When love takes you in

One week from right now I will be on a plane to China with the rest of my family. Well, all except for one. The one we will be missing is the one we're going to meet. My parents are adopting again, but this time the child is a little boy. His name is Micah, but he doesn't know it yet. In fact, he has a family, a home, and a whole room with toys that he knows nothing about yet. But all of that is about to change in a whirlwind next Sunday when we meet him for the first time. "Like the rain that falls into the sea, in a moment what has been is lost in what will be."

Reflecting on the trip and Micah's adoption always leads me to the Gospel. Micah did not choose the life that he was born into. Similarly, he did not choose the conditions in which he lives. My mom saw his picture on their adoption agency's website one day last February and knew that he was her son. In essence, my parents chose Micah. They have done all of the paperwork, crossed all the t's, dotted all of the i's, and paid for the entire event. We are going to the other side of the world to pick him up and bring him home. He will be given a new name and a new home. He will be a fellow heir of my parents alongside Sarah, Andy, Grace, and me. All of this is not to "toot our own horn," so to speak, but rather to illustrate very clearly the work that God did in Christ on our behalf. We had no choice in the matter. We were helpless, even enemies of God when He chose us and paid for us with the dearest possession that He had, Himself, His Son. He finished all the work and now I am a daughter of God, a fellow heir with Christ himself. I am humbled to even begin to understand these things.