Many of you know my story, but I will condense and summarize a portion of it for this blog. At birth, I was given up for adoption as my mother was too young to know enough to raise me. I was fostered then adopted at just a few months old. At 22 months, that family gave me back to the agency, like returning a pair of pants that didn’t fit. At 2 years old, I was adopted a 2nd time into a family with 2 boys. That dad sexually abused me. At 13 years old, they sent me away to a christian boarding school in Wisconsin where I lived 24/7 for 5 years. Including my birth family, By the age of 13, I had 3 families, and none of them seemed to want me, nor loved me as their own.

But then, GOD.

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are..”
1 John 3:1

For some reason only known to Him, when I was 13, He reached out to me, calling me towards Him as a loving father would who was rescuing an abandoned child. I accepted his gentle invitation, pouring my heart out to Jesus, who became my best friend. I knew beyond a shadow of any doubt that I was now a child of God, because He wanted me, and would never leave me nor forsake me as I had become accustomed to.

There are those who do not believe that God “adopts” us, as they think we are born his children, their argument partly being we have been made in his image and likeness. Yes, we have been, but that does not account for what has separated us from God.

Once Adam and Eve made the terribly poor decision to disobey God, the consequences doomed them both, as well as the rest of humanity, by condemning us to their same fate. God had to cast them out of his delightful, holy garden, away from his intimate presence. Mankind was now subject to death, which included a separation from his Creator. We now had the 2-edged sword of a knowledge of evil as well as good. Humans are still his highest creation, but no longer able to be in his holy presence. Adam was born of God, his firstborn creation, but the rest of us are – as a result – born under sin, which lords over us like a disease does over its host. Does God still love man, his creation? Certainly. But we are not his children, i.e. heirs to his inheritance, until evil and darkness are no longer our lord.

“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”
John 1:12-13

Jesus Christ’ death was the most holy blood offering to recompense for man’s sin. We each must accept this gift in order to claim it. He bridges the gap between us and our Heavenly Father, allowing God to accept and receive us into his holy family.

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”
Romans 8:15

Perhaps a better way of explaining the term of ‘adoption’ that Paul uses is to describe what the benefits are of this new relationship. Prior to this kinship with God, He was not an intimate part of our life. Now, as one of God’s chosen by grace, we have the right to claim an inheritance as his heir. What is it that God has to offer us? The same thing He offered to Adam and Eve: a life of holiness, and an eternity of ‘living’ with Him as our Father.

“In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”
John 14:2

As one who has been on the receiving end of being adopted now 3x, I can say that my greatest blessing is being able to call God my Father, and Jesus my Lord. In doing so, He will always remain my biggest supporter and matchless champion. There won’t ever be a doubt of his perfect love, his refining discipline, or his unending forgiveness, as well as what other gifts He might have in store for me, whether in my lifetime or thereafter. As a child of God, He will take care of me in every way with the utmost degree of excellence. It is a sincere privilege and the highest honor to call God “Father”.

This requires an honest answer: Is God Almighty your Father?

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,  even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons (and daughters) through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace..”
Ephesians 1:3-6a

Food for thought: Poem by my mother in 1968:
“Not flesh of my flesh, nor bone of my bone, but still miraculously my own.
Never forget for a single minute, you didn’t grow under my heart, but in it.”

(Fun?) facts: I recently learned that my maternal grandmother was also adopted when she was a child. She kept this between herself and my grandfather for around 80 years! Therefore we have very minimal information about her history. Tracing Grandma’s lineage has come to an end, but her family’s future lives on as she and Grandpa had wholeheartedly served the Lord, therefore He blessed them abundantly with children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

Photo by: Kari Wiseman – A Walk with the Father