Sarah

If anyone out there wants one of the sweetest, purdiest, kid-friendliest hound dogs that ever walked the face of the earth, she is available to you over at the Lampasas County Impound. She showed up last weekend out at my parents’ place in Kempner. One look at those gentle brown eyes, and I was in love. And I’m not even a dog person.

My kids spent endless hours romping around with this sweetheart of a beast, whom they named Sarah. She clearly loved the attention, and so did they. She followed them everywhere as they went on Robinhood-style adventures in the deep woods of Mimi and Poppy’s land.

You may be scratching your head and wondering why we didn’t adopt her. Well, it’s like this. We have two dogs already. As I said before, I’m not a dog person. Two dogs is already one over my limit.

And my parents would have kept her. Really, they would have. There was just one problem. Tinker, the cat, didn’t like Sarah. And while Sarah is gentle and sweet-natured, Tinker is a big ol’ mean tomcat bully. Clearly, the relationship was dysfunctional at best and downright violent at worst.

So, in an implementation of the last-hired-first-fired rule, Sarah was let go as a family pet. She is now unemployed, and in need of a position with some wonderful family who will adopt her and bask in all the love she has to offer.

Adoption is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? It evens the playing field. It allows those who could never hope to be a part of a family to become a full-fledged member of that family.

Babe Ruth was adopted. Imagine how proud his parents must have been! And Olympic Gold medallist Scott Hamilton was adopted. Melissa Gilbert, Faith Hill, Marilyn Monroe – all adopted.

Famous blues musician Bo Diddley was adopted, and so was poet Edgar Allen Poe. And one of the people in my own family was adopted as well, though you’d never be able to pick that person out by looking at us.

One of my favorite adoption stories is that of Moses, in the Bible. As an infant, he was plucked out of the river by the daughter of the man who wanted to kill him. She took Moses home to her father, and with a flutter of her eyelashes, she said, “Daddy, I found this little Hebrew baby. Can I keep him? Pretty please, Daddy?”

And of course, what father can say no to his little girl? “Okay. But you have to take care of him,” the Pharaoh told her.

So Moses, who would have been either killed or brought up as a slave, was instead given the finest education and treated like royalty. His circumstances prepared him to be the leader who would help set the Hebrew people free, and to eventually author what we now know as the Ten Commandments.

But the greatest adoption story of all time is my own. I was a nobody, with little hope or prospects for the future. But the King of Kings saw me, and invited me to become His daughter. And He wants to adopt you, as well. All you have to do is accept the invitation.

Ephesians 1:5 “In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.”