Understanding YOUR adoption shapes your child’s understanding of THEIR adoption, part 3

 All Things New


    Last week we talked about where you came from and who you were before your adoption in Christ. It was not a pretty picture. Now let's look at who you are in your new adopted family. Please take some time to read these passages in the context they were written in.



1.  Because of adoption, you were given a new life

 Ezekiel 11: 19-20:  “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God”

Ephesians 2:  “And you WERE dead…BUT GOD…made us alive together in Christ…”

You were dead, but God made you alive.  He gave you a new life at great personal cost to himself. Because of Christ’s death and resurrection, you are no longer a child of the enemy.  You are now a child of God.  You are no longer enslaved to death.  You are now alive. When you hear the word “adoption” your first thought should be: life.

2.  
    2.  Because of adoption, you were given a new identity

Galatians 4: “…you WERE enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” but we were redeemed “…so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his son into our hearts crying, “Abba! Father! So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”

There are many other places in the NT that talk about how we are “no longer” slaves (Hebrews 2, Romans 6 & 8, Galatians 5) instead we are seen as sons and daughters of God! We were dirty, worthless, and had nothing to offer. We were not desirable.  Yet God adopted us and because of our adoption we now share in the inheritance of Christ! We are clothed in righteousness instead of sin.  We are beloved children instead of rebellious enemies. Our identity is now: Christ.  

3. 3. Because of adoption, you were given a new purpose

     
  Read 2 Corinthians 5: 16-21. The most quoted/known part of this passage is verse 17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation the old has passed away; behold the new has come.”  Take some time to read the context of this passage. We are told that because we are a new creation we are now given the ministry of reconciliation.  How beautiful! We are adopted into a family that has a purpose, a reason for existing. We were not just pardoned for our sin, but we were assigned the same purpose that God himself has for creation! We get to participate in his plan to redeem people to himself from every tribe, tongue, and nation.  This is only because of adoption. We could have been justified and sanctified without then being adopted by God, but because of adoption, we now share in Christ’s inheritance and purpose. Because we are sons and daughters of God we are duty bound to fulfill the ministry we have been called to.

How should our understanding of these truths influence the way we speak and think about us adopting children?

There are dozens of parallels, but a few stand out to me:

1.          You got a new name, so should they.  Despite what the world and psychologist may say, there is nothing wrong with it and name changing is a biblical concept.  You have a new name because you are now a new creation, so do not feel guilty about renaming your child.  There is something significant and meaningful about picking your child’s name. Since the beginning of time (Adam, Abraham,Isaac, Israel, etc) being assigned a name was important. You do not HAVE to give a new first name (We didn’t with Mya, but did with Marcel), but then at least assign a very meaningful middle name.  It is a powerful way to relate to your child since you both have new identities and new names, all because you were both adopted.  Marcel Vermon Pierre. Mya Hope Pierre. Judah Justice Pierre. I love to talk with Marcel and Mya (and someday Judah) about why we picked those names and how excited I am to also have a new name because of what Christ did for me!

2.       You should never fear that you are not equipped to help your child work through whatever comes up as a result of their past.  IF you understand who you were before Christ and who you are now that God has adopted you into his family THROUGH Christ, then EVERYTHING your child goes through you can personally relate to.  Every time Marcel speaks to me about his hurt or pain, his eyes light up when I share a story that mirrors his—only I speak of it through a spiritual lens. Your child was abused physically by a biological parent? You were abused spiritually by the devil. Your child was treated like dirt? You were a slave to dirt. Your child has uncommon fear?  You were owned by fear. Your child worries about being unlovable. You were unlovable. 
    My children have yet to share something with me that I could not relate to. Empathizing with their pain has been healing for my children and has knit us into a family. Our conversations always end with Marcel saying how thankful he is for having such a good God who loves him. 
 

