There are fears that come along with thinking of foster
parenting and adoption. There is always
the concern of getting attached to a child, and then they end up going back to
their parents. Maybe they go back to a
really bad situation. I’ve told myself
that if I were going to do foster care it would have to be with the mentality
of loving that child while they were in my life and knowing that at least they
would be safe while with me. If I were
going to adopt I would have to get over my own selfish feelings of “what if
they want to go back to their real parents when I’m the one showing them real
love.” I know it would lead to heartbreak
in some cases, but I don’t think it would stop me from doing it or loving them.
I’ve recently been thinking on this concept while comparing
it to being an adopted child of God.
Sometimes I feel like a lost child with life circumstances that can be
hard to see through. The reality is,
that as an adopted child of God, I don’t have to worry about any of those
situations as I have God’s grace through Jesus.
My life concerns fail in comparison to what He has already eternally done
for me by adopting me and bringing me into His family.
The reality is that I am not the best adopted child to
have. With as much as God has loved me
and adopted me I still turn from Him sometimes.
If my fear in adoption is that a child would turn away from me and want
to go back to real parents, then as an adopted child of God, I am the child in
my own worst fear. I turn from Him by sabotaging
myself in subtle ways or falling prey to not believing Him when he tells me how
amazing and loved I am. I do to Him
exactly what I fear a child would do to me someday. I would rather go back to my “real parent sin
nature” and follow my desires that I think will lead to happiness, rather than
just be loved by Him. My sin nature
tries to call me home and I get tempted to ignore the love of my adopted Father
that I know and have experienced.
I was encouraged recently by a friend to revisit Ephesians 1
and some of the many spiritual blessings that we have as children of God.
3Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4even
as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be
holy and blameless before him. In love 5he
predestined us for adoption to himself
as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6to
the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7In
him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses,
according to the riches of his grace, 8which
he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9making
known to us the mystery of his will, according
to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10as
a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven
and things on earth.
11In
him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the
purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12so
that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his
glory. 13In him you also, when you heard the word of
truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the
promised Holy Spirit, 14who is the guarantee of our inheritance
until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
The amount of love and blessings God has for me is
astonishing. To be able to have me as an
adopted child, who continually must turn back to Him because of my wandering
heart, speaks so highly of His love for me.
I am so grateful that His love for me is better. I am so glad that no
matter what, I know where He stands and how He cares for me.
I recently listened to a sermon from a friend where he referenced
the above passage in Ephesians and said, “We worship a God who loved us before the
beginning of the world, gave us an inheritance, and when we screwed it up, He
buys us back again.”
The freedom from being loved immensely always draws
me back to Him. It always brings me back
to a place where I can put aside my own selfish pursuits and just be loved,
have fruitful relationships and love others from a genuine place because of Him
and the knowledge that He loved me enough to adopt me.
I pray that if I ever do foster care or adopt a child it is without fears of how they would or would not love me, but is from a place of how much love I would have to give them.
