My Redeemer

Last week was the twenty-sixth anniversary of my adoption.

I can only remember seeing my biological father twice during my childhood. I think both times were within the same week... I'm not sure. I was around the age of five. My aunt -his sister- was getting married and we were both on the guest list. I knew I would see him that day. My mom pointed him out to me. I remember waiting with several kids that I did not know to greet him. I remember worrying he wouldn't know who I was. He did. I sat next to him during the ceremony. He gave me a butterscotch lifesaver. I don't remember much about the other visit. He had a step-son and a daughter. I wondered why he wanted them and not me. I wondered what was wrong with me. During that visit, he gave me a jewelry box with a tiny little ring in it: my birthstone. I still have that jewelry box.
 
By the age of nine, he was little more than a fading memory. I felt rejected, unwanted. I dreamed he would want me someday. I longed for a relationship with him. I wanted so much for him to want me. When my mom told me my step-dad wanted to adopt me I agreed to be his daughter. I wish I could say that I felt honored, but in all honesty, I felt like my greatest fears were confirmed. My dad didn't want me. He had agreed to let me be someone else's daughter. I kept hoping he would show up at our doorstep and stop the adoption process. It was a confirmation: I wasn't good enough. I felt that rejection to my core.

We celebrated my adoption, but there was a heaviness in my heart. I started calling my step-dad "Dad" that day. I learned to spell my new last name. Those were the only real changes I recall. I didn't feel different. My adoption was a salve spread thinly over a gaping wound. I understood it was what was best for me, but it did little to ease the pain.

It is easy to miss God at work in our lives. When I was a heart-broken nine-year-old girl, I could not see God's hand on me. I despaired. I mourned what might have been. I grieved for a relationship I never had with a daddy I never knew. I could not discern the complexities of the situation as I can now, just as the understanding I have as an adult can not change what I felt as a child and how it shaped me into who I am today.

I could not see that when my birth father took his hand off of me, when he decided it was better if he was not a part of my life, God had already chosen my redeemer. He had already aligned my future with His will. He had made a provision for me. His hand was on me the entire time. So great was His faithfulness that He provided me not only a redeemer, but also a "Dad", a tangible hand, a reassuring smile, and a provider. I couldn't see that the salve I had discounted was working slowly, over time, to heal that deep, raw wound in my heart.

That wound is tender to this day. I still think about my birth father. I still play with the idea of a relationship with him. I have had contact with him twice since then. There will always be a place in my heart reserved solely for him.

Yet I appreciate my "Dad" now more than ever. Our relationship was never perfect. We aren't especially close. I never felt like he adored me as a child. Somehow, that makes his faithfulness even sweeter. He accepted me, my adolescent awkwardness, my teenage attitude, and my need to be clothed, fed, cared for, and loved. I had no claim over him. He was in no way obligated to me. There was no way for me to deserve his provision.

He gave it freely, no strings attached. My entire youth was an act of human compassion and kindness on his part. Every single day He gave what I could never deserve. The man I took for granted, that felt like second-best to a broken-hearted little girl, was more than I could have ever asked for. While I was busy longing for my heart's desire, God sent me what He desired for me; He sent me what I needed.





"The Lord bless him!" Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. "He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead." She added, "That man is our close relative; he is one of our kinsman-redeemers." Ruth 2:20