"That Friend"

I was recently asked by a friend if I was still going to be excited for her and help with her baby shower if and when she gets pregnant as she is hoping to do soon. She was joking but it made me think about how I am perceived by those around me, particularly those in the mom community. It made me wonder if I have become "that friend". You know, the friend who sells one of the many home-business-based products on the market, like the new girl you met a church who you thought you really clicked with until she started leaving you lots of messages about the various sales she was having on eye liner and mascara, messages that made you wonder if she really clicked with you as a person or as a customer. The issue isn't so much what you sell, it's how people think you view your relationships with them. I wonder if my friends think of me as viewing every one of them as potential "target", a sale to be made for the cause of adoption, especially now that we have moved beyond our own personal adoption into doing orphan advocacy work in our community (more on that later). One side of me hopes that isn't the case as I would never want to push how I have chosen to build my family on anyone else. That side fully recognizes that God calls all of us to unique vocations and we should be respectful of the different areas where our unique gifts and experiences equip us to serve. The other side of me knows that in my heart when I meet loving families, I am always thinking about how an orphaned child would love to find a home in any of their homes. I can see the faces of orphaned kids I met in Ethiopia who could easily become the children of many people I know and love. That's the side of me that isn't so worried about what others think and wants to stand on the corner and bang my drum as loud as I can for the cause of the orphaned child until someone listens. "Yes, I've chosen this for my family, and frankly, you should too if you are about God's heart for the poor, the lonely, the destitute and the needy," that fanatical side of me feels like shouting. So I guess that's what my experience with adoption has made me - a bit of a fanatic. I will be happy (and throw showers) for my friends who give birth to their second, third and fourth children because I love them and rejoice in their happiness but part of me will be sad that one (or more!) of those coveted spots in an amazing family headed by caring, creative, intelligent, Christ-loving parents was not given to a child who had nobody, nothing and nowhere to call home. If you have the energy and the resources to parent second, third and fourth children, I just don't understand why it isn't a given that at least one of them is an adopted child. I wish I could understand why not everyone "gets" adoption but I don't and that's hard. Since I may already be more of a weirdo than I realized, maybe I should start selling mascara too.