"...God didn't just create people, speak to people, or direct people. He promised so much more than that: He promised to come be with people. Even better - He promised to come suffer on behalf of people. What other god would do that? What other god would see the problem of sin that his people had gotten themselves into and take the painful solution upon himself? What other god has love like that?
That's what Christmas is all about: a God who loves his people enough to enter their world, face their pain, endure their death, and erase their sin. Even though God knew that the path of His Savior would have to lead to a cross, He took the first step anyway. As God's people waited for Him to come the first time, they were waiting on a God of love to come into the world and right what was wrong."
And to me, that's what adoption is all about. As we traveled to Ukraine and lived there for 2 months, we were there with our children in the homeland in which they were born, with which they were familiar. Every day, twice a day, we'd spend 2 hours with them at their orphanage. Every moment of every day, we were engulfed in their native culture and language. Not only did we go where they were, but their suffering became our suffering. Even after they came to America, their burdens were shared by us all. Their pain became our pain. We were able to do this because of the great love God had already poured into us. Because He had first loved us, we were able to love like Him. God uses those who adopt and those who are helping someone on their adoption journey by having them enter their world, face their pain, help them endure, and journey with them as the sin that hurt them gets erased and redeemed by the Father.
As I write this, my daughter - one of my daughters born in Ukraine - is singing to the top of her lungs a song I sang at our wedding, " For all those time you stood by me...for all the wrong that you made right...for all the love I found in you...I'm everything I am, because you loved me." God has adopted us. He entered our world, and so we are able to enter theirs. He faced our pain, and so we can face the pain of the hurting children God calls us to. He helps us to endure, and so we can help our children to endure. God journeys with us as he erases our sins and redeems all that the sin brought into our lives. And, likewise, we journey with our children who have been hurt prior to adoption, we introduce them to Jesus, and He works out the wonders of redemption. He stands by us, so we can stand by them. He takes our wrongs, so that we can help them know a Jesus that can take their wrongs. We find love in Him, so that we can give love out. We are everything we are because He loves us.
Being made in His likeness becomes more than just a physical attribute. It becomes a lifestyle. We do as Christ has done for us.