Our adoption story, part one

She was very small with hair as fine and wispy as air itself. She held her shoes very tightly, clinging on for dear life to the only possessions she had! And they looked new, as though they had never been worn. Her distress was obvious - clinging like a little limpet to the man, we had to peel her away from him, but this was a good sign - she had been attached to someone, and would bond again, God willing.

"The long red thread" that had wound its way from Southern China to our home in West Yorkshire, had been diminishing in length as the months past. As the imminence of our meeting approached, the future of this little girl and her connection to our family pulled us closer, until now, in that place, in Nanning, Guangxi province, our lives became entwined. It was as though, the old Chinese proverb that says a red thread connects those that are destined to be together, was being realised!

We adopted Phoebe over 20 years ago now, and it has been one of the most wonderful things we have ever done. She is a joy and a delight, and God has shown me many things that I perhaps could not have understood, had we not lived through our adoption story. I did not know it was possible to fiercely love another's child. I did not know it was possible to care so deeply and so totally about someone from another race and culture. I did not know that I would make sacrifices for this one as I had done for the three children born of my own flesh and blood. I did not know that my heart would sometimes break and that I would weep over her loss of culture, identity, family.

The Bible says that

'God...chose us before the foundation of the world and...in love He predestined us for adoption as sons and daughters'. Ephesians 1:4.

I see now that there truly is a "thread" of divine connection, sometimes tenuous and worn thin, sometimes strong and robust, that winds itself around the earth, criss crossing cultures and traditions, belief systems and values, connecting every heart upon this planet to the heart of God, who calls Himself our Father. His choice of words, not ours.

Throughout the Bible, right through, from the Old Testament to the end of the New, God, the Creator of the Universe, calls Himself Father, and longs that we should call Him that, too. Of all the relationships known to man - boss/employee, slave/master, doctor/patient, student/teacher, He chooses to identify Himself as Father and us, as His children. He says that:

'But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God' (John 1:12).

So, until the day that we put our trust in Jesus as our Saviour and friend we, too, were orphans, spiritual orphans disconnected from our Creator and Heavenly Father. But now, He calls us His children, and His desire is, that, like four year olds, who are totally dependent on their parents, we might live in dependence on Him.

In Mark's gospel, chapter 10, Jesus says, 'Unless you become like a child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.'

Phoebe spent almost the first two years of her life in the orphanage - she knew nothing about us. She did not know that, before her birth, we had started our journey, that we had begun making our way towards her. She did nothing to make that happen. Her adoption was not her reward for good behaviour. Phoebe did not know about the red thread - she had no idea that she was being pursued. It did not cross her mind that she had been chosen - that a plan for her life was unfolding - a plan to give her a hope and a future. She just did what babies do. She wasn't even waiting - she was just being.

I have come to see that it is no different for each one of us. Abba Father knew us and saw us before the foundation of the world - down all the years and across the span of time, He is calling us - for you see, we think it is we who find Him, but oh no...we discover that it is He who finds us. There it is - the "thread" that connects us to our Creator, to the one who knows us and who sees us - who has always known and seen us - our destiny is to be adopted into the Father as children - we cannot be complete until we find our home in Him - to live as sons and daughters under the protection and provision of the best Father that there ever was.