As many of you know, I was adopted at three months old from the country of Georgia. I’m very open about my adoption and my life story. This month of Zimbabwe I got to use that story to further the kingdom. One thing that happened a lot this month was a random “hey tam you’re going to preach today” (about five seconds before they needed someone to preach I might add). So of course I had to come up with something pretty on the spot. My best go to’s were on adoption and how the Lord wants to adopt us into his family. So, here it goes 🙂 The first time I preached on adoption was to a crowed of special needs patients. It was on a beautiful day, everyone came outside to the lawn to listen. It was more of a talk on rejection and how that feels. I asked them who has felt rejected and about all of them raised their hands. That made my heart heavy, these people have probably always been rejected in life. We started taking about how that felt and how unwanted it made them feel. I was rejected by my birth mother, she could not afford to keep me. To some that may seem like a horrible thing, but to me, I count that as gain. i was blessed with one of the best mamas, she is my best friend and has pushes me closer to the lord. If I had not been put up for adoption I would probably not have that same connection with my birth mother. my mama took me as her own, I am hers, and she is mine. I would never change the way things played out. Thats what the Lord did in my life, something that could be perceived as bad, he made it good. That is how our Father in heaven intends it to be. He wants to adopt us into his own family so that we can feel that type of love I felt being adopted into the Mahoney family. No matter the connection we have with our earthly father, at some point he will fail us, but our Heavenly Father never will. It is such a beautiful picture of the lords love for us. In Romans 8:15 it says, “For you did not receive of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out “’Abba, Father”’. This verse speaks so clearly to me. On earth we are tied down to things that bring us fear. That could be fear of life, fear of our parents, fear of about anything. The lord takes us out of that fear and brings us into his arms, a safe place, a place to call home. The last parts of the verse are so beautiful “who we cry out “’Abba Father”’, that is my God, a God of love, not fear, a God who we can cry out to at any time, in good and bad. Why wouldn’t you want to be adopted into a family like that. Just like my mama and dad adopted me out of a life that would not have been good for me, the Lord does that to us, his children. He wants each one of us to join his beautiful family. I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like a pretty good offer. The best part about it, is that it is a free gift, we don’t owe the lord anything. That is how much he cares about us. Take his hand, come out of that bondage, and be adopted into the Lords family if you haven’t already.
love from Zambia, Mara
