Embracing God’s Gift of Adoption

Excerpted from I Call You Mine: Embracing God’s Gift of Adoption by Kim de Blecourt.

His name was Sasha, and he was three years old. He clung to the fingers of the middle-aged woman who walked him into the doctor’s office that summer afternoon in Izmail, Ukraine. Our son’s orphaned status was obvious. His shaved head, mismatched clothing, and downturned eyes pricked my heart. My first eye contact with him seemed to seal his fate to mine. He was ours, and I knew at that moment that my love for him was unconditional.

It was during the adoption of our son that God led me to understand my own adoption.

I was not an orphaned little one in need of earthly parents as Sasha was. I had parents—but I lacked embracing and feeling the loving arms of my heavenly Parent. For most of my life I had been rebellious. I served no one but myself. Although I had been raised in a Christian household, I was not a Christian. I felt ugly inside. I didn’t love myself, let alone others. I needed a Parent to rescue me, to save me. To adopt me. Unconditionally. Forever.

I’m overwhelmed when I stop to really consider the mess I was before God adopted me. It wasn’t just that I was headed toward an eternity without Him. I needed His loving care, guidance, and discipline in this life. Right here and right now. I needed to understand the goodness of healthy boundaries, the depth of unconditional love, and the safe feeling of completely belonging to a family who would never abandon me. I needed to grow up under the watchful eye of a Father who would teach me and keep me safe, who would continue to love me even when I made mistakes.

When God adopted me, when He made me His and took me in as a full and privileged member of His forever family, it changed my life, my perspective, and my potential in a way I never could have experienced apart from Him. And it was all because of His unquenchable and overpowering love for me.

Having experienced that kind of love from God, I was able to reach out and adopt and love a child who also needed to experience that kind of love. I wanted to give our child in an earthly way what God had given me: healthy boundaries, the depth of unconditional love, and the safe feeling of completely belonging to a family who would never abandon him. And most of all, I wanted to introduce our child to the God who loves unconditionally—and who loves far better and greater than I, as a parent, ever could.

I chose my son—just as God chose me. And just as He chose you. God finds us first—before we even realize our need for a Parent and for a family. The orphan doesn’t select the parent. The parent chooses the orphan. That is how the family begins.

It’s the same with us. We don’t reach out in love for God first. He chose us. He loved us first. That is how we joined His family.

And it all began with love.

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