Our first family picture!
Lesson #3
Adoption redefines family
Blood is thicker than water, or so the saying goes. The cultural concept of family is all about bloodlines. Father, mother, sister, brother, even half-sisters and 3rd cousins twice removed – these all are defined by blood. Maybe that was why it was always hard for me to see the family of God as anything more than a metaphorical family. We are not even ‘really’ half-brothers or sisters, right? We just don’t share the same blood.
Then came Elisona who has shaken up our lives for good in so many ways! One of those ways for me was forcing me to rethink family. Adoption changed everything for her (and us). She of course got a new name and mother and father, but she also inherited a new extended family and heritage! She will always have an Albanian history and heritage. Her physical past can’t and shouldn’t be ignored, but even more important I think, is the Waggoner and vanOrman heritage she now has! She has great grandparents who left their homes to go the back woods of Kentucky to learn how to start and run a Christian school, so they could return to New Jersey and start Bethel and minister to children for more than 40 years! She has other great-grandparents who sailed to Kenya as missionaries and spent decades sharing the Gospel there. Another set of great-grandparents worked hard in central Illinois and raised four Godly daughters whose families are still serving the Lord today! How wonderful it is to get together for family reunions on both sides of our family! What an amazing heritage Ellie and Reni have through adoption!
As blessed as we are with our Godly heritage, adoption has caused me to transcend bloodlines in my thoughts of family. If the Bible is true (and I believe it is), only brothers and sisters in Christ will last into eternity. Human bloodlines won’t matter then. So in a very real sense, my brothers and sisters in Christ are more completely family than bloodlines could ever be. If we trust Christ for salvation, we have been adopted into God’s family! Praise God that my human family is also adopted into God’s family!
That is why adoption is such a great picture of redemption. Ellie and Reni have new names. They are part of a new family. Adoption really isn’t what defines them now. Adoption was the process that made it possible, but not what defines them. Now, they are simply and fully our SON – David Reni Waggoner and our DAUGHTER – Elisona Joy Waggoner. Adoption strips the bloodline definitions. They are brother and sister (not “half” or “step”). They have Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles and Cousins. The genealogy people out in Utah might disagree, but that is how I see it!
And I believe that is how God sees it too. I know that earlier I said that the family of God didn’t share the same blood. That really isn’t true. We all share the blood of Christ! Romans 14 says that not only are we sons of God we are joint heirs with Christ! I believe if the church could really get a hold of the true brotherhood of believers concept we would look very different to the world. The church would easily cross all ethnic and economic barriers. The result would be so counter-cultural that the world would have to stop and notice. What do you think? How would the church look differently if the family of God transcended bloodlines?
Father, help me to continue to see family as you see it. Help me not to be blinded by the worlds definitions, but may our human adoption experience always point to truth or your plan of adoption for the world! And thank You for the godly heritage you have given Elisona and Reni. - Amen
The July issue of Christianity Today had some great articles about adoption and how the church is stepping up world-wide to address the issue. One of the articles "Abba Changes Everything" was especially challenging and encouraging to me, so I thought I would link to it here. It is a little long, but it worth the read!
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