By Barbara Rainey
First posted on EverThineHome.com
When our adopted daughter was in her late teens I was spent, not just by our journey with her but also from parenting all six of our children for so many years. In addition, my heart was wounded by the fallout and heartache, and my body was deeply fatigued from the burden of unrequited love.
In my own weariness I realized how much more God grieved over my own sin and refusal of His ways. His love is infinite, but so was Jesus’s suffering on the cross for His own who reject Him in a million ways daily. As a mom I gave my life for my children and most of the time delighted to do so. My sacrifices for our adopted one were significant.
To have our best efforts rejected, as all of our kids did at times, and to have my love be unwanted and unappreciated, was deeply hurtful. I felt like a failure as do many parents. I recognized and felt the heart of God in my own experience of great loss.
I saw and appreciated His deep unending love for me in ways I hadn’t before. I knew a little of how God felt. I was humbled that He loved me that much and would never stop. And I was profoundly grateful for the experiences I’d endured that allowed me to see Him so much more clearly.
Seeing God more clearly through the lens of loss and hardship has been worth every minute of suffering, both from the difficulties of parenting and from the troubles of life. I wouldn’t trade Him for anything.
As our daughter grew up we were very open with her about the adoption. We talked about it, read books about it, and when she was older gave her what little information we had. Hers was a closed adoption, by the birth family’s choice, but we always said that when she was old enough and ready we’d love to help her find her birth parents. I was eager to meet them too. I wanted to thank her birth mother for giving her life and giving her to us.
She didn’t begin a serious search until she left home. When she did begin looking she didn’t have much to go on so she was frustrated with the process and gave up. Then during her 30’s she decided to try again. Sadly, she met a couple of women online who pretended to be her birth mother and got her hopes up. When it became clear they were not her birth mom, their deceptions and manipulations left her deeply disappointed.
But the last of these experiences became an unexpected gift to us. This woman seemed to be the one. Many details seemed to line up initially and she was friendly and very eager to arrange an in-person meeting with our daughter. When she asked for our contact information, we gave permission for the woman to have one of our email addresses. Several weeks later she emailed a very short introductory email. We sent an equally short reply.
A few weeks later this woman sent a longer email asking for more information. We weren’t sure what to say and didn’t reply immediately. We were speaking at a conference and we didn’t have the time to give this our attention until we arrived back home.
The morning we left the conference Dennis received a third email that was filled with anger and accusations toward us. It ended with a favorite line of toxic people: “You are not much of a Christian if this is how you treat people.” However, she made the fateful mistake of copying our daughter on the email. When our daughter read it she was very angry.
The next morning came a phone call I’ll never forget. Our daughter called to tell us she’d ended the relationship, deleted all of the correspondence and blocked this woman from finding her again. She told us, “If that’s the way she’s going to treat you, then I want nothing to do with her even if she is my birth mother. You are my parents and she’s not.”
For the first time we heard our daughter say the words, “I choose you.” In that moment all the losses we’d endured were worth it.
I’d always sensed our daughter was not fully committed to our family. It was clear she was not sure she wanted to be ours. Yes, we chose her, but adopted kids have no voice in the decision. It’s made between adults.
The question always is will they accept that God placed them in this family? Will they trust Him? Will they trust their adoptive parents or fantasize about another family, another life they imagine must be better than the one they have? This too is common with many adopted children and I understand why.
Can you now imagine this is how God feels?
He has chosen us, me and you, before we were even born.
He sacrificed for me and for you more than we can know or appreciate.
Jesus died for me and you so He can have a personal relationship with us!
He wants to be our Father, to give us good gifts and all His love. Amazingly even in our rejection and rebellions against Him He still gives us good gifts, still tries to draw us to Himself.
To have an intimate personal relationship we must choose Him on our own.
Since time began God has been willing to wait for us. In a similar yet vastly inferior way we were willing to wait as long as it took to be chosen and loved in return by our daughter. God’s promise to us is, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord ...” (Jeremiah 29:12-14)
Hearing our daughter say that she chose us took a long time, but the wait was worth it in the end. Even in the years since then she has had to make the same choice, just as we need to consciously and continuously choose to trust God.
God’s patience is perfect, as are all His attributes. God waits for us, even when we wander back and forth for years, to Him and away from Him, over and over.
He always waits.
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