Adoption in the Bible

It's been awhile but I'm back!

No news on the adoption front, still finishing paper work of course but good things are happening in our hearts so I wanted to share.

As I consider adoption and what it will look like someday to get that fated phone call, have that meeting, wait those special weeks, go to a hospital or CPS office, meet that baby and then strap them in a carseat and take them home - I become almost giddy with excitement. And suddenly, we will be Mom and Dad.

Adoption teaches the heart early that love is a choice. I think I had the idea that because a baby comes from you, you will love it, and it will love you back but an umbillical cord doesn't guarantee love. Even mothers who give birth must chose to love their kiddos. So, love is a choice and I find I love my son or daughter (or twins, or whatever!) already.

I don't know that little one yet, how old they'll be, how we'll meet or when. I don't know if it will be a little boy or girl, asian, hispanic, white or black (you guys all know my prejudice on that one though). I don't know what they will look like or sound like but I know I love them, and I miss them already. In my heart I am secretly already praying for them, protective of them, wanting to search for them and find them and bring them home. As I have considered these strong emotions it occured to me that God eagerly sought me out, found me, adopted me and brough me home.

Ok, obvious conclusion, right? But the profoundness is hard to communicate on a keyboard. The reality of God seeking me out, predestining (is that a word) me for salvation to become His daughter is not so much theorhetical and theological anymore - it is becoming more and more real as I consider adopting my own child.

Naturally, I was not His- being enslaved to sin and Satan. I didn't ask for His rescue until He came to me first. He knew me and saw me before the foundation of the world and in love made me a part of His kingdom where I am not treated like a step daughter or a half-breed but His real daughter. He loves me as He loves Jesus, the true Son and reflection of the Father and He lets me take part in an eternal inheritence that is kept for me, guarenteed by His faithfulness and my status as His daughter not my performance.

This is wrecking my heart (in a good way of course) as I have come to know the feeling that someday I will give all my love to a little one I haven't met, they haven't done anything to earn my love other than just being alive. I will be proud to call them by our last name "Schott", I want to give them a strong identity as my child, I want to give them all I have and all of this not because they're a deserving party, but just because they were parentless and I loved them.

So God has loved me (and you if you are a believer). You were lost like an orphan and you were sought out by the Father who loves children. You were known before the foundation of the world to become His. You are given an inheritence and a name in Him and it cannot be changed.

I know we are just at the beginning of this process and I have no doubt this will profoundly affect our faith and who we are. I can't wait for the rest of the journey. I hope our journey will articulate to you the overwhelming love of God that has been lavished on you today and that you will in turn be empowered to lavish love on others.

May God's word come alive to you in light of your adoption!

~L&L