It was an amazing, emotional, exciting, nerve-wracking experience. It was so cool to see the joy on Mallory's face as she realized she no longer had to be concerned that someone was going to try and take Rain out of our home. It was awesome to see the smile and goofiness coming from Rain as she half sang "I'm adopted!" It was amazing to see 25+ people filing into the courtroom to support and celebrate with us.
As we were going through this whole adoption experience I got to thinking. We have loved Rain as our daughter from the first time she came into our home. We have fought for her, sacrificed for her, just as we have and would for our biological children, and we were finally able to officially make her a part of our family. All along the way she has loved us as well, and considered us her family as well.
This is what it is like with us and God! God has adopted us as sons and daughters, incorporated us into His family as coheirs with Christ, which is beyond imagination in the first place. He has loved us from the moment we came into existence, fought for us, sacrificed for us, but, unlike Rain, so many of us have spent years or still are rejecting Him. We don't love Him and consider Him our Father. We stab Him in the back, spit in His face, run from Him, reject Him, deny Him, etc... and yet through all of that He took the difficult steps necessary to give us the option to become His children, to be adopted into His family.We are all separated from God, but He humbled Himself, endured pain and humiliation, and died in order to buy us back, to pave the road that allows us to be adopted back into the family that loves us unconditionally. That path is open for us, no matter how much or how little we may think we want it any given point, the path is open. We have the opportunity to call God "Daddy." How amazing is that!
Even more, just as Mallory was thrilled because the possibility of someone taking Rain out of our home is now gone, when we are adopted by God we are saved, eternally. The possibility of someone snatching us away from God is gone. He has us, we are His children, we have the right to be called His children, and he will never let us go!
I've understood the love of a father, and been able to mildly grasp the love of God as a father to us, but now I understand adoption, and the joy/love I feel for Rain pales in comparison to God's love for us!
So if you have been adopted as a child of God, rejoice! Take a moment to thank God for what He has done, and then shout to the world "I'm adopted!"
If you are still an orphan, realize that God is there, waiting/wanting to adopt you into His family. The way is paved, the price is paid, all that's left for you to do is accept the invitation.
"For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—seeing that we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him." -- Romans 8:15-17
"But to all who did receive Him, He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God." -- John 1:12-13
"But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!" -- Romans 5:8
"No one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand." -- John 10:28b-29
"I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who don’t need repentance." -- Luke 15:7
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