Several weeks ago, our 3 year old came home from school with a craft in hand. It is not at all unusual for her to come home with a craft. This day, however, it hit my wife and I a little more personally. She walked in the door that day and her and mommy were chatty with each other as usual. She approached me with a piece of paper scribbled all over with crayon with the words “I am a daughter!”

This may not seem significant to many but allow me to give you some background… For the first several months of her life, our girl went through more than most of us face in an entire lifetime. She was born much earlier than she was supposed to and was born with several physical setbacks. After surgeries and therapies early in her life that remain today and parents who were unable to care for her, she wound up in foster care. At this point, she has spent more years of her life without official “permanence” in a home than she has having a permanent place to officially call home.

I may be a little biased, but I often tell people that our little girl is one of the most humble, loving and accepting girls we have ever met. She has a contagious energy but at the same time has a spirit about her that is observant and graceful. She has been through so much and is daily in an environment where children of all walks of life are represented.

So, as the day slowly approaches that we step into a court room and are legally given the title of mommy and daddy to our little girl and her baby brother, we are especially aware of God’s grace in our lives. The words “I am a daughter” hit us deep in several ways.

Over and over in scripture, the position we see the people of God in prior to salvation is that of an orphan. We are wandering and fatherless. Spiritually, we are dead. We are removed from any sort of fellowship and community that benefits us in a spiritual way. Paul tells us that once we were far off but that now because of Jesus, we are His children.

In the same breath, Jesus in the book of John diagnoses us as orphans and cures us of fatherlessness. John 14:18 says: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

It is good news when a child is welcomed into a family. A family becomes aware of a need, then learns of a specific child and does all they can to prepare themselves and their home to welcome this child. What could be better than that? Let me tell you.

What is better than that is that long before we even knew we were lost… even before it ever sank in to us that we were spiritual orphans, God knew. Not only did He know, but He accomplished adoption for us, presented us with a grace so wonderful, and welcomed us in. Ephesians says this: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”(1:3-4 ESV)

We were wandering fatherless. With less eternal and earthly hope than those who find themselves removed from a home and Christ rescued us.

As overwhelming and exciting as it was for me to say “yes baby, you are a daughter indeed”, it cannot compare to the joy we take in being called the sons and daughters of the one true God.

Adoption is a beautiful picture and opportunity to see the Gospel played out while we live on this earth.