3.         Too often I hear of women, unable to have children, desperate to be a mother, longing to begin the adoption process, yet their husbands refuse to adopt.  These men claim to be Christian, yet are unable to see a child they adopt as their own child.  Mother’s Day comes and goes each year and they allow their wives to remain barren, while God has given them a beautiful means to bear children through adoption. 
    Of course there is still great pain, loss, and heartache to work through when women cannot conceive, but that pain is different then the pain of being childless for life. That is a pain that is much deeper and greater. A pain no woman should have to go through for life against her will. It also does not compare to the pain of children being parentless. Also a pain that no child should have to face, but many do because too many Christians do not adopt.
    A husband who is struggling to joyfully pursue adoption when his wife desperately wants to be a mother should seek councel from a pastor and ask the Holy Spirit to open their eyes to this gospel truth. Their minds need to be transformed and renewed by God’s word in relation to this truth.

I am convinced that Christians do not adopt because they do not understand their adoption biblically.  And to not understand the theology of adoption is to miss the heart of the gospel.  I pray that our churches would be full of men and women who come before God full of awe and wonder that he would adopt them.  I pray that the theology of adoption would so captivate our hearts that we are undone before our Lord and can’t help but look for ways to adopt children or support families who are positioned to adopt. I hope our churches are one day full of families begging for the chance to adopt a child that is in need of a family. This would so beautifully reflect what has already happened in heaven.

Understanding YOUR adoption shapes your child’s understanding of THEIR adoption, part 2

Whose Your Daddy?

If you are a Christian, then you are adopted by God. Have you ever stopped to think about who your biological father is?

The Devil. Yes, the devil is your birth father. An evil, abusive father whom you were enslaved to.

Check out these verses and look how Scripture talks about the unbeliever:

Acts 14:4-12

1 John 3:1-10

Hebrews 2:14-18

My point here is NOT to compare bio family to Satan. My point is that it is important for YOU to understand who your biological family was. You were born a slave to sin. Your thoughts, actions, and words were full of deceit, selfishness, lust, greed, and pride. When God looked at you, all he saw was a man or woman in total rebellion to him, partnering with Satan gearing up to plot an attack against himself and everything that is good, righteous, and holy.

1 Corinthians 6:11 lists a long list of terrible, wicked things and then says to the believers in the church, “and so were some of you!”

The moment you water down who you were before Christ, if you forget how wicked and unholy you really were, then the gospel begins to slip through your fingers. It is only in understanding how wicked you really were, how deserving of death and destruction you were, that you can begin to worship and praise God for his great grace in your life. If you truly believe that you deserved God’s wrath and judgment for your sin and that there was NOTHING you could do to earn his favor, NOTHING you could do to make yourself right in his eyes, then you can really accept that it is ONLY through Christ the God becoming man, suffering the punishment of our sins, that you are now a child of God.

You are not just forgiven. You are not just pardoned. That would have been gracious of God to stop there. But he didn’t. He then adopted you and made you his child. He became your father, your “Abba.” (Hebrew word for daddy)

SO, how does this relate to how we think and speak of adoption?

IF you understand your adoption by God and who your biological family was, then these words should not come out of your mouth (all of which I have heard too many times from Christian families):

“I have considered adoption, but what if the gene to be abusive/drug addicted/ alcohol addicted is in the baby I adopt? That would be too hard for me.”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t love a child that wasn’t [biologically] mine or a child that doesn’t look like me.”

“My child has all these attachment issues and it isn’t my fault…” (then the person usually goes on to explain all the issues that happened in the first few years of their life) side note: I have never met a child with special needs whose biological parent takes the time to explain biologically why their child has down syndrome, ADHD, and sensory problems.

“God just didn’t give me a heart for adoption.”

“We have no choice but to ship off our teen [who was adopted at birth] to some camp a few states away because they are causing too many problems, but it isn’t how we parented them—its because of their birth family’s issues…” another side note: I know several families who have had to send their biological children to similar places they sometimes take responsibility for what they did or simply say, “I have no idea why they ended up this way” they don’t blame it on something from their past.

“My child is disobedient, disrespectful, etc, because they were adopted. We’re just going to love them through it.”

Let’s pretend for a minute that God spoke the same way about us. Here is what he would say (fill your name in blank):

“_________is disobedient, disrespectful, etc, because they used to be a son of the devil. It’s ok though, I understand and will just ignore it and love him through it.”

