Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

My Adoption Story (and Baby N’s Too)

adoption

{Photo from lifeversedesign.com}

I’ve always been a little in awe (and maybe a teensy jealous) of people who have epic conversion stories. My story about coming to faith has always felt a little, well, boring. But something happened recently that completely changed my perspective.

Maybe I don’t have a quit-drugs-and-become-a-missionary-in-Africa story, but my story is no less epic. My story, in a nutshell, is this: God adopted me.

You are wanted.

Last year, two people I love dearly felt an undeniable tug on their hearts to adopt a baby. They already had two stellar kids, but they couldn’t shake the notion that their family wasn’t quite complete. That maybe God wanted to grow their family . . . and stitch it together with some different threads this time.

It would have been a lot easier to brush off the idea and stuff into the back of a closet along with the boxes of clothes their kids had outgrown.

It wasn’t practical. After all, there was a lot of paperwork involved. Home studies, red tape, profiles, interviews, bureaucracy, and more paperwork.

It was expensive. The fees were staggering—and that was to say nothing of the emotional toll.

It was an emotional roller coaster. Deciding to adopt means putting your heart on the line, setting yourself up for rejection, wondering if things will fall apart right up to the last minute. And waiting. At every stage, more waiting.

In short, adoption means opening your heart to get broken time and time again.

You are chosen.

After months of waiting, this mom and dad got the word: a birth mother had selected them! But this was only the beginning. They would have to leave their two other kids at home for a couple of weeks and then fly 2,000 miles away to finalize everything.

And even then, there was no way to be sure everything would go through. There was no guarantee that their hearts wouldn’t be broken.

But they wanted this baby. They had chosen this baby. And they were ready to fly to the ends of the earth, or least to the edge of the Rockies, to bring him home.

You are loved.

This little boy hadn’t even been born yet, and already he was loved beyond measure. His parents loved him. His big brother and sister loved him. His grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and church already loved him. The prayers for him crisscrossed the nation, and he hadn’t even taken his first breath.

Finally the day came . . . the day that was the culmination of so much waiting, so many hopes, so many prayers. The papers were signed. The name was inked on the birth certificate. Everything was declared official in court.

They went home to start this new chapter, this new life, this new family of five together.

***

And that is almost precisely my story. I didn’t do anything to make my heavenly Father want me or choose me or love me. God went to great lengths and much heartache to pursue me and chase me down and bring me home, all while I was ignorant of his parental wooing.

I don’t know where you find yourself today, but this can be your story too. You may think you’re too far gone for God to take you or that you aren’t good enough or lovable enough. But he wants you. He chooses you. He loves you.

He went to extravagant lengths to get you.
He paid a scandalous price for you.
He gave you his name.
And he will bring you home.

As of now, Baby N can only coo and sleep and eat—he’s not big enough to grasp the epic drama he’s starring in. Yet already his life has given me a glimpse of God’s love—his impractical, lavish, unquantifiable, unstoppable love. The kind of love that traverses multiple time zones and reams of paperwork to make us his very own daughters and sons.

***

God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
—Ephesians 1:5

 

God’s Stocking Stuffers

Almost two years ago, my friend Mary and her husband, John, went to Ukraine to meet their new son and bring him home. Igor had grown up in rather frugal conditions in the orphanage, so he was pretty blown away by his first Christmas in the States last year. Even now, a year later, he’s still trying to wrap his mind around the extravagant traditions in his new home.

“We get gifts and stockings?” he kept wondering aloud to his older brothers.

I asked Mary if Igor had any special requests for Christmas this year.

“Yes,” she told me with a smile. “He was really excited about the idea of getting an apple in his stocking.”

An apple.

Mary and John were happy to oblige. They’re his parents, after all, and those gifts are just one of many ways they delight in showing their son how much he’s loved.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about God’s gifts to us, despite how undeserving we are. He puts big gifts for us under the tree—or, more aptly, nailed to the tree—things like salvation and forgiveness and reconciliation with him.

He could stop there, and the gift would be sufficient for all of eternity. But that’s not the extent of his generosity. He also stuffs our stockings, showering us with bonus gifts that have no purpose other than to show us his delight in us, to reveal his extravagant love.

The other night as I was climbing into bed, I was greeted by Daniel’s stuffed rat on my pillow. Now lest you doubt my husband’s romanticism, I should assure you that where we come from, “Rat” is actually a term of endearment.

