We are in North Carolina visiting family, enjoying real "summer" weather, which we don't really have in Florida - long hours of daylight to walk and play ball in the street with the neighbors, catching up with old friends visiting for the holiday weekend. All those things I miss about living in a small town. We have had a great Resurrection Day weekend. My nephew was baptized yesterday after making a personal commitment to Jesus Christ a few weeks ago. Praise the Lord for the faith of children.
We have so enjoyed watching Patrick play with my other nephew. His cousin, who is only three weeks younger. They are so cute together at this age. Now that they really "play" it is so fun to watch. Tonight they were sitting facing each other and we started singing "Pat a Cake" and they both started doing it together. Then they would just laugh out loud at how funny they were! Of course, they do have their moments as well. Like when one of them decides the other one looks good for testing out new teeth or has hair that is made for pulling!
Spending time with my family this Resurrection Day has made me think more and more about adoption. Not that it is ever really far from my thoughts. First, of course is our adoption as sons and daughters of Christ.
"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" Galatians 4:4-6
Because of Jesus, we are sons and daughters of God! The Resurrection is central to our faith. If not for the Resurrection, Jesus would just be another dead prophet. But, because of it, we have something that no one else has - we have hope! Hope that there is more than this. Hope that for all of eternity we will live with Him. Hope that we can live in a personal relationship with Him now, here on this broken earth.
My heart's desire now is to please Him and to share Him with others. I want so badly for others to be set free. Those who are caught in the grip of sin and despair. Orphans who are crying themselves to sleep at night - alone and sad. I want these things so badly that I literally ache for them. Not because I think I can earn my Savior's love. When He died that day on the tree He paid the FULL debt for sin - my sin. I can not do anything to make Him love me any more or any less than He does right now. I do not want to "do" anything to check off of a list, or to try to be a "better" Christian than the next person. No, my reason for wanting to "do" anything good or right is very simple.
I love Him.
That's it. It is no deeper than that. I love Him and I know that He is the only good inside of me. Apart from Him I am wretched. I could not save myself then and all of my good deeds now are filthy rags compared to His holiness. There is nothing good in my flesh.
Now that I am adopted by God, I can't help but think about the orphans all over the world. My math minded husband sat down with a calculator the other day and started playing around with the numbers, trying to figure out how many people would need to adopt to practically wipe out the number of orphans on the planet. Now, of course, those numbers change constantly as children are adopted and more are orphaned, so his numbers are no where near exact. However, basically, he found that if every person in America who calls themselves a Christian adopted 4.26 children, the orphan issue would be basically non-existent. I realize that it is completely unrealistic to think that every Christian adult would adopt 4 children, but there are Christians all over the world and his numbers were just for those in America and some will adopt more. Plus, it just makes it seem a little less overwhelming when you deal in numbers like 4 or 8 rather than 147 million!!!
Any way you cut it, though, it is a HUGE thing. Several blogs I read have lately been talking about people asking them why. Why did you adopt this child? Don't you think the money you spent could have been used to provide for a greater number of kids if you had just donated the amount? These are valid questions and questions that we as adoptive parents must be willing to answer if we are to make people understand why adoption is so important. I have been asked why myself. Why, when we have four biological children would we adopt? Couldn't we have a baby "of our own?" These questions are usually asked out of true curiosity. Many people just do not understand.
The answer that many of us have come up with is simple - Family. We were created to live in families. God instituted the family way back in the beginning. He could have created us to live in "group" homes, but He didn't. He created a Daddy and a Mommy. He gave them the ability and the desire to be fruitful and multiply. The truth is adoption in our culture is a double edged sword. As much as I love my son and can not imagine our family without him, in a perfect world, he would live with his "first" Mom and Dad. In a perfect world parents would not die of AIDS and Daddies would not go away and leave single moms who can't provide for their children. There would be no drug dealers, getting rich on the misery of others and demolishing families.
However, we all know that we do not live in a perfect world. But, over and over it has been proven that children thrive in families. Children who are physically provided for in orphanages, even children who are loved by their caregivers to the best of their ability, blossom and bloom when they are placed in a loving family.
Love is a powerful thing. Love sacrificed His Son that we might have real life. Love makes people sell all that they own and move to the uttermost ends of the earth to serve the poor and needy. Love makes people open their homes and their arms to those that the rest of the world has forgotten.
Love. Simple, yet so incredibly powerful.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16
Simple, yet so incredibly powerful.
Thank you Jesus.
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