Please understand that I am not trying to minimize some issues that your child may have as a result of abuse or trauma. I know it is real. When I was a social worker, I worked with hundreds of children who had very real struggles because of evil things that were done to them. A parent watching their child suffer over past hurts and wounds has real, deep pain. I weep over it as many adoptive parents do.

What I am trying to do is encourage us to stop speaking so negatively about children who are adopted as permanently wounded soldiers and to encourage you to reject false assumptions that a child you adopt will never be the same as a child you birth.

It is not true for us and our biological father was more evil and abusive then anything we could imagine. We were brainwashed, enslaved to the price of darkness…

BUT GOD…

Meditate on Ephesians 2:

"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Understanding YOUR adoption shapes your child’s understanding of THEIR adoption, part 1

Vermon and I are often asked how it is that our children were able to attach so quickly to our family. People also comment on how “lucky” we are that our children do not have any attachment disorders.

It would be dishonest to say that the relationship we have with Marcel and Mya now is the same that it was a year and a half ago. It did take time to attach and there were difficult moments, tears shed, and much prayer; however, all in all, our path of becoming a close family unit has been smooth, full of blessing, and fun.

I do not dismiss the fact that there are children who have attachment disorders, RAD, and issues related to drug exposure that may make the attachment process take longer. I also do not claim to be an expert on parenting or that we have done everything right. I am brought to tears as I think and praise the Lord for his GREAT grace in knitting our family together in the way that he has in such a short period of time. However, I do believe that the single best advice I can give to ANY parent who wants to know how to attach with their child whom they have adopted is to FIRST and FOREMOST understand YOUR adoption. If you do not understand YOUR ADOPTION by God through Christ Jesus then

do not adopt.

Yes, I said it. Do not adopt children unless you have first and foremost begun to think, meditate, study God’s word, and pray about the theology of YOUR ADOPTION by God. Many of the horror stories that the media portrays about adoption (or your friends tell you) come from the adoptive families not fully understanding God’s adoption of his people.

Over the next few posts I would like to explore different aspects of OUR ADOPTION by God and look at how the theology of adoption should then shape our thoughts about our family, our family values, and how we think and speak about our children.

4 things that happened in the courtroom that gave me chills

1. The judge explaining that the children were no longer wards of the state, but now belonged to us. I was reminded that I was once a ward of this world and a slave to sin, but now I belong to Christ. (Gal. 3:29)

2. The judge explained that the children’s names would no longer be _____ and ____, but were now Mya Hope Pierre and Marcel Vermon Pierre. I was reminded that when I became God's child all the old things passed away and I was made new! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

3. Having a room full of family to celebrate the adoption! It reminded me that upon becoming part of God’s family I was welcomed by countless brothers and sisters from every tribe, tongue, and language who will spend eternity as my brothers and sisters worshiping God forever. (Revelation 7:9-12)

4. The relief that for the rest of my life, I will be Marcel and Mya’s mommy. Nothing can change that. I will never relinquish my legal right as their mother. And I will never relinquish my love for them. This made me think that there is nothing that can separate me from God’s great love and that I can have great hope in knowing I am his child. (Romans 8:38-39)

my adoption story

Do I feel the same toward Judah as I do toward Marcel and Mya?

Let’s see…

I horribly offended God by disregarding his truth and word.

I committed great offenses by trying to follow my way instead of God’s.

God isn’t only the judge—that could rightly punish me and pour out his anger and wrath on me. He is the offended, the victim of this great and vast sin.

God, the judge (and simultaneously the victim) came down off the bench after pardoning my horrible offense that ignited his wrath and instead chose to adopt me—at the expense of his very own “biological” (so to speak) son—Jesus the Christ.

God’s anger and wrath was poured out on Christ as he hung on the cross and I get to enjoy the full blessing of being a daughter of God almighty and a co-heir with Christ.

God did not adopt me because I was a “good” person. He did not adopt me because I’m better then the really evil people in the world. He did not adopt me because I chose the right religion. He adopted me simply because he is God and loved me. All he required of me was faith and faith alone—belief and trust in his son, Jesus.

This is why I believe in adoption. Because I am an eternally adopted child of the creator of the universe.

