Fair warning to my diverse group of dear friends: this is an overtly Christian post! I don’t believe it will offend, but if it does, please talk to me directly. This is based on my personal life experience, & I would be glad to share it with you one-on-one.

To ransom: to obtain the release of a prisoner by making a payment demanded. 

The thing about newly adopted children is, they don’t clean themselves up & present themselves as fully-formed, shiny individuals in order to be adopted. They, like each of us, are works in progress. Though they certainly bring us joy & blessing during the time we care for them, initially, they bring nothing to the table but open hands. They are needy, and full of unmet wants. In some ways, they are more independent, after living without parents for so long, but they quickly begin calling for mommy & daddy more often than a same-aged child who has grown up with parents present. They have years of attention-seeking to make up for. They are unpolished—saying and doing things we have learned to pretend we don’t think or do. They don’t blend seamlessly into our already-established family dynamic; they exert their own will and seek their own satisfaction above the good of the family. Simply put, they don’t “deserve” to be adopted, they don’t “earn” a family by their good behavior.

If Amahle did exude every sweet and docile quality that would make her “deserving” of a family, and had no bad habits or flaws, I would miss out on the poignant metaphor God is showing me in our family: I don’t need to be cleaned up and good enough in order to be accepted by Him and lovingly adopted into His family. He accepts me as I am, and He has rescued and ransomed me from a life without Him. This metaphor has sustained me during years of tedious adoption paperwork and aggravating hoops I’ve had to jump through in order to bring a child home from life in an institution. When people have asked about the process, and I have shared some of the big costs associated with adoption, they often either balk or say something to the effect of, “You are a stellar person—I couldn’t go through that.” But neither of those is accurate. I’ve been sustained knowing that I, myself, was ransomed at a very high cost. Jesus did not balk at the high price he had to pay to bring me into His family. Even when I asked for too many things; even when my habits were unattractive; even when I don’t see the tremendous gifts He gives me; even when I don’t say thank you.

When I see Amahle being herself in our midst, when she is picking up & using all our things without hesitating or asking, when she shows us her most ungrateful or selfish sides, I am reminded of the truth about myself. The grace I have been shown was unearned. That’s what grace is. That’s what we’re here to extend to our children.

Now when Amahle joined our family, that very first day, she began calling us “mommy” & “daddy.” She began using all our things, eating our food, putting holes in the knees of the leggings we just gave her. There was no hesitancy, no dipping her toes in the water. This is what it means to receive like a little child. When she was in the orphanage for all those years, she prayed earnestly for parents. She didn’t wonder whether that was the right thing to do—she asked for what she wanted, and she just kept asking. When she was told she was going to have a family, she rejoiced freely. There are lessons to be learned here about what God has for us & how we respond. When we enter into the Kingdom of God, we aren’t borrowing; we aren’t second-class citizens of heaven. We are full children, co-heirs, joint-conquerors with Christ. The boldness Amahle has in our family, the entitlement, shows that she fully receives the gifts she’s been given. At first, I am taken aback, seeing her so confident. It seems presumptuous, maybe impolite, because that’s not how adults in our culture behave. But I know that it is good, and that it means she has fully entered in. My job is to keep my hand open & let her take freely from it. When I want to close it, to make some qualification or contingency, I am stealing. I am adding on to what has already been finished. Freely freely you have received; freely freely give. 

Inside the courthouse, looking out. 

She just "randomly" chose this picture to color.