Abundant life yields rescue and redemption. We receive freedom in our own rescue and then we receive joy in being used of God in the rescue of others. Our adopted children, Sally and Charlie, have had miraculously smooth transitions. And we are very thankful for that. But in some ways it took a while for them to understand that they are not orphans anymore. In some ways they still acted like orphans even after they had been adopted into our family.

Sally would hide food in the roof of her mouth for hours. We had to teach her that it was okay to let that last bite to go on down, there was more where that came from. We would not let her go hungry. She was no longer an orphan.

Charlie still has to be reassured that we are not leaving him. And when we do have to leave for a short amount of time, we have to assure him that we will be back soon. Whenever we walk back in the house, he comes running shouting, “You’re home!” as if it is a great surprise to him. Lately, though, he has started something new, which I believe shows progress. If he goes in the car with one of us, when he returns he runs in the house shouting, “I’m home!” He is learning that he is no longer an orphan.

Sometimes, even long after we are adopted into the family of God, we still act like orphans. We still are not confident that God will supply all of our needs. We still are worried that He will leave us stranded and forsake us. But what we need to know is the truth found in the Bible. God loves us as a Father loves his children.

Philippians 4:19– And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Deuteronomy 31:6– Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

My friends, are you still acting like orphans? If you are a Christian, you are no longer an orphan; you are a beloved child of the King of Kings. He adores you, He rejoices over you with singing, He will meet your every need out of His abundant riches. Indeed, He will give you abundant life. Trust Him today. I am praying for you!

Sara

A while back, I was following a blog of a woman who was in China picking up her adopted son.  Two days after the Gotcha Day, they traveled to the exact spot where her son was abandoned, on a busy street in front of a convenience store.  I started to cry when I pulled up the picture, because that is similar to my own children’s story.  Discarded, abandoned, left in a random, dangerous place as newborns unable to do anything about it.  But as I continued to read the blog, I noticed that she did not call this spot his “abandonment spot”, she called it his “finding spot”.

I wept long and hard when I read that.  Think about it, that place of being abandoned was really that place of being found.  And we were all orphans before being adopted into the family of God.  I once was lost, but now I am found!  In the same way, our lost spots are really found spots, our sad spots are our spots of comfort, our weak spots are really spots of His strength being revealed.  First Peter 2:9 tells us that we are adopted by God as heirs:  We did not receive a spirit of fear but of Sonship and by that we cry Abba Father—Daddy!  We are chosen not abandoned.  How fitting for there to be an adopted foreigner in the lineage of Jesus!

We, too, had the opportunity to go to our Charlie’s Finding Spot.  It was a very profound moment.  Along a busy highway there was a path of beautiful blooming flowers. I believe it was God’s good providence that his birth parents chose this beautiful spot to relinquish him. For God had a beautiful redemptive plan for this beautiful little boy. And the seeds of faith that are now growing in his heart will grow into a fruitful garden of faith. This I believe with all my heart.

I have written about this before and I am sure I will write about it again, but for now I will give you a picture.  It is a picture of redemption.  It is a picture of reclaiming hope when the world thought you had no hope.  It is a picture of love and calling and joy and answered prayers.  This is our Finding Spot.  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

Today, if you are feeling as if your life is filled with spots of trials, abandonments, and crippling heartache, hold fast to the hope and the truth that these are truly the spots where God finds you and rescues you. Praying for you today.

Sara

My next few posts will try to give further confirmation that abundant life yields rescue and redemption. The abundant life that our Good Shepherd offers us is one filled with redeeming our moments of sin and shame and heartache. You know those moments—the ones that transform our years in ways we would never have wanted or imagined. And yet He transforms those terrible moments into rescued, restored, and redeemed moments.

The best way I can describe this concept of the abundance of rescue and redemption is to give you small snapshots into the ways we have experienced it ourselves. I have been rescued–from sin, from fear, from status quo. This ongoing process is not always fun, but it always produces a great amount of awe in the One who loves me enough to redeem me.

And my family’s response to His act of rescue on our behalf is to ask Him how we could be used in His plan of rescue for others. Sometimes it is small—a kind word, an encouraging text message, a prayer. Sometimes it is bigger. No matter big or small, when we open ourselves to be used in the rescue of others, we are overwhelmingly and abundantly blessed ourselves.

As many of you know, we adopted two kids from China, both perfect in our sight, but both diagnosed with special needs. Both had meningocel, which is an issue with the spinal cord. Sally had her surgery two weeks after we got her, and she has no problems. Charlie had his surgery in China, we think right after he was born. He had problems.

We were told from the beginning that they did not think he would be able to walk. Three different times the adoption agency called us back to see if we “really” wanted him, as they did not believe he would walk. Wouldn’t we rather have a child who had a better chance of being less complicated and more healthy?

Well, as most parents would answer—of course I would rather have that. Remember what my stronghold had been in the past? Fear, especially concerning my children. But God had made it abundantly clear that he was our son.

I don’t know how to explain that which I didn’t really understand myself—why a family would choose to take on child with medical needs, not to mention inevitable unique emotional needs. I still can’t explain the process of accepting and choosing to take on such an unknown except to say that God had made Himself abundantly clear to us. He loves the orphan. He wants the orphans of the world in families. He is the perfect Father and His God-Father heart breaks when he sees children suffering alone. And the closer our hearts moved toward His heart, the more we needed to respond. We believed that God would give us grace and mercy for whatever He called us to do. We walked in that grace each and every day through the work and the waiting, and we would continue to do each day as we loved our adopted children, as well as our birth children, into being all that God had created them to be.

In the end, God showed up in a huge way. He turned our unbelief into belief, our fear into faith; and miraculously, through divine healing, He turned our crippled boy into a happy, joyful son who laughs, and runs, and plays, and hops, and jumps. We have the privilege of a front row seat to see our Charlie walking and leaping and praising God because Jesus Christ of Nazareth said, “Rise up and walk!”

As we were used in God’s rescue of these two amazing children, God rescued us from so much. Self-centeredness, unbelief, and self-reliance were just a few of the ways we have experienced on-going rescue since we started our adoption journeys.   Through these experiences we have found an added measure of abundant life. I am praying that your own life experiences will highlight God’s divine rescue and that you in turn will be willing to be used in the rescue of others.

Sara