Something huge is happening in our family this week.
Our oldest daughter and son-in-law are in China to pick up their new son. This orphan, who they’ve only seen in pictures, is too young to grasp that he will wake up in a few days to immediately become a son and a brother – and a grandson! He will have a family for the very first time in his life. And he’ll never to go back to being an orphan again.
It’s impossible for me to grasp not experiencing, much less understanding, the concept of family. The reality of truly belonging. And it will be a new experience for us to welcome someone into our closest world of love and hugs (and craziness and struggles) who came from outside our own wombs. I can’t wait!
This sweet boy, who comes with merely the clothes on his back, will quickly gain the very best this world has to offer – a loving family with all that they are and have. He’ll finally have someone to call mommy and daddy, and the two best, silliest brothers ever. He will, in the blink of an eye, truly belong in someone’s arms and lives. He has no idea at all what that means – or how it will change his life forever!
He also has no idea the lengths and cost that his new mommy and daddy went to get him. And the deep longing that was in their hearts to find him and bring him home. They’ll tell him one day, but I don’t know that he’ll ever truly grasp it.
Once a stranger. He’s now a co-owner of their hearts – even before their faces met.
You know what? We’re all just like him. You’re just like him.
Your heavenly Father had a longing greater than you could possibly imagine for you to be his child. His heart broke – figuratively and literally – for you to except His love, call Him Abba, and be part of His family.
The lengths He went to – the payment He paid just so you could be His – is way beyond grasping.
And much like this little 1 1/2-year-old boy that will soon become part of our family, one day you took your heavenly Father’s unfamiliar hand for the first time with little concept of what He went through or what He was about to offer you as His child.
Things like . . .
perfect, unconditional love (John 17:23)
His payment for your sin (I Corinthians 15:3)
immediate access through His Spirit to all that He is and has (Ephesians 2:18)
co-heir with Christ (Romans 8:16-17)
eternity (John 3:16)
and access to the throne to worship Him in His presence (Jude 1:24-25).
I don’t know about you, but I find our God’s gift of unfathomable grace that He pours out for our adoptions to be beyond human comprehension. But He wants us to grapple with it. He wants us to examine and wrestle with all the truth in His word about our identity as His sons and daughters. And we need to invite His Spirit to teach us along the way (John 14:26).
The adoption our family is experiencing one day very soon has prompted my heart to take more time contemplating all this. And to worship my heavenly Father because He chose me to be His very own. He said, “I choose you!” (John 15:16). And because He longed to give me all He has for all eternity.
I can’t offer Him a fraction of what He deserves in worship. But He deserves all I have.
“For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again,
but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’” Romans 8:15
How has adoption touched your life or family?
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