Daniel and I discovered early on when we were dating that among other startling family similarities (for instance: his dad is one of 13 siblings; my dad is one of 12), both our dads called us “Rat” or “Little Rat” as an affectionate nickname.

As we got ready for bed that night, Daniel said with a chuckle, “You know, every time our dads called us Rat growing up, God must have just smiled. Like he was saying, Don’t worry, guys—I’ve got this one.”

My mind wandered back to all those years when I’d been waiting for Mr. Right (as I mentioned in this post), wondering if God would answer my prayers, when all along he had the perfect person for me. Even down to the weird nickname.

I wonder how many other times I doubt God, thinking he doesn’t see my pain, when actually he’s just waiting for the precise moment to reveal the gift he has all planned out. Don’t worry, he must be saying. I’ve got this one.

God gives us those little bonus gifts along the way—stocking stuffers, if you will—not because he owes us anything, but to show us how much he loves us. To remind us that he has our lives covered, even if we can’t see the whole picture yet.

He does, after all, love his little rats.

rat1

 

Double Blessings Day

In the movie The Odd Life of Timothy Green, a young couple longs for a baby but remains unable to conceive. They dream up their ideal child, writing down descriptions of him and then burying the slips of paper in their backyard. They wake up to find a 10-year-old boy claiming to be their son, who by the looks of the leaves sprouting out of him, has grown straight out of the ground. It seemed to me a rather ludicrous premise for a movie…that is, until Double Blessings Day.

My friends Heather and Rick have been wishing and hoping and praying for a baby for six long years. After several miscarriages, failed infertility treatments, and adoptions that fell through (you can read more about their story here), they finally got the phone call they’d been waiting for. I’ll never forget walking into their house for a party one evening to find Heather with an irrepressible grin on her face. After leaving me in suspense for a while, she said, “Come here—I have something to show you.” She pulled out her phone, and there on the screen was a picture of a tiny baby boy wrapped in a blue blanket.

On cue, my eyes welled up. “Is this really…?” I could barely get the words out. After so much heartbreak, it hardly seemed possible. “Is he…yours?”

Heather nodded and grinned wider, but before letting me squeal and give her a hug, she said, “Wait, there’s more.” She flipped to the next picture, and suddenly I had no air left to project my squeal. There on her phone was another tiny bundle. This one wrapped in pink.

“Twins!” Heather’s smile broadened into a full-fledged beam. “The adoption papers won’t be final for a few months, but we can take them home from the hospital as soon as they gain a couple pounds.”

In that moment I had the surreal sense that even if these babies hadn’t grown out of the ground, maybe they’d been somehow been prayed into existence.

***

It’s been several months since the babies came home to Heather and Rick, and on the day they all went to the courthouse to sign the papers to make the adoption official, they threw a party for everyone who had prayed and hoped alongside them for the past several years. They called it Double Blessings Day. The day their son and daughter officially took their name and legally became theirs, although they’d loved these little bundles even before they’d met them.

As I held Claire and Alex on the evening of the blessings party, I thought about the significance of the names Heather and Rick had chosen for them. Claire: bright and clear. Alex: helper of mankind; defender of the people. Indeed, I saw a bright future ahead for both these little ones. I envisioned how the extravagant love of their parents would lead them on a path of serving and defending others as well. And now they officially had Heather and Rick’s last name—including a signed piece of paper that proved they belonged to them; they were their forever family.

It’s no wonder Paul used the metaphor of adoptive parents to paint the picture of God’s love for us:

You received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”

—Romans 8:15-16

When we are adopted in God’s family, he gives us a new name: Son. Daughter. Beloved child. Redeemed one. But it hadn’t occurred to me before that once our adoption is finalized, he gets a new name too. Abba. Daddy. This fierce, magnificent God, unapproachable in his holiness, humbles himself, taking on the role of our Daddy. He loosens his tie, changes out of his work clothes, and gets down on his knees to play with us.

That’s what kind of Daddy we have. One who not only does the work of making our adoption official and bestowing on us his name, but who also throws a party to show the world how happy he is to have us in the family. One who loves us as his very own sons and daughters.

Thanks, Daddy.

I’ve taken the challenge of reading the Bible chronologically this year and tracing the thread of grace through it. These musings are prompted by my reading. I’d love to have you join me: One Year Bible reading plan.

double blessing