It is strange, this ability to love someone whose face we haven’t seen. You could say that we love the idea of her, but that wouldn’t quite hit the mark. We love Lillian Isabella Keith. We do not know what her face looks like, we do not know in which region of her country she resides. We do know that God asked us to love a little one we never met. We know that he asked us to prepare a place for her, to sacrifice our ease and comfort for her. He asks us to pray for her daily, asking our Father to give her favor with the nannies at the orphanage, that she will be fed and held and looked at and loved. He asks us, in short, to act like Christ.
After all, isn’t that what adoption is all about? Mirroring Christ’s love for us? Before He formed us in the womb, He knew us (Jer. 1:5). Because He knew us, He also loved us (Rom. 8:29). He gave up his ease and comfort in heaven to meet us in our miserable world and rescue us (Isaiah 53). He went before us to our home, and prepares a place for us (John 14:3). Even now, He sits beside His Father, praying faithfully for us while we have to be apart (Rom. 8:34, Heb. 7:25)
We love, because He first loved us.