CHOSEN: HOME FOREVER

April 21, 1964. Nothing special about that date except … it’s the day I was born. I started life in an unwed mothers’ “home” and went to a foster “home” for three weeks.

And then Mom and Dad took me HOME. They laid claim to me the first time they saw me, and the rest of my life began. I could end right here, actually, because HOME is where I belonged, with them, and they CHOSE me.

But hang on! Recently Mom told me that they started the adoption process in 1963 – before I was born … before I was even conceived.

ONLY GOD could have orchestrated the beautiful story that is my life. And not just starting in April of 1964, or even ‘63, but from the beginning of time.

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance…”

(Psalm 139:13-16a)

I sat down with my folks a couple weeks ago and it was so fun to hear these stories about my early days, many that I had never heard before.

On Mother’s Day, May 10, 1964, we went to the adoption agency to hear about you. We didn’t get to see you then, and we had to stay overnight in a motel. We were too excited to sleep, so we went to the movies. We saw It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World on a five-screen wrap around.

We went back to the agency at 9:00 the next morning. We got to see you, hold you, change many diapers, sign lots of papers, and then, finally! We got to bring you home that afternoon. You rode in a yellow laundry basket on the floor in the back seat of our car.

(The details of these memories are so wonderful to me!)

I love this next picture so much – I was about 4 months old.

(Their FACES!)

Fast forward to spring of 1965. I don’t remember the date, just the day.  You wore a little dress, and walked into the courthouse holding Daddy’s hand. We had to wait a full year before the adoption could be finalized.  But you became our daughter on May 11, 1964! 

From the courthouse, we walked across the street to the library and you got your first library card.

(And thus began my lifelong love affair with books.)

When we applied to adopt you 12 months earlier, we bought a dryer so we could wash and dry diapers. When dad and [his brother] Uncle Bob hooked up the dryer, there was a mishap and we were burned. I was sure they wouldn’t give us a baby since we were so careless!

(Not only were they praying for me, they were also preparing for me.)

And in spite of me, they adopted my two brothers. Why in spite of me? Because of this beauty.

You got that black eye as you fell down the steps to the basement. As I carried you back up, the doorbell rang and it was the social worker checking in on us before they would give their approval to receive [my little brother]. Little did she know how many more of those emergencies we would live through!

Also I guess I told said social worker at an earlier visit, “My mom beats me all day and all day and all day!” My poor mother … she cried.

HOW IN THE WORLD did they get another baby? No thanks to me, that’s for sure!

Mom also read me some notes she wrote to me over the years, which I didn’t know existed. They are beautiful and so full of love and joy – I shed more than a few tears over her words.

—–

Yes. I was born to a single woman who did not have the capacity to care for a baby at that point in her life. Yes, I was labeled a “mistake” (and worse) by a whole lot of people in a bunch of places over these many years … but never by Mom and Dad. And never by God. There are no mistakes in God’s economy, and Mom and Dad NEVER EVER made me feel like one.

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
(Romans 8:28)

So guess what all this leads to for me? A very easy leap to understanding my adoption by God, to becoming His child.

“In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.
(Ephesians 1:5-7)

Wait. Aren’t we all God’s children?

I’ll go gently here, but the answer is no. We are all created by God, and He loves each one of us completely. He wants us to come to Him, He wants to be our Father … and the only way that happens is by coming to Him through Jesus. We can’t make the mistake or fall for the lie that we are automatically God’s children just because we exist.

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
(John 1:12-13)

Read it again.

Our “job” is so simple – we receive Jesus and believe in His name. In exchange? We get LIFE. We become His child right then and forevermore, and we get an inheritance that is permanent and incorruptible.

“In 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, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In 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, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”
(Ephesians 1:11-14)

On April 21, 2000, I was adopted again. I surrendered my life to Jesus, once and for all, and nothing – NOTHING – can ever undo that.

So what’s special about April 21^st? Me, that’s what. I was chosen before time began for Mom and Dad, and to go home with them forever soon after. On that same date 36 years later, my forever and ever home in heaven was secured when Jesus rescued me.

Isn’t that the essence of adoption, being CHOSEN? And when we really get the truth of this, when we truly believe that God chose us, then the picture of adoption is a beautiful one indeed.

Love,

Angie