Introduction
Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but when dreams come true at last, there is life and joy.
Proverbs 13:12
What does it mean to be adopted? As I look at my two beautiful,
internationally adopted daughters, the definition becomes living and full of
personal meaning, not just a two-dimensional word on a written page. Maybe what
I want is not so much a definition as an understanding of the depths of its
meaning on a spiritual level—the act itself of love, sacrifice, cost, and
inheritance.
Today my children are ten and seventeen years old and as American as any
other child born in this country. We live in middle-class suburbia, I drive a
“mommy van,” our refrigerator is full of too much junk food, my kids wear J.C.
Penney clothes, and sleep on comfortable flannel sheets and memory foam
pillows. Manisha has Christian teenage friends who come over and watch action-packed
movies on our high definition, forty-eight-inch television screen, and Joy
competes at level seven on a girls’ gymnastics team. We are living the American
dream. On the surface, we seem “ordinary,” but in reality, we are quite to the
contrary.
My two children were orphans from third-world countries. They came from
destitute backgrounds without hope, clinging to a miserable existence. I asked
my 17-year-old daughter, “What does it mean to you to be adopted?”
“It means I didn’t grow in my mommy’s stomach but in her heart,” she
responded.
Sometimes when we decide to write a book, it’s because there isn’t a book
on the bookshelf that addresses what we want to read. I wanted to understand
what it meant to be adopted by my heavenly Father. I searched the Scriptures
for all the passages on adoption and thought about what it meant for me
personally. The more I thought about it and looked for material, the more I
realized how little extra-Biblical literature existed.
I prayed about writing my own book and started writing, but as I wrote, I
realized I had to tell my own story. I imagined a beautiful book of how we
became a family because I wanted to encourage others to pursue their own dreams
of adoption. I wanted it to be a story of hope and fulfillment, but God’s
adoption of us and the adoption of my children aren’t just beautiful adoption
stories in the sense that most of us would think of as beautiful.
Mine is the story of the struggle to create a “forever family” as I
endured lies, betrayal, sickness, delay, deceit, deception, greed, corruption,
suffering, fear, abandonment, and sacrifice. Eventually, through perseverance
and dependence on God, I received fulfillment. It soon became clear to me that
the adoption of my children wasn’t that different from God’s adoption of us.
Jesus gave His life for us by paying the ultimate sacrifice at great cost
to Himself—suffering on a cruel Roman cross after being abandoned by His
closest friends and even God Himself. He suffered every human emotion that I
had suffered, but even more so, and without sin.
Perhaps I did accomplish what I wanted, but just not in the way I had
originally envisioned. I get teary-eyed when I think about it because I know
what heartache and suffering I went through, which pales in comparison to what
God has done for us. He has given me a great gift, because I am able to see how
much God loves me through the adoption of my children.
In heaven, the Lamb will stand before the throne, in the midst of
thousands upon thousands of angels, illuminating us with His holy presence.
Only when Jesus breaks the seven seals and opens the scroll, which is the deed
to the earth and all its inhabitants, will our entitlement be revealed.
The adoption of my two children was a hard-fought battle—trusting God,
forgiving others, and fighting forces of evil that wanted to destroy me.
Ephesians 6:10 states:
Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the
devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against
the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on
the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to
stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
My earthly journey of adoption not only gave me the “Children of Dreams”
I longed for, but it has shown me the inheritance awaiting us when we arrive in
heaven through God’s adoption of us. My story begins many years ago….
*~*~*~*
