Life is messy. I think that’s a pretty solid blanket statement. Biological kids are messy, adoptive kids are messy, marriage is messy, divorce is messy…work, school, dare I say politics? All messy.
Every year, we celebrate a day that gives hope to some of the messes. It’s the day we call POP day, or Positively Our Phoebe day 💖
If you don’t know much about Christianity or the Bible you might have been misled to think one or both are about “rules.” I hear this a lot, and I wouldn’t ever say it’s a book or a faith about rules, but it’s more about redemption, and redeeming the messes in our lives. The Bible is a wonderful book with real people who lived real lives that were messy, just like today. They had messy marriages, sibling rivalries; there was murder, drunkenness, sickness, death, mocking, bullying, adultery, and more. And all throughout the entire book, every story and every life is specifically written about to point to one word: adoption.
Did you know the term Adoption is used in the Bible to describe our relationship with God? It is! We, believers, are adopted into His family. Ephesians 1:5 says:
“God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. This is what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great pleasure.”
The more time that passes since the day a judge banged his gavel to signify Phoebe was positively ours, the significance of what our Heavenly Father does for each of us, grows as well. He calls us His own. We all mess up, and yet when we ask Him for forgiveness, He simply tells us it’s okay. He forgives us, and loves us, and makes us His own.
The earthly example we are fortunate to live is amazing. What some might view as a mess, we view as redemptive. We know as parents the love we have for our children; it’s enough for us to die for them. We walk on the side by the cars to protect them. We would step in front of a dog, a moving object; anything, to protect them. We have never had one emotion or deep sense of love for our biological children that we didn’t have for our adopted one. The love is deep. It is the same. I’ve written about this before; she is ours, and the love runs true, and what excites me most about this fact is that if we, mere humans, can have this love for our children, how much more so does our Heavenly Father love each one of us? His love is so deep and so wide, He redeemed our messes. His son, Jesus stood on the side with the cars and got hit. He placed His son there to protect us, to stand in our place. He loves that much, that He would die for us as His adopted children.
The gift of adoption in our family is never lost. It is a gift to each of us. We are thankful that God never stops loving us; He always forgives (although we live with consequences 😉). He is there with open arms, welcoming each of us into His family. The gift of adoption should never be about saving someone; it’s about someone else saving us.
oldmommadenew 