This is why I can say with full honesty and passion that I am deeply attached to, love, would die for, loose sleep over, pray over, weep over the sin of, and care for all my children equally and the same. How I long for their souls to know my Jesus. How I long for them to experience this same adoption I experienced. How privileged I am to be the mother of Marcel, Mya, and Judah.

Orphan Sunday this week at Roosevelt!

November 8th is Orphan Sunday and I am VERY excited about some things that will be happening at Roosevelt this weekend!

1) We will be having a ministry spotlight talking about foster parenting/adoption with resources available for families who would like to further consider/pray about becoming foster or adoptive parents.

2) Vocab & Nicole will be teaching a RU class called, "A Biblical View on Adoption" after service (lunch will be provided). You don't want to miss it!

3) We will be launching a new Roosevelt book study. We have 6 copies of "Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches" by Russel Moore. I will be commenting/ opening up for discussing a chapter each week on my blog. I hope to have at least 6 people join me on Sunday in reading/discussing this book. (If you don't attend Roosevelt and would like to join the study, order the book now--we will be starting next week.)

**even if you think you will never foster or adopt, this book is well worth reading. 1) to support our families in the church who do and 2) to have a deeper appreciation of God's adoption of you!

Family Like No Other Family

It has been almost a month since Niko and Mya have moved in with us full time. It has been such a wonderful, blessed time. I knew that fostering/adopting would be full of joy, but I had no idea just how much fun it would be and just how much the Lord would grow my heart to love overnight.

Since January when we started down this road of becoming parents, it has been filled with one blessing after another. The greatest blessing from God has been our church family and I just want to brag a little bit about them...

In order to have Niko and Mya live with us, we needed a 3 bedroom home. We had put an offer on a home/gone under contract with a bank the same week that we decided to move forward with having Niko and Mya move in with us. We were supposed to close at the end of February and have the kids move in sometime in March, but needless to say, nothing ever goes as planned.

Buying a foreclosed home turned out to be a nightmare. As of March, we found out it could be June until we moved into this home. By this point, Niko and Mya had been spending every weekend with us and we were already committed to being their "mommy and daddy." It was such a trial and so frustrating to try to figure out why this was happening and how we could get them to live with us as quick as possible.

As we asked those around us to pray, a couple in our church offered to switch houses with us. They had a 3 bedroom home just down the street. Within two weeks of joking about it, we were packed and ready to move. These were brothers and sisters in Christ we had just met and here they were just giving us their home. They packed up everything they owned in two weeks and swapped houses.

We moved four days before we had the kids move in with us full time. So many people showed up from church to help us move that both of our homes were completely moved in under two hours. After that, about ten women stayed and helped me unpack and put everything in the entire house away. By the time the weekend was over, we were moved in and ready for the licensing company to inspect our new home Monday morning.

It was a whirlwind and one of the most amazing things I have been a part of. To be on the receiving end of such a beautiful example of Christ-centered community moved me beyond words. I was able to go to work and tell all my co-workers about this great act of love.

Another sister from church gave me her car for nine months. Vermon and I had been happily sharing one car, but she was given a company car to drive back and forth to work in and wasn't using hers during the week. Instead of just letting it sit in her garage all week like most people would have (probably even me before all this), she gave it to me to use (and she kept paying her own insurance).

Other church family have instantly adopted Niko and Mya into their own families...seeing no distinction between their "biological" nieces and nephews and Niko and Mya. Others showed up our first three weeks to give us meals. Someone else arranged for firefighters to drop off bikes at our house for the kids. Others helped so much this first month as I have tried to finish out my work commitment/ late schedule with watching Niko and Mya, housekeeping, helping Vermon with some of his church commitments, and the list could go on and on…almost all of this happened without Vermon or I asking or suggesting this.

It has been a great illustration in our children’s lives as we talk with them about how nothing we have belongs to us, but it all belongs to God. We then talk about the many, many friends we have who have shown this to us. We talk about what it means to live life as though we had nothing, yet we have been richly blessed with everything. We tell them that we have more riches then we could ever hope for or imagine and all of this belongs to God and his purposes.

Recently, we were at the park and a homeless man approached us for money, I offered him one of our sandwiches instead and after he left Niko eagerly said, “but mommy…our money belongs to God, not you…shouldn’t you give him some, like Faith and Ryan gave us their house?”