Many of you know that my Brother/Sister in law recently adopted a precious baby from China. When I say precious....I mean Precious. Kissable and totally adorable. We have been praying for her arrival for over 3 years now. To finally hold her this past weekend was crazy. Surreal for sure....but oh so special. The kids were very excited about meeting their new cousin as well. They enjoyed holding and playing with Addie as well.
You can see here...that she already loves her big cousins;
When Ken, Kelly and Alec were in China, they were able to visit the province where Addie was born and they received lots of personal information on Addie as well. Part of Addie's story is heartbreaking. She was found abandoned and alone at a train station when she was only a day old. Can you imagine? Abandoning your child? Or even finding out that was your beginning as a baby? Both situations are hard to comprehend. While we can't imagine leaving our child at a train station - I doubt any of us can conceive the living conditions in China and how they dictate to our families how we can live and the children we can raise within our families. However, that is the way our Addie began her little life.
Within the last year, we have prayed over this little girl. Not knowing her name or seeing a face - but knowing there was a baby out there that Ken and Kelly would soon be a mommy and daddy to. Early on, Ken and Kelly asked us to pray that she was held,was healthy, loved on, cared for and even for the birth mother. God was totally in control. He took care of this little girl and she was found at that train station and placed in a foster home. She was loved on and cared for, just like we prayed. She is now, safe at home....in a cozy bed....a long way away from being abandoned at the train station. Here is a snap shot of Addie's cozy bed.
When God blesses....he blesses big.
Ever since I heard how Addie was originally found and thinking about where she is now....I can't help but to compare that to us. I mean - we are all adopted as Christians. I love 1 John 3:1 and how it describes us as Children of God.
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
It doesn't matter where we've been....where we were left or where we have been living. God calls to us through his love and gift of Jesus Christ - we can all find adoption into his family. And he blesses and cares for us more than we could ever imagine. He loves us that much. As much as I know Ken, Kelly and Alec will love Addie....God loves her even more. That's a whole lot of love!
Please continue to pray for this little girl as she bonds with her new family. Pray that she grows in the grace of our Lord and feels loved and cared for every day of her life. Pray that when she is old enough to learn of her story that she will see God's amazing hand in her life and how he loves and cares for her every need.
Romans 8:10-16 (The Message)
9-11But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!
12-14So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!
15-17This Resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!
