Adoption

Although my father and my mother have forsaken me, yet the Lord will take me up [adopt me as His child]. Psalm 27:10

I rocked back and forth in the corner , the room swimming in front of me. I retreated into my own world as I rythmically hit my head on the wall over and over again. I could feel HIM, looming, towering over me.

“Bud brought you and Anne batons,” my mother said, waking me from my self-imposed stupor.

A long silvery shiny object danced before my eyes. I reached out tenatively and took the slender thing. Cold crinkly metal with white rubber knobs on the ends. I stared at it, unsure of what to do with it. Anne marched triumphantly around the room twirling hers, knees almost touching her chin.

The family gathered outside on the sidewalk in front of our house to watch the coming parade. I didn’t know the occasion, whether it marked a holiday or homecoming. No one told me. Bright colored uniforms swirled in dizzy circles in front of me while the horns blared. I sat down on the curb and looked up to Anne marching beside the band, twirling her baton like she belonged there. I wanted to go back inside.

My parents had divorced and Bud had entered my world, although I didn’t want him, I was too full of rejection and hurt, he was there. He married my mother. Bud became for me a healing salve on my wounds. He consistency calmed my fears, his discipline showed me boundaries and gave me love. Because of him, I came to accept Jesus Christ as my Saviour, If Bud could love me, wretched skinny freckle faced kid, then maybe I thought, I was worth something.

I was a hurt child bruised by rejection, wounded by abandonment, fearful of everything. Yet- GOD, he heals the broken hearted, sets the captives free.(Isaiah 61) His name is a strong and mighty tower. Even if my mother and father reject me, abandon me, He has adopted me as His own, with all the same rights and benefits of His son-Jesus, the name above all names, the Jesus who conquered death, hell and the grave and sits at the right hand of the Father in the heavenlies. I am seated in the heavenlies with him. (Ephesians 2:6)

And yet, that is not the end of my story. He rescued me from the pit and set my feet upon the rock (Psalm 40) so I could tell of his glory and thus help others by comforting them with the same comfort. He has given me the Spirit of Adoption by which I cry “ABBA, FATHER”.