Jesus and Adoption: The Beauty of the Gospel

It was an overcast Saturday morning, surprisingly warm for the end of February. My alarm rang, but I was already awake. I climbed out of bed and dressed for the day with the clothes I had picked out the night before- something neutral and comfortable.  My heart skipped a beat or two as I applied my mascara, but otherwise it was just a run of the mill morning routine. I met my husband at the top of the stairs and asked if he was ready. He responded, “Let’s do this.” We hit the road headed East, singing along to The Greatest Showman soundtrack. Belting the lyrics to “From Now On” felt appropriate for what was stirring in our hearts. Nearly three hours later, we exited I40 and made our way to a parking spot in front of a small-town hospital. We knew this day would be a milestone in our lives. We knew everything was about to change. Yet, at the same time I had no indication for just how God would use this day to change my view of Him and my understanding of how deep His love is for me. 

Here are two truths that God has given me full confidence in after navigating an adoption:

Yes, Jesus loves me

Yes, He is involved in the details of my life

 

Jesus Loves Me: Understanding God’s Heart Through Adoption

Since becoming a Christian, I’ve always known that Jesus loves me. That principle is the cornerstone of my faith. It’s the theme of every christian children’s song. God created the world and he put me in it. But oftentimes I don’t feel like He loves me. I don’t trust that He knows the details of me and chooses to love me.

Ephesians 1:4-5 tells us that God “chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance to His pleasure and will.” 

When people ask my husband why we adopted, one of the first things he shares with them is that adoption of a child is the most tangible picture of how God adopted us into His family. While this is absolutely true, I don’t think I fully grasped the gravity of this truth until recently. Having the lived experience of adoption has helped me understand the very nuanced pieces of it:  the sin, pain, brokenness and tragedy turned into hope and resurrection. It’s as if navigating my daughter’s adoption has turned on the lights of a part of my identity in Jesus that I once saw as gray, and now I understand it in full, radiating color.  

My daughter is four. We are in the THICK OF IT learning discipline, keeping boundaries, and modeling emotional regulation. When the frustration of the long day is over and she is tucked snug and tight in her bed, I gaze at the monitor and thank God she is ours. I often look at her and think how those aren’t our big, brown eyes and neither are her brown curls that fade into caramel on the ends. She doesn’t share our skin color. Those definitely aren’t our ears. Those ears are shaped like her biological grandfather’s. Her birth mom told me so. This child was not born of me. So how can it stand true that when I look at her, I experience such joy, pure delight, overwhelming adoration, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is my child, my daughter, whom God has appointed to me? It doesn’t make sense, but I know it to be true. It’s a matter of the heart being intricately tied together in a way that makes little temporal sense. It’s an abundant, wholesome, pure love that is given and felt so deeply, the brain can’t comprehend it. This is how God loves me. 

Ephesians 2:2 says we were “by nature children under wrath. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love He has for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses” (CSB). Do you see the miracle here? Look at me! Born naked but clothed in sin- coming into the world through labor pains promised at the fall,  separated from my own creator, unable to walk or work myself back into the presence of the God who imagined me up, formed me with care, and breathed life into me. But in the moment of my salvation, God looked upon my face and saw Jesus, and he welcomed me into His family through adoption. Now, just like any good, good father, He cares about the details of my life. More so, He sets the details of my life into place. 

Jesus in Every Detail: How Adoption Reveals God’s Providence

The day we met our daughter, she was two days old. We were waiting outside her room in a quiet, small-town hospital. The social worker led us through the door on the maternity floor. I’ll never be able to put into words how the next hour felt, but it was far from what I expected. We were met face to face with the woman who chose us to be the forever parents of her beloved daughter. Yes, she chose us. Sometime in the previous 3 days, she had met with a social worker from our adoption agency and they had created an adoption plan for her child. The social worker presented her with several profiles of waiting families. We were one of them. I had wondered the kinds of things that go through your mind when you are tasked with choosing a forever family to place your child with. Do you look for a family who looks like yours? Do you consider their house type or backyard space? Is extended family important? What about pets? I’m sure it’s all of the above. In our case, it was even more. 

Long before we began trying to start our family, I had plans for what our nursery would look like. I wanted a safari theme. Don’t ask me why. I’m not even an animal person. I probably saw it on pinterest and liked it and it stuck. So when we began putting together our nursery as we prepared to bring home a baby, I was on the hunt for baby animal portraits. In the meantime, I was visiting my friend, V, who was also trying to start a family of her own. We were talking about all things babies- fertility, nursery decor, names. I shared with her about the safari-themed nursery. She got quiet, walked away for a moment, and came back into the room holding four prints of baby animals- the exact ones I had seen on Etsy. She said, “Here, use these.” I was confused. “Why aren’t you using them?” I asked. At that moment, she shared with me about her second miscarriage. They, too, had planned to have a safari nursery. But in the loss of two babies, she had no desire to keep them. 

I took the prints home, framed them and hung them on the wall. Everytime I walked into that room, I was reminded of the children we both were longing for and V’s two babies now in heaven. They were four little portraits that always led me to prayer. And they became four little portraits that led us to our daughter. 

Standing in that small-town hospital room, her birth mom was so kind. She placed our daughter into my arms. She showed me how to hold her and how to burp her. Then, she began sharing about what stood out to her in our profile. She commented on some similarities we had such that we had the same favorite TV show. Though what had particularly separated our profile from the others was the picture we had included of our nursery. She had used the exact same baby animal portraits in the nursery of her eldest daughter. In her heart, she knew we were the ones.

Finding Resurrection in Adoption: Jesus Redeems Every Story

There is something strange about how God works all things together for the good of those who love Him. How is it that God can pluck a puzzle piece right out of my friend’s unimaginable loss and fit it into my daughter’s adoption story? How is it that He can wrap his hands around death and turn it into newness of life? I’m honored and also heartbroken that our adoption story is knitted from other’s stories of loss and pain, yet it is a very real reminder that we are resurrection people after all. I’m also reminded that God sets these details in our lives. He knew from the beginning of time that a tiny zebra, giraffe, elephant and lion would stitch together these stories. 

Yes, Jesus loves me! Maybe for you, you’ve come to understand God as your heavenly father who chose you, adored you, adopted you because of the way your earthly father loves you. Maybe this truth has been revealed to you because of another relationship with a spouse or friend who has actively pursued you. Maybe you haven’t experienced God in this way because your view of Him has been tainted by how someone has hurt you. My prayer is that each one of us would know and believe that yes, Jesus loves me deeply and he is involved in my story intimately.

How has God shown you He loves you? Are there details in your story where you can trace the hand of God? Or do you feel more like my friend who was once grieving two lost babies, struggling to trust the goodness of God? If your story seems too heavy and you can’t quite see the resurrection yet, ask Him to show you. He has already shown His love for you in that He laid down his life for you. Jesus took upon himself the punishment for your sin, restoring a way for you to know God intimately. What would it look like for you to trust God as your perfect Father who binds your wounds? There is purpose in your pain and it’s that God wants you to know how intimately He loves you. He wants to heal your broken heart to His glory. Will you receive that today?

Want to more encouraging stories about adoption?

Check out this interview on YouTube to hear Kenzie and her family’s adoption story!

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