No Such Thing as Adoption without Suffering

Dan Cruver:

Romanticizing adoption is so very easy and tempting to do. 

But adoption always involves suffering. Just ask any birthmother or a child who is one of three hundred orphans in a Chinese orphanage or an adoptive couple who has lived with infertility for years or an adoptive couple who is experiencing the high ups and low downs of the adoption process. Sometimes the suffering is deeply intense and ongoing—like that of an orphan languishing each day in a nightmarish orphanage—while other times it’s the heavy heart of the coupled waiting to bring their child home. There is no such thing as adoption without suffering. 

The same thing is true of our adoption by God. The adoption to which we were predestined (Eph. 1:5) could not have happened without Jesus redeeming us “through his blood” (Eph. 1:7). There is no such thing as being adopted into God’s family apart from the suffering of Jesus. Jesus cried “Abba! Father!” in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:36) so that we could become sons of God who cry “Abba! Father!” by the Spirit (Rom. 8:15). Our adoption necessarily involved suffering—infinitesuffering.

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