Found and forever
Nancy Kennedy
My husband and I have been watching “Major Crimes,” a standard murder-of-the-week show with a tough police captain, a squad of detectives — and, tucked inside the crime investigations, a surprising story about being found and made family.
This series also centers on the relationship between the captain, Sharon Raydor, and Rusty, a teenage boy she adopts when he turns 18.
His birth mother and her abusive boyfriend abandoned him years before at the zoo. He ends up in and out of foster homes and eventually becomes homeless, living on the streets of Los Angeles.
After witnessing a murder and then getting beaten by the murderer, Rusty is placed in Sharon’s protective care before he testifies as a witness in the murder case.
The court case drags on throughout the series, which gives Rusty and Sharon lots of time to bond.
In Rusty’s storyline, he struggles with mistrust of everyone and fear of abandonment. He also wants his birth mother to want him, but she can’t. She wants her drugs more.
Eventually, she relinquishes her parental rights, freeing Sharon to adopt Rusty — if he wants her to.
He does, but he’s afraid, so it’s put on hold.
Then in one episode, Sharon and the entire Major Crimes unit search for a missing girl, and Rusty sees the lengths Sharon goes to find her. Later, he tells Sharon he does want the adoption, even though he’s 18 and about to go off to college and become an adult.
“I like the idea of knowing someone will look for me if I’m ever missing,” he says.
Sharon replies, “Oh, I will look for you. And I WILL find you.”
I love that!
Last week I attended an adoption ceremony of a little girl who was abandoned shortly after her birth and spent the first two weeks of her life in the hospital NICU in withdrawal from the fentanyl, methamphetamines, and other opioids her mother used during her pregnancy.
The couple who adopted this little girl knew the obstacles they faced when she came to live with them as foster parents when she was 3 weeks old, but their love for her and God’s love for them overcame them all.
They named her Jianna, which means “God is gracious.”
At the adoption, the judge told them, “You are now Jianna’s forever parents. She is your daughter.”
In ancient Roman culture, once someone was adopted, it was legally irrevocable. You could, however, disown or even sell your biological children.
The Bible says those who trust in Jesus are adopted by God and that he will never “unadopt” us, no matter what.
“His (God’s) unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by sending Jesus Christ to die for us. And he did it because he wanted to!” (Ephesians 1:5, The Living Bible)
He sent Jesus to look for us, find us, and then bring us into God’s one big forever family.
As one of his adopted kids, I like the idea of knowing someone not only looked for me, but found me, forgave me, redeemed me — and then called me “daughter.”
Permanently. No returns, no exchanges, no “we’ve decided it’s not working out.”
Just forever.Contact Nancy Kennedy at 352-564-2927 (leave a message) or email at nkennedy@chronicleonline.com.
