Adoption

I am fifteen sixteenths English. On both sides of my family, my forebears came out to Australia after the First Fleet as free-settling farmers. Though in many ways I am wholly Australia, the blood of another land runs in my veins. And though they did not desire it and it was done with violence or the threat of it, the true Australians adopted my people. I am deeply grateful for the privilege of being part of their land. And now, I have landed in another foreign land, expecting its people to adopt me as their own. I look forward to being Chilean, or as nearly as I can.

But I have experienced yet another adoption, even more unlikely and marvelous. I, a Gentile woman, once without God and without hope in the world, have been grafted into the people of God. Their stories, their ancestors, their GOD, have become mine, and all for repenting and believing in the Messiah Jesus. Such a simple act has brought me so much. And one day all of us will live together in heaven in our complexity and harmony, at home.