Settling In {Adoption}
I am off to the Gladney Luncheon this morning to celebrate adoption with some of the sweetest ladies I know. {Thank you, John and Alison!} Adoption has many faces and thirteen years ago, it filled mine and Jeff’s life with the happiest grin we’d ever known. And twenty one months later, we saw that same big grin again. Our family IS because of adoption- because of the selfless decisions made by two young women. Words are absent from this world that express my gratefulness for and admiration of each of them. Julia and Brighton’s first heartbeat was in their wombs, but God has given me the gift and privilege to care for and nurture their tender hearts for as many days as He’s planned for me. There are some days that they speak the hard words— saying they wish they had grown in my womb, been birthed from me, their mom. And some days, I find them speaking bravely about adoption, expressing their gratefulness and being as comfortable with it as they are when settled in on the couch listening to Jeff read. Those conversations are sacred, almost, and a part of their growing up story. I am counting on some of our most difficult exchanges being ahead of us— and that’s okay. I feel we’ve had some good warm ups. No matter what all that looks like or how well or poorly we participate in those conversations and however they choose to feel about how God made us a family, it won’t change the fact that they are valued and loved as part of the Sanders family. Nothing they say or do can or will ever change that. They are stuck with us. They are Sanders.
Maybe it has but I never remember this yearly luncheon coinciding with Easter week, but I woke up thinking about that today. I awakened thinking about the strong language used in the Bible when our relationship to the Father is described. Adoption. One of my favorite passages is from Ephesians. Paul wrote:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. {Ephesians 1:3-6}
“IN LOVE, He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ.” As fiercely as I feel about my kids, NOTHING can compare when it comes to the Father’s love for us. What we are anticipating this Easter week, THE event of all time, and as my kids sang all summer from T-Bar M Camp- THE game changer— His willing death on a cruel cross and the EMPTY TOMB Sunday morning is EVERYTHING. Jesus made it possible for me to be a daughter of the Father. And it was His PLEASURE and WILL. He delights in me.
May YOU feel delighted in by the Father this Easter. The expression of His love towards us trumps all. You are valued and loved as part of His family. Nothing you say or do can or will ever change that. Settle down into that. You are His.
Maybe it has but I never remember this yearly luncheon coinciding with Easter week, but I woke up thinking about that today. I awakened thinking about the strong language used in the Bible when our relationship to the Father is described. Adoption. One of my favorite passages is from Ephesians. Paul wrote:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. {Ephesians 1:3-6}
“IN LOVE, He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ.” As fiercely as I feel about my kids, NOTHING can compare when it comes to the Father’s love for us. What we are anticipating this Easter week, THE event of all time, and as my kids sang all summer from T-Bar M Camp- THE game changer— His willing death on a cruel cross and the EMPTY TOMB Sunday morning is EVERYTHING. Jesus made it possible for me to be a daughter of the Father. And it was His PLEASURE and WILL. He delights in me.
May YOU feel delighted in by the Father this Easter. The expression of His love towards us trumps all. You are valued and loved as part of His family. Nothing you say or do can or will ever change that. Settle down into that. You are His.
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