“I’m going to be adopted!”
I heard those words from a complete, but obviously gleefully happy, stranger this morning.
I stepped out my door to get the car out of the garage so I could take Michael to work. As I did, a student passed by my house on foot. I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl–I think, though, it was the latter–since the burgundy hoodie hood was pulled tight around the bespectacled face. I would judge by the somewhat lanky and gawky stature that this child was late elementary or early middle school age.
As we made eye contact, I said, “Good morning!” and she waved. Immediately her newsy words about adoption tumbled out of her mouth, accompanied by a wide grin.
“How exciting!” was my reply.
“I’m so-o-o excited!” was hers.
“Good for you!” and that was the end of it.
I know nothing of what this child’s life has been heretofore. But the joyful anticipation of what is going to change with her “Adopted” status clearly possesses her entire being.
My sidewalk encounter turned my mind to these words that, in my Bible, are followed by the penciled-in exclamation “Overwhelming!”:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Christ Jesus, in accordance with His pleasure and will–to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment–to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. (Ephesians 1:3-10)
