How Adoption applies to Us

Yesterday, I was reading a devo by Mary Beth Chapman - she's the mom a both biological and adopted kiddos.  She wrote about the first time they were in a foreign land, sitting in the hotel waiting for the adoption officials to bring their new daughter to them for the first time.  She wandered if she would love this child like her others, if the child would cry, how she would react, etc.....She then told of how when they arrived and handed her this baby girl, dressed in worn and dirty garments - that she immediately loved her like her own.  But, more profoundly - that she was also immediately reminded of how much our relationship with God is so similar.  Even on our best days - we aren't any more than filthy children dressed in rags standing before our awesome God  - who has the power to take us into His arms and love us as His own - adopting us into His family to be His child.  What a beautiful picture of redemption.