Worth

Jesus was put to death - actually He surrendered Himself to death - so that we might have new life in Him. If we accept Him as our substitute for us on the cross, then we can experience new life expressed through us. Romans chapter 8 says:
13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father."

We have been brought into the family of God because of what Jesus did for us on the cross and through His resurrection.  We were spiritually separated from God, but we have been brought near because of what our Savior has done for us. We deserved eternal punishment, but we have been granted eternal life - we are alive in Him!  During this Holy Week, we can reflect on what He has done for us and rejoice that we have new life through Jesus Christ.

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As we begin this Holy Week thinking together about what Jesus has done for us, bringing us into a relationship with our Heavenly Father, we can reflect on these words from Galatians 4:
4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!"

Jackie Darby was found - literally.  Left to die in a garbage dump in South Korea, she was rescued by a family of missionaries, according to an article at the Faithwire website. 

The article relates:

“Rats were eating on my … little body,” Darby, who has a new book titled “Whose Am I? The Truth About Your Worth and Identity in Christ,” told CBN News. “But the Lord God sent a missionary nurse who found me, and rescued me, and took me to a local orphanage that was also run by missionaries.”

That miracle rescue led her to be adopted by missionaries in America who already had five biological children of their own, but who felt called by God to bring her into their home.

“After they read an article about post-war babies in the local newspaper, that’s how the Lord touched their hearts for adoption,” she said.

But, a relevant question haunted Jackie throughout her life, "...why was I thrown in the garbage?”

A Christian Post article says that at age 22, Jackie had a transformative moment in her life as she wrestled with her purpose, saying that on a plane, as she looked out the window...

"...I said, ‘God, if You're the God that I've heard of my whole childhood, my whole life up to this point, You have to come into my life and make yourself real, I will do whatever you want. Just please take over my life,’” she recalled. “I felt like, at that point, I had made some pretty bad decisions. I was really, really struggling with my worth, my identity, who I was, and why I was even on this Earth to begin with. I always felt like a piece of garbage. I always told myself I shouldn't be here. I should have died. I was thrown away.

But at that moment, I knew that God is faithful and He heard my prayers. He came into my heart and my life. He took over. I just had to listen and do the things He was asking me to do. That was the beginning of my journey, my relationship with the Lord, and when my life began to really transform, but it has been a process.” 

The story states that: 

Eventually, Darby was able to come to a place of forgiving her birth parents for abandoning her. When she moved to Fort Myers, Florida, she joined a church and found significant support in her youth pastors, who introduced her to the love of Christ.

It was during a Bible study about forgiveness, Darby realized she needed to forgive her birth mother: “I always blamed her,” the author shared. She confided in her youth pastor's wife, Laurie, about her desire to forgive, and Laurie, an adoptive mother herself, helped Darby through the forgiveness process.  

As Faithwire reports, Jackie and the co-author of Whose Am I?, Aixa de Lopez, through a local church, began to develop a relationship.  Jackie and Aixa's adopted daughter, Darly, developed a special bond. The article says:

“[Darby] and her daughter would come over, take the kids to McDonald’s, and then do some crafts at her place,” de López said. “And then my kids started to relax around her, and especially my younger little [Darly] who’s pictured in the book started to have these deeper conversations with Jackie.”

Faithwire goes on to report: 

“We don’t know much about [Darly’s] origin story, just as Jackie doesn’t know almost anything about hers,” de López said. “And so they’ve connected in that very sore point. But it’s been a healing balm for my daughter to be able to see … this adult bearing fruit for the Lord, having her own family.”

Out of these conversations grew the children's book, Whose Am I?  Jackie Darby states: "our heart’s desire is this book would be used as a tool to open up very honest and sometimes complicated conversations for parents or adults to be able to talk to their kids about the word adoption, about the beauty of adoption,” adding, “Not just adoption here on this Earth, but about their spiritual adoption.”

As we begin this week's journey through Holy Week, we can reflect on how we have been adopted into the family of God because of what Jesus did for us through His death and resurrection. What He suffered, He suffered for us.  He faced punishment for what He did not do so that we could be spared the punishment for what we did do.  He has rescued us from the garbage dump of sin and brought us into a life of love and purpose.  

Now, we are part of a dynamic family of God, called and empowered to demonstrate His love to a world that needs hope.  Just as Jackie Darby discovered hope for her life, we can be the vessels whom God will use to minister that hope. We can think about the One who suffered and died out of His great love for us, who can fill our hearts with love and give us a desire to serve Him and the people to whom He has directed us.