What Adoption is Teaching Me: I'm a daughter of the King

Since we received our referral for Baby M, I've been thinking about her an awful lot.  How she was found somewhere and taken to an orphanage.  How long did she lay by herself?  Was she cold, hot, hungry?  Was she crying or content?  How many people walked by her before that one person picked her up and took her to safety?  I've thought about how anyone could have picked her up for any reason and done anything they wanted with her.  How thankful I am that God led that one person, a person with a heart to help and save, right to where she was that day.

I've thought about how she is now in a warm care center, wrapped up in blankets, being well-fed.  She's sharing a bed with two or three other babies.  She looks so happy in the photos we receive.  But this is all she knows.  She doesn't know the love of a mother and father.  The same eyes greeting her every morning and sending her off to sleep at night.  She doesn't know the joy (and pain) of brothers and sisters to share life with, who will make her laugh, read to her, tickle her.  Where she's at now certainly is better than being left alone somewhere, but it's still not as good as it could be.

And she has no idea. She doesn't know we exist, let alone that we are doing everything we can to get to her as fast as we can, and to bring her home.

 I find myself realizing how like her I am.  Her adoption is a physical one, but mine has been a spiritual one, and the parallels are strong.  Before, I did not have a true identity.  I only had myself to determine my life's course.  I had no heritage, and my purpose was dictated by me alone.  This may sound fine.  It may even sound good. But I was empty.  Full of wrong thoughts, actions, selfishness, vain attempts at seeking self-advancement and praise of other people.  Not realizing how different, how much better life could be.

Then I began to learn of God's love for me.  His relentless pursuit of me. Because of all my bad choices and mistakes, I was so far from who God wanted me to be.  He wanted me to be His daughter.  But I certainly was no daughter of a King.  But his love for me was so intense, that he made me his daughter.  And in order to do that, he had to give up his only son.  To take me into his family, a girl who didn't belong there, who came in wearing rags....

Recently, I found myself at a friend's house with a bunch of women gathered there.  I had Baby M's picture with me.  I realized I would be asked to share something from my heart in a few minutes.  God prompted me to share our story about Baby M, how he had led us to bring her into our family.  I shared with these women that we all are like Baby M.  We had no family, but now we are part of God's eternal family if we follow Jesus.  How God loved each of us so much, that he allowed his one son to die to make us all his daughters.  I asked them, "How many of us would give up a son to take a daughter that's not ours into our family?"  One lady spoke up and said, "If I had ten sons, I wouldn't give one of them for a girl."  Sad.  But reality.  And yet God did it for her.  And for me.  I was humbled to realize that sometimes, I find myself thinking we're doing such a huge thing in adopting Baby M.  But we're not.  I don't have to give up either of my sons to make her my daughter.

I am so thankful for a Father in heaven who has pursued me so relentlessly, and loved me so fully.  And continues to pursue my heart.  I am a daughter of the King!  He has made me His.  Thank you, Jesus!