I have had a soft spot for adoption for a few years now. In the winter of 2012 I was asked to help lead worship at a high school retreat. The theme of the retreat was "Adopted." We read through Romans 8 that weekend. Though none of us were actually adopted by our parents, we learned about how God specifically picked us up out of our personal filthy orphanages of sin. In that moment, He called us His son; His daughter. After years of searching, we found our "Abba," our Daddy (Romans 8:15). We had absolutely nothing to offer him as orphans. Our clothes were tattered, our spirits were shattered, our strength was gone. It was in our most vulnerable of moments that He said, "I want him; I want her."
I find it incredible that God takes those most vulnerable moments - when we are lost, broken, desperate, and completely incapable of doing anything good for ourselves - and He makes them beautiful.
When we were in CAR I got to witness and videotape the moment when Matthew and Tina Farrell told three orphaned boys that they were going to be adopted. As the boys took in this news that they were going to have a family, we could all tell that they were overwhelmed. They had done nothing to deserve this gift. They had been scared and desperate and broken for their whole lives.
So it is with us. We may not feel like we deserve this gift that is being given to us. Yet God is looking at us now and is calling us to be His. I pray that all the orphans of the world may one day know that they never have to lose hope. They are held by the Creator of the universe.
So here is a letter to the orphan:
To the one who wanders the streets in desperation, to the one who searches but never finds, to the fatherless, to the motherless, to the helpless, to the hopeless: YOU ARE NOT ALONE. You are seen. You are known. You are loved. You are worth dying for.
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