Have you ever experienced being adopted? I grew up with the “parents” who bore me. The fact that they chose to abuse me caused a lot of pain and anguish in my life. I imagine there are many times children have been adopted only to find themselves also being abused. Maybe their parent(s) didn’t want them, or maybe they just couldn’t take proper care of a child and chose to adopt them out, hoping to give them a better life.
Unfortunately, all of us are human and God has given us free will to choose how we act and what we do. While some of us may just be having a bad day, or bad things have happened to us, there are some who have chosen to abuse the children they have adopted.
One woman I know was adopted. The adoptive father never wanted children but gave into his wife who did. The father treated the girl very badly, abusing her by beating her physically and verbally. She had already dealt with parents who didn’t want her and now finds herself in a house where she still isn’t wanted. I can only speak through my own experience, and I know the damage and pain caused by my own parents. I can’t imagine how much more damage is done in someone’s life by experiencing being unwanted even more.
Over the years, God called me, desiring that I hold onto Him and trust Him. That hasn’t been easy for me, but because of His faithfulness and longsuffering, I now find myself in a place where I realize I have been adopted by Him. Ephesians 1:5 “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,”
When our human “parents” fail us, or even if we have messed up, we aren’t without hope. Being in a loving home is something we all want, especially when we don’t have that. God has promised us hope in His Word. He still disciplines those He loves because He wants us to be like Him. Growing up means to mature. We are supposed to learn things as a child to help us make good decisions and to teach us about love, and to prepare us for life as an adult. Unfortunately, many things we are taught as children have caused damage almost beyond repair.
The Bible talks about a loving God and hope and His mercy and grace and forgiveness. But God knows we have to experience those things before we truly appreciate them. How can we know love when all we’ve ever known is abuse? But if you turn that around, once we have known abuse, it makes us able to appreciate and understand it even more, when we find ourselves being loved by God, and others.
There are several other Scriptures in the Bible that speak about adoption. The best one of all is Colossians 1:12-14, “12 giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:”
It is a process to be able to allow God to heal the wounds in us. It is painful to face the truth of what we have gone through, but if we do not deal with the pain, we are only covering up a huge wound with a bandaid. That doesn’t heal us. God can, if we will let Him. I know. I know that I know that I know. And nobody can tell me any different. God has turned my life around. I have been able to forgive those who hurt me, not to “let them get away with what they did”, but it enabled me to allow God to work in me and heal me.
God not only healed the wounds in me, but He also forgives me for the sins that I have committed. He has made me grow up and not live in the wilderness of pain and abuse any longer. He has delivered me from the power of Satan. I no longer live in the fear that kept me caged up and afraid of life. And God has transformed and translated me into the kingdom of His dear Son. I no longer live in darkness, believing the lies of the devil. I had believed for so long that the abuse would never stop, and that God didn’t care. But now I know better.
I have been adopted by God. Adopted means: accepted, embraced, approved of. Translated means: to transpose, transfer, remove from one place to another. I have been translated from what Satan made me to be, into what God meant for me to be. It is like from the east to the west, from a hate-filled, bitter, battle-scarred, old woman into one that is learning what it is like to love and be loved, to have compassion for others who are where I used to be. There is sunshine and joy and peace in the place where I now am. I have been embraced and accepted by God. You can too. There are still dark times, but now Jesus makes a way for me and I have hope.
Psalms 27:10 “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.”
Adopted by God
