adoption.

Do you know the feeling when what you are trying to communicate is too big for words?  When you are worried that in your stumbling and faltering, something indescribable will become cheapened or lessened?  This season has been one of the Lord so beautifully and perfectly deepening my understanding of the Gospel and though it seems hard, I'm going to try to jot down some thoughts.

Wednesday evening a group of us were able to go to the airport to welcome five children from Ethiopia and a little boy from Haiti.  The Ethiopians had just travelled half way around the world to be part of an international children's choir; the Haitian boy had just been picked up by his forever family and on his way home.  

I remember walking in the airport and first seeing the cheerful circle of orange, as the children and staff of the choir were gathered together.  We walked up, greeting our friends who are on staff with the ministry.  The children were tired - exhausted - after 20 hours of traveling.  They were wearing their matching orange t-shirts and holding onto balloons.  

Reaching out, I snagged the ribbon on one of the little boy's balloons, causing the bright balloon to bob up and down.  His face looked up at mine and a smile lit up his face and eyes.  And right then, something happened in my heart.  

We had such fun - each of us talking in our own language - playing with the balloons.  Up and down, watching the static electricity.  And somehow, I'm still not sure how, they stole a part of my heart and I'm pretty convinced that things will never be entirely the same.  

 

Then we all gathered at the meeting place, for word had passed that the one that we had been waiting for was about to arrive.  How amazing it was to stand there, realizing that the little boy that we have been praying for by name for the past two years, was about to walk there in front of us - to be here.

The elevator doors opened and the newly united family walked out; a Dad, a Mum, a baby sister and a little boy.  And it was then that the Lord showed me a little of the beauty of the miracle of adoption in the Gospel.

How often do we say the words "We are adopted as sons and daughters of the King"?  Yet we say it casually and move on. . .do we really grasp what that means?

Adoption is not just an idealistic concept, or an idea that sounds socially pleasing.  It is a legal and binding decision - a covenant in a sense perhaps - for a lifetime.  It means you take a new name, a new place.  It means that you belong to someone.

This little boy, standing there holding onto his new Dad's hand, had no right or merit of his own that he should be standing there.  Yet he was - and with more rights in this country of the United States of America than this girl does!  All because he was adopted as a son.  

And to think of our rejoicing, the forty or so people from the school and church, when they walked through the doors.  In the same way, what rejoicing there must be in heaven when the Lord presents His sons and daughters.  Oh, how absolutely incomprehensible!

In the next little bit, we are so blessed to be either praying for the adoptions of close friends in our midst or celebrating the arrival of new lives into families.  And we have the joy of having the Ethiopian children right on campus with us. . .as I walked by their dorm this morning I could hear them practicing their songs.  May the Lord continue to reveal His heart and nature in and through all of these circumstances and people.