I had the pleasure of speaking to Ellen Vaughn with Sacred Selections on our podcast, The Extra Mile Podcast, this year. The conversation was fruitful to me personally as I inquired about what this wonderful organization pursues as its mission and operation. What struck me throughout the conversation was an awareness of stigma that sometimes surrounds adoption. This organization works to dissolve this negative stigma with advocacy, effort, and good works as we are taught by the apostles.
The Extra Mile Podcast is designed to seek out and ask the question surrounding Jesus’s teaching on the mount, specifically with going out of your way to make connections with others. Take a walk with me briefly, and we will consider a few points to dismantle this stigma within ourselves.
Why would a negative stigma around adoption exist? A judgmental attitude? Is my own upbringing with my biological parents a position of privilege? Is my understanding of those in the adoption process insufficient in empathy and love? Am I remembering to see each of them as image bearers?
Regardless of the answers to these questions, consider with me our own position with respect to God’s blessings. Perhaps you are fortunate enough to know your parents, have been raised by them, and maintain a wonderful and fruitful relationship with them. Sure, there may be seasons of frustration and effort in any relationship, but it is definitely a privilege to have healthy blood relations intact.
So, perhaps a stigma around adoption is warranted? May it never be! Earthly adoption is about two sets of parents reaching their arms out to meet a child’s needs. The child does not have a free will choice in the adoption plan and must trust that both sets of parents are making every decision with his or her best interest at heart. Those who have chosen to put on Christ and follow Him understand that there is a free will offering through the Son of God. His promise to enter God’s kingdom is an inheritance of things that are not ours to begin with.
The apostle Paul makes the point in Romans 8 that we are not worthy of our salvation due to our sin. The knowledge of good and evil is not enough to motivate us to do good. Therefore, none of us are worthy to be called sons of God.
Consider Paul’s illustration in Romans 11 of an olive tree where branches are grafted into and cut off from the root stock. The grafting of branches onto the tree is the free will adoption into the ranks as a child of God. There it is! We are adopted into God’s family, grafted into the blessings promised to the chosen faithful. What a wonderful illustration to our own situation, and the good grace of God that provides for our spiritual well-being! Paul also writes in Ephesians 1, “He predestined us for adoption to His own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.” It gave Him pleasure to do so.
If we are all adopted into God’s family, why then is there a stigma against adoption in the first place? Perhaps we look on those in vulnerable places who are making adoption plans with harsh judgment, forgetting our own need for God’s adoption. Adoption is a gift from God, and part of the good design that our heavenly Father has offered to us for salvation.
Becoming a Christian follows the path set forth in the Bible to join God’s family. With this act of obedience, we are provided the spiritual blessings of God’s family. The Holy Spirit dwells within us as a helper. We have the privilege to call upon God as our Father. This is in tandem with our new identities as children of God. Peter tells us in I Peter 1 that our inheritance is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, and awaiting us in heaven. We are protected by the power of God.
I pray that God continues to bless and provide for all those who are working to adopt children, that barriers continue to be removed, and that your walk is blessed by the living God, who promises rich blessings for us all in our adoption into His family.
Justin Duncan is an electrician in Lubbock, TX. He is a co-host for The Extra Mile Podcast in association with Milwaukee Ave Church of Christ in Lubbock, TX. Episodes are released weekly, and encompass conversations around life, working out our faith, and going the extra mile for one another as we work to be better Christians. You can tune in on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
