Adoption

Adopted

2 days old
tiny, helpless, new
loved but alone
waiting

man and wife
hurting but loving
wanting a child
needing each other
love to give

4 days old
going home
mommy and daddy
only child
loved, wanted, chosen

I'm adopted. That's a personal thing to share I guess. I don't think much about protecting this information, though it doesn't come up too often in conversation, I'm open.

I am blessed. I was adopted at 4 days old by a family who wanted, loved and cared for me and still does to this day. We are a family. I could not have chosen a better family if the Lord had allowed me to. I can share many memories and events that speak to how blessed I am.
If you've known me very long you probably have already heard some of them, and even some of the ways, like families do, they drive me crazy.

That's not why I'm talking about adoption though. I'm led to share because there is a thread of rejection that weaves all those who were adopted together. Rejection. How can you feel rejected when you were chosen? When, like my Daddy still says when he talks about my adoption, "you were handpicked", how can you possibly feel rejected? I don't know how really, I just know you do. We do. Every person I've ever met, heard a story about, watched that show on TV where people are reunited with there birth parent or siblings, I see and hear that thread, that feeling of unwantedness. That knowledge that before we were chosen, we were rejected.

I felt it for as long as I knew I was adopted. My parents have always been open about it. I don't remember the first time they told me I've just always known. But no matter how much I was loved and cared for, somewhere in the back of my mind I still felt rejected. I wondered what I could have done, though I was just a baby, new and blameless, for my birth mother and father to have given me away. What was wrong with me?

As I grew up I went from being hurt or sad to confused and angry. Then, when I was 16 I met a girl about my age, who had put her baby up for adoption. I didn't know her when this happened, we met a year or so later when we were on the same sports team. She didn't know I was adopted and one day, on the way to a game, she started telling me about all this. She got pregnant, she couldn't keep the baby so she put it up for adoption. It was a girl, the family was nice, they send her pictures of the little girl through the lawyer who handled it all. She's says the little girl is pretty, has dark hair and the family is happy. But the next thing she says changed my heart forever. I know now that God orchestrated that conversation to heal my heart. I will never forget it and share it every time God leads me to in the hope that He will use my experience to heal more hearts, encourage more adoptions, inspire life and hope instead of fear and death.

She says, "if I had to do it over again, I would have an abortion". I don't remember all that she said after that, something about, stretch marks and labor pains, etc. I just burst into tears. I couldn't help it. For the first time I finally knew that my birth mother had to love me. She loved me enough to have me. She loved me enough to give me life and give me away. I was not rejected, I was gifted with life and love. I still remember saying, calmly even if through tears, when she asked me why I was crying, "I was adopted and if my mother thought that way, I wouldn't be here right now".

I wasn't mad at her, I was relieved to understand and appreciate the gift that I was given for the first time. I came to understand more, especially after having children of my own. Life is a gift of grace. God has a plan for each life, each child, even if we can't imagine it because the situation we are in is too painful or difficult for us to see what that plan might be.

Love is a gift of choice. We have to choose to give it. I am so thankful I was given life and love. I pray that I make God proud, my parents proud (birth and chosen), my husband and children proud of how I choose to live this life I've been given.

It's a work in progress, and I have more to learn but my wounds no longer include rejection. I'm adopted by a loving family but the bigger picture is I'm adopted by the KING! My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! His love and will is perfect and only in Him do I find wholeness and acceptance and peace. I can't earn it, I don't deserve it, HE gives it freely. This is the real gift of life and love. Ask me about His gifts in my life. He comes up in conversation a lot!