Adopted – a past tense verb

Which of your children are adopted?

None of my children ARE adopted. Some of them were adopted. Now they are my children. Once an adoption is completed children are part of the family. All of them have received the Spirit of Adoption by which they cry ‘Abba! Father!’

On Adoption Day, we gathered in the family room and watched the ‘Poland video’. It is shakily filmed amateurish footage of our five week stay in Poland. There is a visible transformation between the bits of static separating each episode. Shy prospective Guires offer tentative grins on day one. A few weeks in, Gregory sits on Ta Ta’s (Daddy’s) lap and listens to Peter Pan being read and begs Amerey to share her yogurt. Ania calls me mama for the first time. By the end of the film, giggling Guires and prospective Guires play games together, calling out for Mama and Ta Ta’s attention, refusing to be ignored. Abba. Father.

Adoption is not a social rescue tool that we humans thought up in the past few centuries, adding in red tape and social workers for good measure. There is nothing humanistic about the practice no matter who tries to conform it to fit that agenda. It is not a platform for gays, single mothers, pro-life, race or cultural pedestals.

Adoption was God’s idea before the foundation of the world.

4Even as [in His love] He chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love.
5For He foreordained us (destined us, planned in love for us) to be adopted (revealed) as His own children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the purpose of His will [[a]because it pleased Him and was His kind intent]– Ephesians 1:4,5

Before I was born, before the world was formed. I was chosen. I was predestined. I was loved. God snatched me from my orphan state and placed me in His family because of His kind intent.