A podcast listener named Chris writes in to ask this, "Dear Pastor John, my wife and I adopted our youngest son from Ethiopia just over a year ago. What a gift he's been to us. He's a toddler now and beautiful differences in our skin color and hair type will stand out to him soon, if not already.

The question we wrestle with is how soon do we start the discussion of his adoption with him?" Great question. I'm glad it was asked and I pulled Noel and Talitha together last night to ask them this question. My wife and daughter, Talitha's adopted. She's 18 now. She remembers a lot of how we did this and so we asked her how she felt about it.

And so what I'm about to say is coming with both of their input, not just me. In fact, Talitha said that the things she appreciated and values and remembers might not always work with all her friends that she knows who are adopted. So I don't want anybody to say we've got the last word here.

Every family is the same. It's not. Our conviction is that from the very beginning, I mean, as soon as this kid can hear you talk, adoption should be a reality spoken of the way birth and eating and playing and sleeping and all other ordinary realities of life are talked about.

So you just talk about it. There's adoption. So your two year old hears you talking about children being adopted and children being born. And he doesn't know what either of those mean. He doesn't know the word adopted. He doesn't know the word born yet. He's just hearing you talk about it.

But little by little, understanding dawns. And with every new perceived growth in understanding, mom and dad fill in more and more of the missing pieces. In other words, you are never hiding from this kid that he's adopted and you're never hiding the concept of adoption and they grow organically together.

Get good children's picture books. I'm talking about a picture book that a kid eats. You know, the board kind that they don't know what they know what you're doing. They just chew it. Well, get those. And when they're six months old, nine months old, 18 months old, whatever will work.

Set those books in front of them with kids of different color. And these books are about adoption or non adoption. They're about the whole range of kids going up together and transracial adoptions. There are a lot of good books out there for this. Find them and make sure you're just reading about it and talking about it.

Right apart from applying it to your own kid. This is reality. So the books grow with the child and the board books at the beginning that they chew on and then more sophisticated books. And very soon this kid's going to have some questions and then you're just going to answer those questions.

Talitha remembers from very early a book about hair. It was just about hair and the African-American experience of hair. And she didn't have any self-conscious at the time being African-American at all. But she says she can remember this. So she was probably what three maybe. I don't know. I have a little different kinds of hair, which which was helpful.

You don't wait until a magic moment to say you were adopted. This is spoken from the beginning. Like like you have five toes and you have eyes and some kids have brown eyes and some have blue eyes. You have brown eyes. Some kids are adopted. Some kids come another way.

You came by adoption. And they don't they won't even they'll be so confused. But they're happy. You know they're happy. You're talking about things and I'll know what you're talking about someday. Now here's an event. Here's an illustration. Talitha was what I don't know how old she was two or three.

But anyway we were at a pro-life march. OK. Every year we march in with several thousand people. And they've got these big pictures of these babies. And of course some of them are horrible pictures. And you probably shield your little one from from that. But beautiful pictures of babies.

And she said to Noel, "Baby, baby was born. Baby was born." Or something like that. And Talitha said, "Yes. And you were born." And Talitha said, "No. I wasn't born. I was adopted." So up until that time she was hearing the language. And some are born and some are adopted.

And that's the way she had put it together. I'm the adopted kind. And so over the next half hour by the time that was done she, Noel, had made a little progress in sorting out. No, no. Adopted kids are also born kids. And now that of course is going to raise a whole slew of questions of did I come from you or somebody else?

But you know kids ask questions very early before they're ready for answers. And the Lord gives you wisdom to know the kind of helpful thing to say that gives them just enough of what they need to run off and be happy with their friends before you give them a big lecture that they weren't even intending to ask about.

Of course you need answers ready when the hard questions come. Why did my mommy give me away? You need an answer for that. Who is my daddy? Why didn't he stay around? Why don't we know who he is? Did he not care about me? Those are the questions for which there are Christian answers.

And mainly you try to discern at those moments where the child is and what they really want to know. And you massively affirm that you have chosen them. You care for them. You are mommy and daddy. They are loved by you. And then you provide them whatever you can about the hardship that mom and dad were going through that made it very hard for them to love you the way they wanted to and you know something like that.

So the principle is adoption is normal and wonderful and a perfectly natural process of life. Speak of it that way from the very beginning. God adopted us. Lots of kids and children are adopted. There are a lot of adopted families. We chose you. We wanted you. You are very precious to us.

You are here and I am your daddy and I will always be here for you. You're safe. Thank you for your example, Pastor John. And thank you, Noel and Talitha for your input in this episode. I'm sure it's going to help a lot of people. So thank you for that.

This is the third and final part of a little series of episodes on adoption. Be sure to check out the two previous episodes, number 349 and 350 for more if you haven't heard those. Well, adoption is a joy to talk about and it's so wonderful to see happen. But there are subjects on this podcast that we address that are neither joyful to talk about nor wonderful to see happen.

And that will be the case tomorrow when we address the subject of suicide and salvation. It's a question that has hit home for Pastor John over the years. It's a very personal question for him. And we'll talk about that with him tomorrow. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

1. Is there a reason why people don't talk about suicide? 2. Is there a reason why people don't talk about suicide? 3. Is there a reason why people don't talk about suicide? 4. Is there a reason why people don't talk about suicide? 5.