On the day after her 21st birthday, Tammy Harris began searching for her biological mother.  When she was two-years-old, she and her brothers were taken from their mother (who had a serious drinking problem) and were adopted by separate families.

Tammy wanted to know the identity of her mother.  “I felt like I was incomplete,” she said. “I didn’t know whose eyes I had.  I didn’t know where my big feet came from.  I wondered who I looked like.”

“I knew they [her parents] were out there, and I wanted to find them before they died.”

Meanwhile, Joyce Shultz had been looking for her biological daughter for almost 20 years, to no avail.

Harris and Shultz worked at the same convenience store.  One day, Harris was talking with another co-worker about her search for her mother.  The co-worker asked if she was having any luck.  Shultz, overhearing part of the conversation, asked, “Luck about what?”

Harris told her about her search and produced her birth certificate to show to her.  Upon seeing it, Shultz immediately knew that Harris was her daughter.  Shultz did not immediately reveal her identity; she didn’t know how Harris would react.  Instead, she told Harris, “I might know somebody who can help.”  She asked Harris for a baby picture.  She took the picture home and compared it to a baby picture she had; they were a match.

Shultz did not reveal her identity to Harris for three days.  She wondered, “Will she like me?”  She told her boss, Ron Lynch, about the discovery.  Lynch brought the two into his office, so that Shultz could reveal her news.

When Harris walked into the office, she saw Shultz standing by the two baby pictures.  “Are you my mother?” Harris asked.  Shultz said, “Yes.”

“When she said ‘yes,’ I just fell into her arms.  It felt so natural.  We held on for the longest time.  It was the best day of my life.″ *

You and I are “the offspring of God” in that God created us; He created all mankind.  But because of our sins, we became lost and estranged from Him (consider the Prodigal Son in Luke 15).  But God never stopped loving us and wanting us to “come home.”

In order to “come home,” our sins had to be “paid for.”  God paid the price for our redemption by giving His one and only Son to die on the cross for our sins (1 Peter 1:18-19).  The means of reconciliation was accomplished when Jesus died for us.

In order to “come home,” we must accept God’s offer of redemption.  We must place our faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from our sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and be baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).  Then, as we continue to walk in the light of His Word, the blood of Jesus continues cleanse us from sin and keep us in fellowship with God (1 John 1:7-9).

Our sin separates us from God (Isaiah 59:1-2), but God still loves us and wants us to “come home.”  If we’ll humble ourselves and accept His offer of redemption, we’ll find that He’s been lovingly, patiently waiting for us the whole time.  When we obey the Gospel, He will warmly say, “Welcome home.”

It will be the best day of your life.

-- David A. Sargent

* Information gleaned from “Daughter Finds Biological Mother is Co-Worker” by David Reed in www.apnews.com, March 5, 1991.

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David A. Sargent, Minister

Church of Christ at Creekwood 
1901 Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama  36695

Archived issues of Living Water can be viewed and accessed from our website at: www.creekwoodcc.org