Adopted for a Purpose

By Pauline Youd

Bereft of family and country during his crucial teen years, could Joseph be true to his upbringing? Would Moses, living in wealth and opportunity, even remember his family still in slavery? Living in the temple, would little Samuel choose to embrace the vacillating morality around him or to listen to God call him? After winning the king's beauty pageant and becoming his new wife, would Esther risk all to reveal who she really was?

Written primarily for children ten years and up, Adopted for a Purpose is also an encouragement to both birth parents and those who adopt, as it affirms and underscores God's care and unique purposes in adoption.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pauline Youd
• Release date: Mar 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458023605

Pauline Youd

I like to write, read, teach, sing, play the piano, swim, cook, play in the yard, and walk by the ocean. I prefer coloring books to plain paper, summer to winter, daytime to nightime, and morning to afternoon. I like large families, but I prefer to visit with one friend at a time. I love to study the Bible and discuss what God is doing in the world today, but I can't handle really scary adventure novels. I am more interested in people and animals than in rocks and plants. I tutor reading and writing and prefer second graders. I live with my husband Bill and cat Sasha in the center of California.

Book preview

Adopted for a Purpose

By Pauline Youd

Smashwords Edition Copyright © 2011 by Pauline Youd

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Contents:

Each One Unique

Never Bitter

A Scepter or a Rod

Twice a Gift

Chosen to Reign, Chosen to Serve

Adopted as God's Child

EACH ONE UNIQUE

From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Psalm 22:10 (NIV)

Although my father and my mother have forsaken me, yet the Lord will take me up (adopt me as His child). Psalm 27:10 (Amplified Bible)

Why couldn't my parents keep me? What were the circumstances of my birth? What are my real ‘roots’?

This book may not answer all your personal questions about adoption for that’s not its real purpose. It does show, however, how God uses what we may regard as unfortunate circumstances for His greater purposes.

Each of the four Bible characters, Joseph, Moses, Samuel, and Esther, was taken by God from his birth parents and raised by someone else. Joseph was actually cast out upon God alone. An Egyptian Pharaoh's daughter rescued ad reared Moses. Eli, the priest, took the responsibility of caring for Samuel. Esther lived with her older cousin.

Each character left his birth family at a different age in life. Joseph was seventeen years old; Moses, an infant. Samuel was a young child of, perhaps, five years. The Bible does not tell Esther’s age, but she was likely a pre-teen.

Each character left his or her birth family under different circumstances. Joseph’s jealous brothers sold him as a slave. Moses' mother put him where the Egyptian Pharaoh's daughter could find him, in order to save his life. Samuel's mother took her son to the temple to live and learn, according to the promise she had made to God, if he would give her a son. Esther lived with her cousin, Mordecai, because her parents had died.

What happened to each of these people? Joseph entered a foreign land where his belief in the one true God was not taught. He didn’t have any other believers around him; still, he began to live out his faith where God put him. Moses, from the time he was weaned, lived in Pharaoh's courts and had the best Egyptian education available. He didn't know until he was an adult that he was a Hebrew or that he had been adopted. Samuel knew his family, but he only saw them once a year when they came to visit him at the temple. Eli, the priest, became his guardian, and guided him to his special purpose as Israel’s last judge and the anointer of Israel’s first king. Esther's family had been taken captive when Jerusalem was conquered by the Babylonians. Esther was born into this refugee family, but when her parents died, leaving Esther an orphan, Mordecai, her older cousin, adopted her. Mordecai shrewdly helped Esther become queen of Persia.

With this brief introduction, let's begin these fascinating stories. As you read, you’ll probably discover some of your own circumstances. You may find some comfort, some courage, and some challenges along the way. Perhaps you’ll learn to trust God more with your life when you see how God worked in the lives of Joseph, who never became bitter because of his circumstances; Moses, who used everything God brought into his life; Samuel, whose pure devotion to God inspired a nation; and Esther, who allowed God to guide her by His coincidences.

NEVER BITTER

I

You might describe Joseph’s family as both blended and dysfunctional. Joseph was the eleventh son of Jacob, but he was also the first son born of Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife.

Joseph’s father, Jacob, had worked for seven years to win Rachel as his bride, but when his new wife removed her veil on their wedding night, Jacob discovered he had married Leah, Rachel's older sister. His father-in-law, Laban, had tricked him, claiming that it was not right for the younger daughter to marry before the older one. He said if Jacob really wanted Rachel, too, he could have her, but only if Jacob consented to serve him for seven more years. Brokenhearted, Jacob agreed and ended up with two wives.

To make matters worse Leah began to have children, but Rachel did not.

See, I have given Jacob a son, Leah announced.

She, in fact, gave Jacob four sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. With each successive birth, Rachel became more anxious and envious. Of course, Leah didn't make things easier.

I don't believe you'll ever bear children, she taunted.

Rachel couldn’t stand it any longer. She decided to use her maid as a surrogate mother. If she has children, I can take them as my own, she thought.

So Rachel sent Bilhah, her maid, to Jacob. Bilhah conceived and bore a son she named Dan. Then she had another son, Naphtali. But when Leah saw what Rachel had done, she, too, sent her maid, Zilpah, to Jacob. Zilpah bore a son and named him Gad. Then she had a second son she named Asher. In time, Leah became pregnant again. Over the next few years she bore two more sons, Issachar and Zebulun, and one daughter, Dinah. Jacob now had ten sons and one daughter!

Finally, Rachel had children of her own: Joseph and Benjamin. This completed Jacob's family and this was the home in which Joseph was reared, where each member had his own complaints about the family dynamics. Joseph had ten older brothers, one older sister, and one younger brother, but he was still the first-born son of his father's favorite wife.

Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other sons. In fact, Jacob singled Joseph out by giving him a long coat with sleeves, unlike the short, sleeveless tunics his brothers wore.

As Joseph grew, God began to give him dreams and Joseph took delight in telling them to his brothers and father as they sat around the evening fire.

I dreamed my brothers and I were binding sheaves of grain in the field. My sheaf stood upright and all the others bowed to it, Joseph declared.

He’s saying one day we will bow to him, the brothers grumbled among themselves, and their jealousy towards this favorite son grew.

Not many nights later, Joseph bragged about another dream. I dreamed the sun, moon and stars bowed to me.

Enough of this! his father roared. Are your mother and I to bow down to you along with your brothers?

One day Jacob sent Joseph on an errand to check on his brothers who were pasturing their flocks some distance from home. Looking up, the brothers saw Joseph coming toward them, dressed in his long coat.

Here comes the dreamer, one called out.

The brothers huddled together and plotted how to get rid of Joseph.

We’ll kill him and tell our father some ferocious beast has eaten him, they agreed.

Joseph approached in his usual casual manner. The brothers surrounded him.

Get him!

Hold him!

They jumped on Joseph and pinned him to the ground.

Take his coat!

Kill him!

No! shouted Reuben, the oldest brother. Throw him in that empty pit. We need to figure out how to do this. After all, I’m the one who must tell our father.

The brothers stripped Joseph of his