大象传媒

Courtrooms are scary. Fourteen years ago I found myself in one for the very first time. I was wearing my best suit but nothing could hide how nervous I was feeling. My wife and children were standing beside me holding their breaths, and even the toddler in my arms had stopped squirming. All our lives were about to change forever. Apparently judges get nervous too. As I stood there that day the designated judge told us how hard it was to separate children from their families. 鈥淏ut today I am helping to create a family鈥�, he said with a smile, before formally agreeing that we could adopt the toddler we had been fostering.听

听

We then embarked on what would be the most challenging, but also the most rewarding periods of our lives. We walked with our daughter through her trauma, and learned to see the world through each others eyes. As a Christian, adoption plays a double function in my life. Not only has it shaped my relationship with my daughter, but it also changed the way I understood my relationship with God. The Bible puts it like this:听鈥淲hen the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son鈥� to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.鈥澨�

I believe God doesn鈥檛 adopt us into his family on a whim. Or because he is bored or lonely. Or because he needs a child. He adopts us because we need him. This was one of the most revolutionary life-affirming things I have ever heard. Whatever we have done, and whatever has been done to us, we are still welcomed by God himself as his children. He walks with us and we learn to see the world through his eyes. Today is the beginning of National Adoption Week. People of all faiths and none are being encouraged to consider stepping up to adopt the many children in the UK who are currently in need of the ongoing love and support of a family. It is not something to be undertaken lightly, but, fourteen years after I stood nervously in the courtroom, I cannot help but recommend it.听