Baby, Oh Baby! Lost & Found at the Cross

Here is the transcript of my life story.

“It’s a girl!”

So began my life in a hospital located right beside a lake where unwanted baby girls were drowned, near Bangalore, India. Fortunately for me, in a country where over 50 million baby girls are missing through gendercide, my birth mother chose life! I can only imagine the horror of life as an orphan if left abandoned after birth. I was then adopted at 10 months old, just six months after my severely traumatized six year old brother. He had seen his birth-mother take her life by setting herself on fire, and suffered from severe RAD and PTSD. We were given love, family, encouragement and a future in the US with our new “forever family”, and more importantly, the hope of an eternity with Jesus.

My adoptive parents felt God’s call to adopt, as it stands as a testimony reflecting the heart of the gospel, where God adopts each one of us who repents and accepts His free gift of forgiveness through His Beloved Son Jesus’ death on the cross. Just as Christians become a part of God’s forever family, my brother and I would become a part of their “forever family”. However, my family and I faced much rejection from other Indian families and friends because orphans are deemed less valuable than their biological peers with bad “karma”.  Adoption is discouraged in Indian society.

During the teen years, my world started spinning around me as life overwhelmed me. I struggled with the primary trauma of losing my birth-mother, and the secondary trauma of living under my older brother’s severe suffering. Everyone around me seemed to have easy, perfect lives. I had many deep questions but no answers. Why would God allow me to be abandoned? Who was I? Where did I belong? What were my roots? Why couldn’t I meet my birth family?

I was angry at Jesus and at my adoptive parents, and began rebelling. Meanwhile, God in His grace miraculously touched and transformed my older brother’s life. He had suffered for eleven years, and our family had struggled much along with him. God’s touch on His life was awesome and complete. But I didn’t care. I was angry. My brother had been my ally in suffering, yet now he had left me behind. I felt like I was living a nightmare and was lost and alone. During my high school years, I didn’t even feel alive. I was functioning on the outside but was broken, hurting and alone on the inside. I didn’t know what to do and I collapsed. My brother’s engagement was the tipping point when I was done for it seemed like life wasn’t worth it as anyway, everyone I loved were going to abandon me.

My parents persisted day and night, pleading and interceding on my behalf. My Mom and Dad can tell you how many sleepless nights they spent on her knees. They had decided that I was their daughter and so they let me know that they weren’t giving up without a fight.

And as always God truly does work in mysterious ways. As of October of 2016, I rededicated and surrendered my life to Christ, and have been continually learning to love, learn and grow in him. I have learnt that I have a long way to go, but He is a God who specializes in loving us through our messes.

All of us have sinned and rebelled and fallen short of God’s glory – we are ALL spiritual orphans. God took it upon Himself to pay the price to redeem us adopting us sinful and broken as we were into His family, giving us a brand new identity as His daughters, making us co-heirs with Jesus. I hope each one of you here has believed and been adopted into His family today! If not please talk to me. With this incredible gift that we have received, He calls us to give back!

Now, If I were to ask a room of you the question, “Are you pro-life”, I am sure that most of you would raise your hand- but the numbers significantly dropped when discussing adoption or foster care. I have come to realize that being pro-life as defined by God’s standards to support the life that is created from conception to life’s final breath, and adoption plays a huge role in being pro-life.

John Piper, a well-renowned pastor and theologian states that, “Adoption in God’s mind was not Plan B. He predestined us for adoption before the creation of the world. Plan A was not lots of children who never sin and never need to be redeemed. Plan A was creation, fall, redemption, adoption so that the full range of God’s glory and mercy and grace could be known by his adopted children. Adoption was not second best. It was planned from the beginning.”

In fact in the book of Ephesians 1:4-6, it states: He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

There is no way around it. Adoption is the heart of the gospel to help love children like me in hard places become a human reflection of God’s love. Throughout scripture, God has called people to care for orphans.

So how did this translate to our own lives today?

I would really encourage each one of you to develop a culture of orphan care and adoption in your own families, but specifically adoption as it gives a child a forever home. It is one of the hardest things that you and your family might be apart of and do, but can also make an eternal difference to a child like me, who would have otherwise had no hope in both this life and in eternity.

For starters, I would encourage you to come and help in a conference  which helps give refreshment and rest to those people who have adopted and fostered children. The parents are usually on the frontlines of the battle fighting for their children with often no rest- this is a time to rejuvenate them and help them feel the love of Christ. Maybe you can sponsor a family to go, pray for them, provide them with childcare or bless them with a gift card, bag, vacation, cash, etc. Over 1500 parents attend from all around country and there is a need for over 600 volunteers to be Christ’s hands and feet to them. Or find an adoptive or foster family in your school,  church, neighborhood, co-op, or at your extracurricular activity center and encourage them with kind words, meals, housekeeping, organizing, gifting them a date night, etc. Lean towards and embrace these families not away from them because you perceive them as different. Let God show you how to care – it’s critical, it’s needed. My family would not be standing but for God using the few who loved us enough to care. And maybe, just maybe, God will then ask you to step into the world of one lost precious child whom you can call your own!

Its still a painfully hard journey and Satan tempts me to slip back into my brokenness and loss. I have a long road of healing ahead and I can come through victorious only with Jesus’ help. So, please pray for me that I will find my identity and hope in Christ alone!

As 1 John 3:1 states: See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!