The Original Adoption Story

Matthew 1 used to be the chapter I would skip when I read about the birth of Jesus. So and so begat so and so, blah, blah, blah... boooring... Then we adopted Joshua and Caleb, and Matthew 1 became incredibly significant.

Christmas day is right around the corner, the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the day he was born to Mary and Joseph.  Even though Joseph was not the biological father he chose to be his father, so essentially he adopted Jesus.  But wait... such a big deal is made about the line of Jesus...through Joseph.  The lineage of Jesus is incredibly important as it traces him back to his kingly heritage passed down through David.  It establishes his right to the throne, but Matthew 1 shows his right to that throne handed to him partially through adoption.  

Fast forward 2012 years to the day...  We left the girls at my parents and drove to DC hitting black ice and stand still traffic on the way.  We were filled with panic that we were going to miss our flight, the flight that would change our lives forever.  Our journey was slightly different than Mary and Joseph’s, but we did encounter smelly farm animals along the way.  So it was DC to Addis Ababa to the hotel to the coffee shop to Engida to pick up Caleb then to Janes House to pick up Joshua, back to the hotel, back to the airport to catch the flight to DC, drive back to Cherry Hill to meet sisters, and finally fly into Grand Rapids, Michigan...  A massive whirlwind and tons of unknowns.  We didn’t know very much about our new sons, and they knew nothing of their new parents and siblings, including each other. 

Our first priority when we got home was attachment.  It was crucial.  It had to be our first focus with the boys.  They would need to learn to trust.  They would have to know that we are their primary caregivers, the ones who would provide for their needs, the ones who would comfort them when they got hurt or sick, their protectors from harm, and often times they wouldn’t understand why, but they would have to learn to trust when we said “no” or would take away something that it’s all in love and protection.  Galations 4:5 “God sent him… so that he could adopt us as his very own children.”  God the Father, our adopted father, is wanting for us to trust him as our Father, but we have attachment disorders.  For the same reasons many adopted children struggle to attach, so do we struggle to attach.  We’ve been hurt.  We are scared of the unknown.  We have trusted others before and been let down.  But He is holy, he is perfect, it’s not possible for him to leave us.  He promises.  Hebrews 13:5b “I will never fail you.  I will never abandon you”

On the flip side He knows what it is to be the adopted son.  His earthly father loved him in spite of the controversy surrounding his arrival.  God, the father, called on Joseph, the earthly father, to be the conduit for Jesus to his rightly throne as king, as Messiah.  Being adopted made Jesus no less of a son than his brothers who were biological.  God did not have to make it that way, but he chose to.  He chose adoption to be the means of connecting Jesus to the line of David.

One of the most heart wrenching moments in Ethiopia was meeting and leaving Joshua’s birth mom and the nannies that took care of the boys.  What a sacrifice of love they made that we may never fully comprehend.  1 John 4:9,10 “God showed us how much he loved us by sending his one and only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.  This is real love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”  My son’s Ethiopian moms showed courage in their sacrifice.  God knows.  And because of His son, Jesus, we now have Emmanuel.  God is with us.  He is with my boy’s Ethiopian families. He is with my boys and our family.  He was with them before we knew them.

I can’t wait to one day explain this to our sons.  They belong in this family, and God loves adoption.