22 Lessons Parents Learn Through Adoption

1. God adopted us as His children.
2. God's people are a waiting people.  Ultimately, any wait is for God.
3. We never RESCUE any child.  We parent a child, and God uses that to transform the lives of the entire family.
4. Americans are diseased by comfort.
5. Hardship brings blessing, because it causes us to rely on God.
6. Parenting is not about control. (especially when your child is across an ocean.)  Parenting is about surrender to God.
7. Our compassion shouldn't be limited to those who are like us.
8. Compassion for one person or for one nationality usually grows into a passion for the other people or nations.
9. God uses our tiniest steps of obedience to cause Scripture come alive, and our hearts to become illuminated with His light.
10. While God loves passing down a lineage, it is not a lineage of genetics.  It is a lineage of faith.  "Blood relatives" are born through the blood of Christ.
11. God makes beauty from ashes, makes orphans into beloved children, makes waiting women into joyous mothers, makes the murder of His Son into our salvation.
12. It's a small world after all.
13. We're more sinful than we thought.
14. Our adopting of children on earth is a picture of the gospel.
15. We're not in control, and it's better that way since He is.
16. We often reject our Father by continuing to live as though we're orphaned from His love, even after He's wrapped His arms around us and called us beloved children.
17. Once-orphans heal through consistent eye contact with their Father.
18. It doesn't matter what anyone thinks of us.  Not only would we do anything for our mismatched children, but God is worth us living with regard only for His opinions.
19. No expense is too great for God to overcome.  I've never heard of anyone who couldn't finish their adoption process because of funds. 
20. We're all more sinfully ethnocentric and nationalistic than we thought we were.
21. Adopting a child blesses you and the children in your house more than anyone outside of the adoption world can ever fathom.
22. Scary steps of faith are less terrifying than a lifetime of apathy and lukewarm Christianity.

Can you add to the list?