Groanings

My spirit groans within me this morning.

I have been reading “Adopted for Life” a book detailing the theology of adoption and God’s adoption of me, an orphan, now His daughter.  The author, Russell D. Moore parallels this with the adoption of his sons at 1 years of age from Russia. 

“Of all the disturbing aspects of the orphanage in which we found our boys, one stands out above all the others in its horror.  It was quiet. The place was filled with an eerie silence, quieter than the Library of Congress, despite the fact that there were cribs full of babies in every room.  If you listened intently enough, you could hear the sound of rocking--as babies rocked themselves back and forth in their beds.  They didn’t cry because no one responded to their cries.  So they stopped.  That’s dehumanizing in its horror.

The first moment I knew the boys received us, in some strange and preliminary way, was the moment we walked out of the room for the last time on that first trip.  When little Maxim, now Benjamin, fell back in his crib and cried—the first time I ever heard him do it—it was because, for whatever reason, he seemed to think he’d be heard and, for whatever reason, he no longer liked the prospect of being alone in the dark.”

And this has me in tears.  Again.  Thinking about the orphans of the world.  And thinking about what the Father has done for me. 

November is Adoption Awareness Month.  November 7th is National Orphan Sunday.  November 25 is Thanksgiving. Let us work together on behalf of these children and let us move forward in thankfulness for God’s adoption of us, that we may cry, Abba Father.

“The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father”…Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies”  Romans 8:15 & 23