His Master replied, “Well done, good and faithful servant…” Matthew 25:21 (NIV)
Everyone loves a story with a happy ending. It’s the stuff that best-selling books and box office hits are made of. Happy endings lift our spirits and inspire us to dream. They get us started, keep us going, and give us reason to believe.
When families adopt, they too dream of living out a story with a happy ending. And well they should. After all, adoption is full of joys and blessings, and for many, these experiences are the hallmarks of the journey itself.
But there’s just one problem when it comes to our enchantment with happy endings – they don’t always happen. Not in life and certainly not in adoption. Happy endings are far from guaranteed, no matter how much we pray or believe. Even if God has called you to the adoption journey, none of us are promised a fairy tale ending. And far from being a letdown or a depressing thought, this reality can, if we allow it, re-focus our hearts and minds on how God desires the story that He is writing with our lives to unfold.
As we turn the pages of our story with each new day, we discover that the story is full of twists and turns, ups and downs, unexpected lows and unimaginable highs. We quickly come to realize that it is not so much what happens to us that creates the meaning in our story, but what God is doing in and through us. And what He, not us, accomplishes ultimately determines how our story “ends.”
No matter where we are along the adoption journey, we must remember that God’s call, God’s provision, and God’s blessing is not defined by or even reflected in our circumstances. Instead, He has called us to be faithful…and to live in the hope that is able to do so much more than we could ever ask or imagine, according to His power at work in us…until one day we stand face to face and hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” Surely that will be the “happiest ending” of all.
Lord, help me remember Your unending faithfulness and guide me by Your Spirit to respond faithfully in each and every moment as I travel this journey You have called me to. Amen.
By Michael Monroe
