Tell your brief adoption story.
Adoption for me has always been celebrated growing up in my family and openly talked about. My parents could not have children, and after several years, decided to adopt. I was adopted at around 6 months, and so for me, my adopted parents have been the only parents I’ve known. However, as young as I can remember, they never hid that reality from my sister and I. And every year, we celebrated the day we were adopted into our family like we did our birthday. And that was special.
How has your adoption experience affected your perspective on the adoption industry?
My adoption experience has made it easier to understand how beautiful and powerful love is when openly given from a parent to a child. It does not shy away from the history and complexity of your or the child’s past. Love embraces those complexities and that relationship and decides to walk together within all of it. It is a deep, permeating, sacred love.Looking then at the adoption industry, you see a holy work to transfer the immeasurable value each person has to the core of a child. Each parent who chooses to take up this ministry decides to bring up their children to understand no matter who you are and where you’ve journeyed, you are loved and you are made in the image of the Most High God. I have such high respect for those who adopt.
How did your parents communicate your story to you?
When I was young enough to remember, my parents shared my adoption story to me within some level of detail. We celebrated that story every year just like a birthday. As I got older and grew more curious about who my birth parents were and why they decided to put me up for adoption, they shared openly as much as they knew and offered help.
How has that affected you and your relationship with Christ?
Adoption affected my relationship with Jesus in that it gave it greater meaning and understanding. Jesus and the writers in the New Testament described our joining God’s family with adoption. When before, we were all in separate families, but now to those who believe, we are all one family loved by God. Being adopted into my family on earth allowed me to realize how it felt for myself and others to be God’s in adoption.
Being an adoptee how has that affected pursuing a family with a spouse/kids?
Now having a family and children, my adoption fueled a desire to love those in my home deeply like my parents and God exampled for me. And while I will invest my love in my immediate family, I’ll also create a home for others to find love and acceptance, potentially adopting in the future as well.
In general, what would you like to share with other adoptees or what do you think is important to share about your story?
From my story, one thing I’d share to other adoptees is to remember who you were created in the image of. We were all created in God’s image, which means we both have extravagant value and potential from which we can lead others to love well.