Maggie Schwartz, wife of Alan Schwartz (MSI Controller), shares her personal journey.

By Maggie Schwartz

Al and I have friends who recently went to China to adopt a child, Jadon.  I know that adoption is not unusual and foreign adoption has become more popular; we see Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in the papers and TV with their new son from Vietnam.  Gone are the days of people adopting because they are not able to have children of their own.  Yet, as a friend standing and watching them go through the adoption process I will have to admit that it has caused me to stand back and scratch my head and wonder what are they thinking?  Our friends have two beautiful young (5 & 2 years old), healthy, well adjusted boys.  What more could they want?  Have they thought about the emotional and behavioral problems that “adopted” children often have in overcoming the stigma that comes with adoption?  Why fly half way around the world to adopt when there are needy children here in our own country?  The cost of adoption, I can not believe how much they are spending on this!  They don’t have the financial resources of Brad and Angelina; they have two children of their own that they need to be thinking about, and to top it off they are adopting a child with at physical deformity.  Who spends that kind of money for damaged goods?

But, when I pause and step back this adoption makes sense to me.  It reminds me of my own adoption into the family of God.  Ephesians 1:4-5 states, “Even before the world was made, God had already chosen us to be his through our union with Christ, so that we would be holy and without fault before him.  Because of his love God had already decided that through Jesus Christ he would make us his children.  This was his pleasure and purpose.”

I see Jadon’s adoption as a picture of what God did for me.  He knew me and all of my imperfections yet He was willing to pay the ultimate price by sending his perfect son to the cross so that I could be his adopted child.  It seems appropriate that our friends were gone over Easter when we remember Christ’s sacrifice and celebrate his resurrection.

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