Adopted
Posted by: forthrightmag <forthrightmag@...>
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COLUMN: CONSIDER THE LILIES
Adopted
by Christine Berglund
tinyurl.com/nzszu7k
The garden beds are overflowing with some new additions
lately. A nice sunny spot of color by the peach tree
comes from a new coreopsis, blooming its heart out near
its neighbor, an eye-catching daylily named "Eye to
Eye."
The edge of the patio is now graced by pink frilly
coneflowers, a pink daylily, and a pink lacecap
hydrangea, all from a friend's garden. You might say
I'm tickled pink at the additions!
No, they weren't necessarily extra plants from another
gardener, like many of my other favorites. This friend,
Robin, was moving and was unable to take her babies
with her, at least for now. Her plan is to come and
visit the plants until she is settled, and that's fine
with me. The plants' birth parents are welcome here any
time.
There are many more perennials and shrubs that will
soon find a home in my garden just as soon as the rain
stops. Some are from other gardeners that could not
care for them for lack of space. I have plants of my
own that will go to new gardens for the same reasons.
My bee balm has spread into the area reserved for
irises and asters. Fortunately, I have found a new home
for some of it. Much of it already went to the garden
of my brother and sister-in-law, who like to use it for
medicinal purposes.
Other additions are from generous friends. One such
gardener joked yesterday after giving my friend Tiffany
and me some three dozen daylilies, "See how empty my
garden looks now?" He has 650 daylily varieties, and
no, we did not decimate his beautiful yard.
Adoptions are priceless! We rejoice with a good
Christian family over the recent news that they will
soon adopt two precious orphan girls from Bulgaria,
after a two-year wait. They are ecstatic! Another
family, close to us, has recently mentioned that they
are considering adopting a special-needs child.
The process of choosing to open one's heart and home to
another, deliberately and purposefully, is one of the
ways we as humans display our closeness to the image of
our Creator. It is a love that is so deep that it
defies comprehension, but must be experienced to be
understood fully.
Yet this is exactly what happens to us.
"You have received a spirit of adoption as
sons by which we cry out, 'Abba! Father!'"
(Romans 8:15b, NASB).
Our new relationship with our heavenly Father makes us
want to be close to him. There is no better feeling
than that of belonging. God's love encircles us and
holds us close to him. He cares for us even more
lovingly than I tend and care for my plant adoptions.
"But as many as received Him, to them He
gave the right to become children of God,
even to those who believe in His name; who
were born, not of blood nor of the will of
the flesh nor of the will of man, but of
God" (June 1:12-13).
That "right to become" was paid for at the highest
possible cost–the blood of Jesus. The High Priest
Caiaphas unwittingly prophesied this even as he helped
plot Christ's death.
"Jesus would die for the nation, and not for
the nation only, but in order that He might
also gather together into one the children
of God who are scattered abroad" (John
11:51b, 52).
There are spiritual orphans out there in the world.
People far and wide need to know that there is a Father
who loves them and has paid the steep price for their
adoption.
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