Lessons from the Adoptive Journey

Whether you have adopted or have been adopted, there are lessons to learn. Come learn with us …

Marcellus George wants you to share what you have learned on the adoptive journey. In the New Testament, there are three major metaphors for our new relationship with God. The first is being “born again.” The second is being “redeemed” (from being a slave to sin and to Satan). The third is being “adopted” by the Heavenly Father. There are many nuances to this idea. One is that the Heavenly Father chose freely to adopt you. The second is that we, as His children, choose to be adopted every day.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Ephesians 1:3-6

(ESV)

From the Blog

Demolition

Recently the project to replace streets in our housing subdivision got underway on our street. The first step was the demolition of the old street and the removal of the debris. Breaking up concrete is a noisy and dirty process, with no picture of what our future...

Payback

We might call it “getting even,” but siblings have a form of rivalry where one child feels the right to extract something from the others when they feel violated. It may start with sharing of toys, but rapidly progresses to other forms of payback (such as getting a...

Weeds

In spring and summer weeds pop up all over our yard. It is a never-ending battle with nature to keep these pesky plants from taking root in our flowerbeds. Each rain we get causes more of them to appear in areas we have just cleared. As a Christian, I can point to the...

The Spelling Quiz

The start of fifth grade was a milestone for our two sons. They started attending a new school, adjusting to new friends and a new teacher. The teacher had taught fifth grade for many years, and mastered the art of getting to know each pupil and motivating them to...

The Clothes Come Clean

It was a normal Saturday morning, and time to do the laundry again, especially since there were stains on some of the clothing. Into the washer the dirty clothes went! Afterwards, I was happy to see what water and a little soap could do! We struggled in the early...

Midnight

It was dark and turning cooler. Then lightning and thunder started. Later, fierce wind and rolling thunder woke us up from deep sleep, as we listened to the storm unleash its fury. The darkness of midnight made the storm feel stronger. A lot of moments in adoption...

Chosen

Did we choose to follow God, or did He choose us to be His followers?

More Than We Bargained For

Ever have one of those times when you walked into a store and got more than you bargained for? It happened again yesterday, where we bought some gifts in a local shop, and they threw in some extras—lagniappe, as the folks from Louisiana would say. It’s an expression...

Speechless!

There are a few times in life when words cannot express the feelings and thoughts in our minds. It is as if there is a broken power line between our spirits and hearts and our minds. These moments came for us as we interacted with our sons during their adoption. While...

Courage

“Courage isn't having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don't have strength,” said Napolean Bonaparte. His willingness to lay everything on the line was admirable, even if the cause for which he fought was flawed. There are many illustrations of courage...

Loss and Gain

Have you ever witnessed a game where two teams were evenly matched? You keep cheering for your team, hoping they will overcome the odds to win. We went through this many times with our sons playing soccer. The tying or winning goal determined their emotional outlook...

The Basement

Our house, like many in our part of the country, has a basement. This is a room below the main house that gives more floor space to the house. We do not live in the basement, but use it for other purposes (storage mainly). Exploring this subterranean space leads to a...

The View From the Desert

Cactus and scrub trees everywhere. One hundred ten degrees (43°C). Sudden thirst. These were the first things we sensed when we arrived in the Arizona desert. However, we noticed that people carried on normal activities despite heat and most insulated themselves with...

The Pool

There is something about water—refreshing, cleansing, hydrating. Our bodies need it because most of our body weight is composed of water, both inside and outside of our cells. A spring rain clears the air, a shower cleanses our bodies and our minds, and a drink on a...

An Unfair Advantage

We wanted an outlet for our sons, so we decided to enroll them in a YMCA spring soccer league. They were playing with boys their age, so most of the games were evenly matched in terms of skills and abilities. The coach rotated the players throughout the game, so every...

Birth of a Child

One of the most touching things I have ever done is witness the birth of a child. Nothing compares with this miracle. The beginning of a new life, with all of its potential, is awesome, as is the love of the mother for the infant. The first cries of the baby, in fact,...

The Washing Machine

It was the day for washing clothes, and I was looking forward to clean clothes, especially without the food stains I had spilled on myself. I put the clothes in the washing machine, added the soap, and (presto!) started the machine. The machine started to fill with...

Adoption and Adjustment

When I was growing up, nothing seemed to come easy to me. I struggled to learn how to ride a bicycle, falling many times and getting many scrapes and cuts. I was not gifted athletically, and so I didn’t fit into many of the sports boys my age were playing. My father...

The Resurrection and Adoption

One of the mysteries I do not understand is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Clearly, this miracle demonstrated Jesus Christ’s power over death. However, I cannot grasp how that happened to a dead man. Meditating on the fact I was adopted by the Heavenly Father as...

Adoption Connected to Both Honor and Dishonor

Adoption (huiothesia, υἱοθεσία) is an important Pauline metaphor describing our connection with God the Father (as well as with the Son and the Holy Spirit) (Ephesians 1:5; Romans 8:23). Adoption shows the honor which has been bestowed by the Heavenly Father on those...

Sun and Snow

How is snow like forgiveness in adoption?

In Whose Image?

Whose image are you created in?

God Honors Us in Adopting Us

Ephesians 1:5 says that the Father has chosen to adopt us. This is a great promise and encouragement. We are able to rejoice in the knowledge that we are truly His children. In adopting us, He bestows His honor upon us. In the Roman world, honor was a prized virtue....

The Wedding

It was a touching moment. Our last son decided to tie the knot. His fiancée is a fine woman, and we are happy to have her as an addition to our family, but it is a sign that both our sons and we are moving on. We thank the Lord for this evidence of maturity in their...

Our Sons Drive Our Car

“No!” both of our sons said emphatically, when we asked if they had taken the car keys and tried to move the car. We had settled down for Sunday afternoon nap, only to wake up and find that the car had been rammed into the neighbor’s fence and knocked down their gate....

