave him the coldest look I have ever seen one human being give another. I felt the temperature of the room drop when she spoke. “You don’t have enough money to buy me because I’m not for sale.”
He signed the Voluntary Surrender paperwork, which my co-worker notarized and left the room. About an hour later, I filed the paperwork with the Juvenile Court clerk.
The foster parents gave the girl the name she wanted and she will never call any other man “Dad” or any other woman “Mom.” She will forever have the same legal status as the biological offspring of the adoptive parents.
Yes, Kamala Harris is a “stepparent,” but I think the only steps at her house are the ones up to the front porch.
Lamar Wadsworth is an old gray-haired Bapto-Appalachian-American preacher living near Rockmart GA where he was born and raised. A graduate of Jacksonville State University and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, he has served churches in Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, and Maryland.
