Saying “Yes” to Adoption

(I wrote this as an article for my father-in-law's newsletter but since it is on adoption, I wanted to share it here as well.) 

When I was just a little girl, a Korean children’s choir come to our church and gave a concert.   I wasn’t very old at the time, but I have a vivid memory of the children standing up in the front of our church, singing.  What really impacted me about this choir was not that they were Korean, and it was not that they were children, but that they were orphans.  Once I grasped the full meaning of what it meant to be an orphan and then absorbed the idea that these children had come to America in hope of finding a family, I was convinced that one of them should be mine.   She stood in the very front, a sweet little girl with jet black hair cut short.  She was about 4 or 5 years old in my estimation and standing still for the concert was quite a challenge for her.  I just knew by the looks of her that she should be mine.  After all, I had prayed for a little sister for all of my young years.  At that point in my life I was not particularly impressed with my two older brothers.  Now, here in front of me, stood a little girl who had no family.    I reminded the Lord as well as my parents that I was the one who had desperately prayed for a sister.    Although I did not sway my parents in the least despite my many cries and pleas, something was deposited deep in my heart that day.  Every child needs a family.  It seemed so terribly wrong from my little girl perspective that we, who were a family, could not welcome the one who had none.

The word of God declares in James 1:27 that the very heart and nature of religion that is “pure and faultless” is to care for widows and orphans in their distress, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.  God’s entire redemption plan is centered on the story of a loving Father who has come to rescue orphan children and adopt them into His family.  The price He was willing to pay for such an endeavor was nothing short of extravagant and it takes my breath away.  Why would He not ask us, as His children, to also love the weak and oppressed in such a way that it mirrors the very heart of His redemption plan?

Without Jesus, we are all orphans in some way, searching for the unconditional love of a family, the love of a father and a mother.   Sometimes we find a measure of that love in the embrace of our parents, or the comforting arms of a spouse, or perhaps in the dependent love of our children.  Yet the world is filled with countless people who have never known a love that truly fills their souls.   Jesus said, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in them.”  (1 John 2:15b)  The reality is that when humanity loves the world and the things of this world with such a resolute passion, it is a resounding testimony to the fact that the love of the Father is not in them.   When we truly know the love of our Father in heaven, the things of this world “grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”  He is the only one who is truly able to fill us and satisfy our hearts at the very core of our being. 

For years I have prayed James 1:27, asking God to give me “pure and faultless religion,” both in my own life and in His church.  I never really thought too much about what it would look like if God answered that prayer, I just simply prayed it.  Several years ago our family found our paths crossing and our lives intersecting with multiple families with adopted children.   At first it seemed just coincidental.  Then each of our 5 children became close friends with adopted children and with the siblings of adopted children.  For a season, we could not go to the store, out to eat, or to the park without seeing adoptive families.  Suddenly they were everywhere.  They came to our door, they came to our church, they seemed to follow us wherever we went, and their lives shouted to us something we had never before considered.  Every child needs a family.  How could we, who are a family, not welcome the one who has none?   “This is pure and faultless religion, to care for widows and orphans in their distress.”  Suddenly, as if a light was turned on in a darkened room, we understood.  We were being invited to participate in the Gospel of Redemption at a whole new level.  We responded with a resounding “yes” to God’s amazing invitation.  We said “yes” to adoption!  “And whoever welcomes one such child in my name, welcomes me.” (Matt. 18:5)