This is a true account of how God adopts us into the family of faith (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:5) by way of a personal analogy. On the first day of my first parish assignment as a transitional deacon, I met a single foster mom who had adopted three very troubled older children. She told me their story:
The children were two brothers and a sister, 6, 9 and 11 years old, who over time had been in and out of literally hundreds of foster homes – spending a week here, a few days there, perhaps just an hour over yonder. Foster parents who lasted a full week with them were incomparably more patient than the rest, but then they too gave up. No one wanted them.
As you might imagine, these two brothers and their sister had become hardened cynics even at their young ages, and more familiar with the streets than with any "family." They were convinced that no one would love them, which had been proved to them time and again as so many doors were slammed behind them. Distrusting anyone, they became proficient in showing their worst behavior to everyone.
The single mother who now wanted to adopt these children had come to the parish to ask that they be baptized, which was also their desire. "You are a very strong, charitable woman to want to adopt children of this age," I told her, "since they would surely have been through so many miserable experiences of being rejected in foster homes."
This great woman of faith then recounted that her love for them was also expressed with a firm and consistent correction of them when needed. She said that the predictability gave them a sense of security. They had now been living with her for six months. She hadn't thrown them out on the street.
She told me that the first three months with them seemed scripted by hell. The children showed their worst – breaking the windows, breaking the dishes, taking razors to the carpets and furniture and curtains, and destroying everything they could. They nearly succeeded in burning down her house five times.
Three months into living there, for no particular reason, the children realized that this woman really did love them, that she wasn't going to throw them out on the street, even though they had done their best to show their worst. From that day onward, she told me, they were angels. They were eager to help, wanting to do the dishes, sweep the floor, wash the windows – whatever they could do to show their filial respect and love for her, who they now considered their mom.
Their cynicism had been answered with love. They now knew what it was to be in a family, perhaps for the first time in their lives. More than this, they wanted what this woman had: the faith lived within the family of faith. They couldn't get enough of what it means to be in a family, and in God's family.
This is a good lesson for us all: Always be there for the most vulnerable, and never compromise anyone for the sake of self-congratulatory expedience. The Lord will have this lesson put to the test even daily in our own lives, with others testing God-given faith and love, wanting to see that such faith and love is true within us when tried in this way and that. It's not that people want to be aggravating; it's that they want to be encouraged by seeing the strength of this faith and love in difficult circumstances. Haven't we ourselves done this? Cynicism is cured with the prompt mercy of steadfast friendship with Jesus. We have all had good people in our lives.
When our faith and love are tested, we will surely fail unless we realize that we ourselves have tested the Lord in our sin, showing our worst to Him. He has shown us firm, consistent correction and mercy, giving us a sense of security with the very wounds which we inflicted on His hands and feet and side, in His Heart. We are lost in cynicism until we have an attitude of humble thanksgiving, like that in which the three children of this woman learned to rejoice.
So what is the most awesome adoption story ever? That of the great Woman, clothed with the sun and with the moon under her feet, crowned with 12 stars, and the Church who have adopted us, bringing us right into the family of faith with great joy.
Father George David Byers is administrator of Holy Redeemer Parish in Andrews.