This was shared from the Blog of Sherrie Eldridge, adult adoptee and professional adoption speaker and author of, “Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew”, and “Twenty Things Adoptees Are Asking”. Mrs. Eldridge addresses the spiritual needs of Adoptees. It is important for adoptees to have their needs validated by those who care for them the most. If you are an adoptee or know an adoptee who could benefit from adoption-related counseling through ChristianWorks for Children, please contact Janet Johnson LCSW, LCPAA, Director of AdoptionWorks at jjohnson@christian-works.org or (972) 960-9981 for more information.
You can read more articles written by Sherrie at http://sherrieeldridge.blogspot.com/
Adoptees’ Special Needs: Spiritual Needs
“I need to know the true timeline of when my life as an adoptee began.“
Dear friends,
I wish you could all be a fly on the wall during our All-Adoptee Boot Camp. Why? You would hear the innermost fear of the adopted person--Is my life a mistake?
Parents, how are you going to answer your child? Where can you find an answer that will soothe his/her heart? This is the deepest, darkest shame possible and none of your children would admit it to you. Trust me, MOST adoptees struggle with this question.
What is needed for the questioning child? A spiritual answer. For me, God settled my heart with Scriptures, telling me the truth about my life. Here are a few gems:
1.God’s heart was the place of our conceptions. Our lives began, not at conception, not at birth, not on adoption day, but in eternity past-in the very heart of God Himself. He is our Creator!
Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” Ephesians 1:4-6: “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 Jesus Christ, according to His pleasure and will-to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves.”
2. God is the only One who gives life-not birth mothers, as many believe. Birth mothers give the gift of birth and we are very thankful for their gift, but God receives the glory for all life. He is Life!
John 1:3-4: “Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.”
Psalm 139:13: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
Esther 9:6b: “You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship You.”
3. God originated adoption, but human adoption and spiritual adoption are not the same. He wants to adopt us!
Ephesians 1: 4-5: “In love He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ.”
4. God says we are all orphans because of our sin (not loving God with our whole heart and soul, every minute of every day). We will be orphans for eternity without Him!
Isaiah 59:2: “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.”
I John 1:10: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
5. God provided a Way when there was no way for us to enter His family. He sent Jesus to pay the penalty for our sin by His death!
John 3: 16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
6. God requires personal trust in Christ’s finished work on the cross to enter His family. He invites us!
Romans 10: 9-11: ” if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.”
7. God knocks on human hearts, wanting to adopt us. He has a divine appointment with you. It is not by chance that you are reading this!
Revelation 3:20: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”
If God is knocking on your heart’s door, you can pray this simple prayer: “Jesus, I realize that my sin has separated me from You and that I will be an orphan for eternity without You. Thank You that for paying the price for my sin when You shed your blood and died on the cross for me. It’s hard to believe that if I were the only person in the world, You would have come for me, but I take Your great love by faith. Please cleanse me from sin and fill me with your Holy Spirit. I take Your gift of my adoption into your forever family by faith. In Jesus’ Name, Amen!”
8. God validates the emotional realities of abandonment. He doesn’t tell us to bite the bullet and go on as if nothing happened. He is compassionate!
Ezekiel 16: 4-7: “On the day you were born, you were dumped out into a field and left to die, unwanted.”
9. God comes to us in our abandonment. He is our Helper!
Ezekiel 16: 4-7: “But I came by and saw you lying there, covered with your own blood.”
10. God calls us to Life and declares His opinion of us. He values us!
Ezekiel 16: 7 ” …and I said, ‘Live! Thrive, like a plant in the field!’ And you did! You grew up and became… a jewel among jewels.”
11. God planned who our biological and adoptive parents would be. He is Lord!
Psalm 139:16: “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
12. God’s love is deeper than any rejection life can throw at you! He engraved our names on His hands!
Isaiah 49: 15-16: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will never forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.”
13. God experienced rejection. He will walk with us if we are rejected!
John 1:11: “He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him.”
14. God holds unanswered adoption questions in His loving hands. He is trust worthy!
Deuteronomy 29:29: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”
15. God offers adoptees an awesome legacy. He wants to be our Father!
Psalm 68:5: “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling.”
16. God promises to hear even the faintest cry of the orphan. He is sensitive!
Exodus 22:22-24: “Do not take advantage of a widow or orphan. If you do, and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.”
17. God preserves the orphan’s life. He is our Protector!
Jeremiah 49:11: “Leave your orphans; I will protect their lives.”
18. God has a unique plan for the orphan in human history. He is Sovereign!
Esther 2:15: “And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”
19. God thinks highly of those who help orphans. He considers it worship!
James 1:27: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
20. God gladdens the orphan’s heart with the bounty of Providence. He is our Provider!
Deuteronomy 24: 17a, 19: “Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice…”When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord may bless you in all the work of your hands.”
21. God opposes unjust laws concerning the fatherless. He is our Advocate!
Isaiah 10:1-2: “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and rob my oppressed people of justice, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.”
22. God cares tenderly for birth mothers. He is close to the broken hearted!
Genesis 21: 16b-19: “And as she (Hagar) sat there nearby, she began to sob. God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, ‘What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.’ Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.”
23. God wants us to offer our broken lives to Him. He sings over us when we do!
II Chronicles 29:29: “And when the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord began also, with trumpets, and with the instruments ordained by King David of Israel.”
24. God told Abraham to let go of contentious birth relatives. He wants us to press on!
Genesis 21:11: “The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. But God said, ‘Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the maid servant into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”
(Copyright 2011, Sherrie Eldridge. No reproduction without permission.)
I hope you enjoy this list, which is also on my web site.
Love to all!
Sherrie
