Adoption Reflections - Story #2

As I said in an earlier post, I aim to start posting adoption stories in this site. Our family has been forever affected by adoption.  If you are a Christian, you have been forever affected by adoption. You were a spiritual orphan adopted by your heavenly Father. And now you are a son or daughter of God. 

My contention is that, as Christians, our transition from orphans to sons/daughters in a spiritual sense ought to move us to care for the many orphans that populate our world. Reflect on your spiritual condition before you were adopted. Then find a way to care for orphans. The possibilities are endless - domestic adoption, international adoption, adoption funding, foster care, pregnancy care, right to life advocacy, orphanage volunteer, starting an adoption ministry at your church, etc.

By way of disclosure, I must admit that my wife and I did not fully realize the spiritual implications of adoption when we entered the process. Our eyes were opened to the realities of vertical and horizontal adoption at some point during the process. Our initial motive could be viewed as selfish. We wanted children. We were told we would not be able to have children the way most people have children. So we immediately pursued adoption. And God has blessed us with three boys.

Sounds simple. But, trust me, in between the periods of those previous sentences, there are many stories.  Each adoption was fraught with varying levels of anxiety.  In our case, all three adoptions have had good outcomes. But I am well aware, that's not always so. Josh and Miranda's story is a case in point. It is a story of hope, grief, loss and hope.

After the experience of the past three weeks, Josh amazingly still has the where-with-all to reflect on the experience. Here is part of that reflection. 

Miranda and I know and love Jesus Christ – not the one on television commercials for churches, not the one who says he’s just there to make you healthy and happy, but the one in the Bible. We don’t believe because I’m a pastor. We believe he actually lived the life we should have lived and actually died a death that we sinners deserve to die. We actually believe this. I know for many of you that’s completely crazy. And I agree. Christianity looks quite foolish. That’s part of what attracts me to it.

The cool part about an adoption story is that as Christians, Miranda and I know what it is like to be adopted. God didn’t have to graft us into his family, but he did. 

Read the entire story. And then pray for Josh, Miranda, the "boy we called 'Cash'" and the birth mother.

HT: Jason Kovacs

The God-Centeredness of Christ's Sufferings

Frederick Leahy on Matthew 26:67-68 - "Then (the religious leaders) struck Him and spit in His face."

O my soul, what a sight is this! As with tear-dimmed eyes we look on this terrible scene - do we? - we behold with wordless wonder the matchless love and infinite condescension of the one who came to seek and to save the lost.

Here, however, there is an error to avoid, the danger of seeing the loving obedience of Christ as primarily and exclusively for the sake of man, when, in fact it was primarily out of the love of God that he accepted the cross... This is a truth too often overlooked.

The Cross He Bore (p.57)