National Adoption Month
“Is it really November already?” I uttered those words just last week as a radio DJ was talking about the different national awareness’s taking place this month. However one awareness really stuck out above all the rest, November is national adoption month.I decided to go to Google and ask how many children are adopted every year. I was surprised to see that the number was only 120,000 (aacap.org). Maybe I had high expectations going in, but I was shocked none the less.Shortly thereafter the song “Good, Good Father” came on the radio (see this post for a great write up on this song). I absolutely love this song because it is gets right to the core of who God is. As I was listening to the song I was reminded that November is national adaptation month. It was God’s way of reminded me that all of us on earth have been adopted into his family.Then, a bible verse I hadn’t thought of since my Sunday school days came to the forefront of my mind;
Ephesians 5:1-2 - Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that. (MSG)
How many of you have a parent(s)/guardian that you look up to? I do, and the more I think about it the more I realize how blessed I am to have that. I look back to when I was a child and how I would mimic a lot of what my mom and dad would do because I looked up to them and loved them.How much truer should that be with our heavenly Father? He is the alpha and omega, but yet he specifically chose you to be adopted into his family. He is the ultimate role model to live our lives by. He loved us when no one else would. He walked through the darkness with us when no one else was around. He forgave us when we didn’t deserve it.We find all these qualities and examples in his 66 love letters he left us. He paid a dear, dear price to give us those love letters so we could be adopted into his family. And he didn’t pay that price to get anything in return, he simply loves you that much!Now, let’s do like our Heavenly Father and love our big adopted family with an Extravagant love!