Celebration while waiting for our adoption.

Is celebration possible during the wait?

We had hoped that Benjamin would be home by the time he was six months old. We finally acknowledged that he would not be here for his first birthday.

We wondered whether to mark his birthday and decided to go ahead and do something, thinking that later he might appreciate stories and photos of us honoring him with cake and presents.

I approached the day with sadness and apprehension. It felt odd to plan a birthday celebration while grieving the absence of the intended celebrant. It felt risky, too. We still had no assurance that Benjamin would ever legally be our son, but were again choosing to act as if he already was - and bringing our young daughters along with us.

But now, on Benjamin’s birthday, my thinking is starting to change. I am beginning to feel that we need this birthday celebration - not only so that later he would know that we did - but simply because of the wonder that God made him. This boy has been knit together in the image of God, and God has given us the privilege of loving him, even if not yet in the way we want.

I rejoice to think about Benjamin. As we decorate a cake and wrap gifts, I start to feel genuinely festive. We will honor Benjamin’s birthday because his life is worthy of celebration and because God has chosen him to be joined with us, in this odd season when he is our not-yet-adopted son.

Unexpectedly throughout the day, we receive messages and cards from friends, telling us that they are thinking about and praying for us. I recognize a connection between those prayers and this unexpected joy in my heart.

It is marvelous that so many people love this far-away little boy. This outpouring of love on Benjamin’s birthday shows that he is deeply loved, loved by God and by people who have never seen him.

Benjamin is on the other side of the world, going through his days independently of us. He has no idea that we are giving him gifts and cards, cake and prayers. We love him and are committed to him, though he is utterly unaware of it. This love is not because of anything he has done and is not supported by any reciprocity, not even the pleasure of watching him grow and learn. Newborn babes seem to take more than they give to their parents at times, yet at least they offer a soft bundle to hold and the promise of smiles and coos to come. Benjamin has no natural or physical connection to us. At this time he can offer us nothing. Yet we have set our love on him. We have chosen him. We will do anything we can to bring him home to us. We cannot move away from him.

I realize that this must be a faint reflection of the love of the Father for us. God has initiated everything on our behalf. He has set his love on us. He has chosen us and so we are loved, even though we may go through days blindly unaware of that love, as Benjamin is unaware of ours.

We lose some of the sweetness of being loved by God when we are not aware of that love. But the love is steadfast whether we apprehend it or not. Awareness of God’s love does not affect its reality.

We long for Benjamin to know our love as we hold him and talk to him and feed him and laugh with him. But even though he doesn’t know us, we have determined to love him. He is precious in our eyes. This is the reason for his birthday celebration.

With God’s choosing, adopting love we receive countless gifts. In the first chapter of Ephesians, Paul writes a lush, overflowing exaltation of those gifts. In just a few verses, he packs in an exuberant list of what comes with our redemption and adoption. God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. He has chosen us before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. He has redeemed us, forgiven us, and lavished us with grace. He has adopted us.

I have been showered with heavenly gifts. I may not be aware of them all, as I am not constantly aware of God’s love as I walk through my days. But though I don’t see all of the gifts, I know that they are vast and glorious, and that they are my heritage and inheritance as God’s child.

God loves us because he chooses to love us, not because we have performed in any way to earn his love or because we can give anything back to him. As Benjamin has done nothing to make us love him, so we have done nothing to make God love us. "Our adoption is not based on our being worthy or cute or attractive. It is based on the free and sovereign grace of God planned before the world and bought for us by the blood of Christ." (John Piper, sermon, June 20, 2004).

In our hearts, if not legally, Benjamin is our son and heir. We have given him a crib, clothes and toys. He is the beneficiary of our prayers for him. The fruit of these prayers includes spiritual blessing that he is receiving now, though we do not yet see it.

There is a cost to adopting children. Jesus paid an enormous price - more than we can comprehend - in absorbing our sin so that we could be redeemed and adopted. Our family’s payment of money and time and waiting and heartache is pale in comparison. But in that pale glimmer we have a faint glimpse of God’s devotion. Through Benjamin we taste a bit of what it means that God has set his determined love on us.

It is a birthday of joyful celebration.

Adapted from Carried Safely Home: The Spiritual Legacy of an Adoptive Family by Kristin Swick Wong (FaithWalk, 2005). Used by permission.

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