Adopted for Life

One of the best books I've ever read is Russell Moore's Adopted for Life.  Today on his blog, Moore reflects on the past ten years since he and his wife walked out of a Russian orphanage with their two boys.  He writes:

As I’ve written in the book, God used this experience to upend my whole life. He taught me much about his Fatherhood, much about the gospel, much about community, and much about the mission of the church. But people sometimes ask me, “In the years since, what have you learned about becoming a family through adoption?”

The main thing is that convictions forged there in the July heat of the former Soviet Union have only crystallized more. As the father of five now, some by that adoption and some by the more typical way, I’m as convinced as ever that adoption, into a family or into the Family of God, is “real.” There is no such thing in God’s economy as an “adopted child,” only a child who was adopted into the family. “Adopted” defines how you came into the household, but it doesn’t define you as some other sort of family member. In the Book of Romans, Paul defines all Christians, both Jew and Gentile, as having received a common “spirit of adoption” (Rom. 8:15; 9:4).

I'd encourage you to check out the full post, where he talks some about the difficulties of adoption.  Also, as he does in the book, he writes about what the past ten years have taught him about the Church.