Loss of a Child

I stood by a father who had lost his eight-year-old daughter to multiple burns, and we cried together. We also wept at the miscarriage of our grandchild. Perhaps the most difficult experience of any parent is the loss of a child. We all experience multiple losses in...

What Time is Dinner?

As I have traveled to different cultures, I have learned that people have different concepts of time. In the United States, time is very “by-the clock,” and we anticipate activities will have a a...

They Did It Again!

We studied adoption prior to receiving our sons, and thought we were prepared for whatever was going to happen next. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Just when we thought we had figured them out, we discovered one more thing about their past that made...

Finishing Well

We were cheering our favorite team as we all watched intently on television. Everyone wants to win the game or to have their favorite team win. Especially when it comes to the end of the game and the score is close. The sting of losing is more painful when you know...

Suffer Well!

It was a Saturday evening when I fell off the ladder and onto our concrete floor. My right foot was swollen like a balloon, and the pain was significant. My wife whisked me off to the emergency room,...

Volcanoes

Volcanoes have been in the news recently, with more and more eruptions. We are tempted to ask why people choose to live so close to volcanoes, knowing of the possibility of having everything they own obliterated by an eruption (and possibly endangering or losing their...

Pure as the Driven Snow

Those in the northern part of the country are accustomed to getting plenty of snow in the winter. The snow, as it comes down, is pure and white. It appears as though it could not get any whiter. Then, as it mixes with salt and dirt, it first becomes dingy, and then...

Snowdrifts

Now is the time for spring. Over the winter, we experienced lots of snowfall, and the wind and the snowplows contributed to ever-increasing piles of snow. At some points in the winter, the snowdrifts become so tall they seem to hide the snowmen in the front yard! Once...

The Easy Way Out?

On a chilly afternoon, we visited the gravesite of a friend who had taken her own life four years prior. A group grieved together about the life of one who had ended her life too early. Suicide is on the rise, and opinions differ about why this is so. But taking one’s...

Milestones

Another year and another holiday season are behind us. We ponder a new year and wonder what it holds, but do not pay as much attention to what has happened as we should. What things happened the past year that made us especially thankful? That is why milestones are so...

Choosing to be Choosy

I have trouble staying awake in art galleries. My wife has taken me to several well-known ones, but not being an art lover means that these works of art (or occasionally history) are lost on me. I also find that skimming the photos of others on their cell phones not...

The Stars in the Skies

It was a starry night when I went camping with my sons. They looked into the sky in awe of what they saw, and one asked, “How big is the universe?” “We don’t know,” I said, “but God is bigger still.” “Cool,” was all he could say. There was a silence that enveloped us...

Like a Deer

As we pulled out of our driveway one morning, our lights again caught the stray deer in our neighborhood. We have caught this creature foraging for fruit, flowers, and about anything else that might seem tasty. I am not an expert on deer. I do not hunt them. Any time...

Fear, Faith, and Foolishness in Adoption

Followers of Jesus Christ want to know and to do His will. We struggled with this both before and after our adoption. Were we really able to carry out the mission of rearing our adopted sons? Many times, we wrestle with knowing what to do next because we are not...

God Has No Grandchildren

We were in awe when we first set our eyes on our new grandson. He was perfect in every way. I paused to think about how our parents may have reacted when they first met our adopted sons. Unlike us, God has no grandchildren. For those of us who were reared in Christian...

Adoption as a Volcano

Pictures came across my computer screen of an Icelandic volcano erupting with streams of lava. Similar photographs were seen during an eruption of a volcano on Hawaii. These videos give a sense of both raw power and fear at the same time, with fire, molten rock, and...

The Bird Bath

There it sits, outside my front window. On summer days, our bird bath refreshes a squirrel, butterflies, and up to fourteen sparrows at a time. An occasional robin tries to crowd out the other birds who want to drink or splash around. Watching the birds interact...

The Adoption Marathon

We breathed a sigh of relief when the adoption court proceeding was over. We were finally adoptive parents! We had the impression that once our sons were part of our family, the hard part was over. Actually, we discovered that this was only the beginning. It was to be...

Nowhere to Go

It was something we heard frequently from our adopted sons during the first year of their adoption. Whenever we corrected or disciplined them, they would respond to us with a sense of autonomy, “Well, we will just go back to the orphanage!” Never mind that the...

He Knows Our Pain

There was fear in my wife’s voice as I talked with her on the phone. “Our son just fell on the ice in the pond, and it looks as though he has broken his arm!” she exclaimed. The neighborhood boys had a...

Losses in Adoption

I recently stayed with a lovely family who had lost a young child. She had died as a result of burns to her body from yanking a pot of boiling water off the stove, splashing it onto herself. The family was rightfully grieving her death and wondering what, if anything,...

Snow on the Ground

I look outside and I see snow covering everything. It covers the yard, the sidewalks, the driveway, and the street. It is our reminder that winter has come. Snow had been described as both pure and beautiful, but I sometimes wish there wasn’t so much of it. Thing is,...

Leaves Everywhere

This time of year, leaves flutter everywhere. You rake and rake and rake. It is hard to believe that it wasn’t that long ago that you rejoiced to see the new growth on the trees ushering in spring. Now, sadly, the leaves have fallen. These leaves represent, in so many...

Marcellus George and his loving wife are the adoptive parents of (now adult) twin sons. He is the author of numerous articles and devotions, has a Ph.D. in theology, and speaks on the subject of adoption. He is fascinated by God’s description of His adoption of us, and how that correlates with his own adoption story.

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Lessons from the Adoptive Journey

Whether you have adopted or have been adopted, there are lessons to learn. Come learn with us …

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