Adoption is hard enough here in NSW...

Today I had to read through the gigantic 'Adoption Act 2000: No 75'. It is boring and tedious and very thorough. I am doing it for a family who have expressed interest in adopting a young child that they are caring for. After reading the Adoption Act I do not envy the road they are about to travel, it will be long, hard, tireing and expensive. The NSW State government makes very few things easy, but adoption is one of those things that is especially hard!

But why make adoption so hard? Its a good thing isn't it... is anyone really against people adopting kids that they're caring for, it just makes sense.

Well adoption is so hard, because adoption is a very big deal, and it is a very big deal because it is a complete new identity for the child being adopted: This child is now wholly the child of their adoptive parents, the child usually takes on the adoptive parent's surname and if the adoptive parents have any other kids then they become 'whole blood siblings' to the child. The decision is a big deal because it changes who the child is.

Then, cap it off, to make it certain, the child is printed a new birth certificate. Adoption is a big deal.

The road to get there is long and tough, but the result is something truly amazing.

The Bible talks about us as being adopted by God. "In love he predestined us to be adopted as his children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves." (Ephesians 1:4b-6)

God, in accordance to his pleasure and will desired to adopt us. Not through the NSW courts, no he adopted us by forsaking his own son to die on a cross for the sins that we commited. Through the cross has God secured our adoption into his family...

We are now wholly the children of God, we have taken on the name of God, God's son Jesus, raised from the dead is now not only our King, but our whole blood brother!

Finally, we are not simply given a new birth certificate, we are given a new birth, we have a new life, a new beginning, we start afresh. If you are in Christ, you are truly born again as a child of God.

To the praise of his glorious grace...