Acknowledgments

Writing a book on the family would be impossible, were it not for my own family. My wife Maria, as always, has strengthened this book by her example of love and sacrifice, as well as by reading and critiquing parts of it, sometimes with the words, “I don’t believe I would tell that.” Believe it or not, all of those sections are gone, so what you read here has been through the censoring filter of a wise woman I trust with my life.

My parents, Gary and Renee Moore, gave us love and stability such that we took such things for granted, as I wish all children could. The same is true for my grandparents—Ken and Betty Summy and Agnes Moore—two of whom are now gone, one dying as I was working on this book.

My children—Ben, Timothy, Samuel, Jonah, and Taylor—contributed to this book if for no other reason than because I never stopped realizing as I was typing away in some lonely room that I would rather be with them. Their personalities—each one very different—brim with a life and joy that I never could have imagined before they were here. I know they will all bear scars from something in this life, as we all do, but I pray that with those scars they will know that Jesus loves them and longs to be with them always. And so do I.

As I argue in this book, though, “family” for those who follow Christ is never confined to bloodlines. I could not have written this, or done anything else in recent years, if not for my family at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and, before that, at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In the writing of this book, I am especially grateful to Joshua Wester, who pored with me over the initial drafts, providing much-needed advice and commentary. Nothing would get done here if not for my senior colleagues Phillip Bethancourt and Daniel Patterson, who long ago started with me as interns proofing drafts of Adopted for Life, and who are now, respectively, my executive vice president and chief of staff. Their ingenuity, expertise, and trustworthiness are unparalleled, and I know it. I also am indebted to my pastor Scott Patty, and also to Ray Ortlund, David Prince, Andrew Peterson, and Ken Barbic without whom I would have stopped writing last year, about everything.

I am also grateful for my literary agent Andrew Wolgemuth for shepherding this book along from the beginning, and for the unbelievable brilliance of the editorial team at B&H Publishers. I am particularly grateful for the encouragement and insight of Jennifer Lyell, and for the razor-sharp work of Devin Maddox, trade book publisher at LifeWay Christian Resources (who also, oddly enough, started out as my intern, proofing book projects back in the day). Now he’s my editor, and there’s not a more skilled, more imaginative one that I know of in the publishing world.

Thank you.