AN ADOPTION STORY

 Have you ever wondered….”Was my life planned?”  Was I a surprise to my parents?   Or, could I have been plan B instead of plan A?   Such thoughts are usually not shared on your birthday while opening gifts. 

My story begins as an unwanted baby who entered this world with the absence of parents. I was an unplanned creation in the womb of a single woman, but, I know that my appearance was right on schedule for my arrival into this world.   Though given away at birth, but I prefer to use the term surrendered upon delivery.   But this relinquishment was so I could have an opportunity to grow up within a loving and caring family.  

My birth-mother had already raised a family, and her ‘one evening affair’ had blossomed into more than she could practically and financially accommodate. By the world’s standards, I was an unplanned pregnancy, a mistake no doubt to many, and certainly an unwelcomed surprise to the unmarried parents.   In the world’s eyes, I was the penalty for a mistake.   But this is only the beginning of my story.

For many parents their babies are surprise packages – to which you could say, “Amen, you got that right!”  You may never really know how “planned” you were, or if you were planned at all.  But let me tell you.  You were not a mistake!

You are the only “version of you” God ever made.  Upward Call, by Dr. David Jeremiah

My original parents made a bad emotional decision one night, one they both would live to regret.   But it was part of God’s plan to use their “mistake,” and weave a tiny baby into the fabric of His wonderful purpose.  God takes great delight in the birth and life of every child. 

In my first two years, I travelled a lot…though not for pleasant holiday excursions.  Rather, I was an infant gypsy – in and out of foster homes.  No one wanted to adopt a baby with a medical condition like mine.    

A particular social worker in Ohio who was aware of me and felt prompted to introduce me to a client seeking to adopt a baby.  My mother remembers the words well, “I have just the child for you!”  Though only two years old, I was instinctively aware and appreciative of any positive introductory comments made on my behalf.  

The day arrived, and I was introduced to my “new Mom.” My life-long belongings contained in a little brown bag much like a sack lunch.   

My new Mom knew nothing about my infectious draw toward people, or my fledgling social personality, but it was soon discovered on the way to my new home.  She remembers how I waved with delight at all the truck drivers we passed in the car. 

At a young age I was introduced to Sunday school and began learning “about” Jesus.  My Mom remembers me looking up at about four years of age, and having a conversation in the backyard with my head tilted upward toward the sky and saying, “I know You’re up there, but I just can’t see You.”

Even at four, God was working in my heart to produce a yearning to know the One who created me and loved me…even when no one else had.  

I was kept as a “secret” from my entire birth family … except for a half-brother who was nineteen years older than I. He actually gave me a name at my birth before they escorted me away from the delivery room. 

Fast forward nineteen years to age 21.  I went to the city’s “Family and Children’s Adoption Services” to inquire about my un-known birth-mother. I loved my adoptive parents, but it was a natural curiosity about my background, and the investigation as to any possible health issues that prompted my interest. I learned that due to Ohio state laws, that all of the information about my past had been sealed.

My adopted mother coached me beforehand as to the questions the agency may ask me in my attempt to locate information about the birth mother.  For example: “Why was I adopted” in the first place.

Perhaps the mother couldn’t afford to keep me. Maybe she didn’t want any more children. Or, perhaps I was illegitimate.  What I knew for sure that I wasn’t on “the radar screen of my birth parents’ hearts.”

This first appointment did answer:  “Yes, I was not a planned child, and I was referred to as illegitimate.”   With tears overflowing, I exited the agency and just stood on the sidewalk trying to digest the truth about the purpose of my arrival into this world.  Illegitimate!  Unplanned!  Unwanted!  In those fleeting moments I felt lost, unloved and disconnected by those words and their meaning. 

These emotions faded in the truth of the commitment and love my adopted Mom had given me all these years.  You see, she was my “real Mom” … who took me and my brown bag of belongings into her home.  I grew in the womb of one woman, but was nurtured in the heart of another.  My new Mom was the one “designed and selected by God” for this seemingly unwanted little girl. 

Fast forward another twenty years, and laws that had prevented adopted children from seeing or accessing their records had now been changed.

My mother shared with me the news about the change of the laws and together with prayer we began the search for a name, a birth place, and a mother who had surrendered her daughter. 

The investigating court documents yielded my birth name.  We found six people with my given “last name” at birth, and a letter was sent to these six individuals.  The purpose and content of the letter was to thank them for giving me up at birth, and for granting me an opportunity to experience the love of a family.

Within days, one of the recipients phoned me to acknowledge that he thought he could be my step-brother … the one 19 years older than me that many years earlier, on my birth, had actually given me my name. He was the only one who had held me before I was given away to the adoption agency.   

He was the only one from my birth family who had attempted any investigation or search as to my whereabouts! 

I had no idea that he had been trying to undo the court’s stipulation of secrecy for years.  After all, both he and I shared the same birth-mother, and had had never stopped wondering where his little sister was, and how her life had unfolded?

Forty years had passed by, and now, through this letter and a telephone call, a new relationship would begin to emerge.

My step-brother made contact with our birth mother letting her know about this discovery. Talk about “surprises,” this one took the cake! After I was born, she had asked her son to keep this “little baby” a secret for the rest of his life, and he had honored her request.  But now, after receiving my “thank you” letter, the secret would begin to unravel and be revealed. 

Many women can bear children, but that doesn’t mean they’re destined to be mothers. I loved my adoptive Mom and was devoted to her.  I wouldn’t allow anything to jeopardize this relationship … even if it pertained to information about my past.

It was almost Thanksgiving – how appropriate.  I returned to Ohio to visit my parents, and we “just happened” to be watching a television program on adoption … and I just knew this was the moment to share with them what had happened.

As my parents listened to me share the new-found news, to everyone’s surprise and amazement, we discovered that the man – my half-brother – lived just two miles from my adoptive parents. An even greater surprise was that they knew him quite well, since he had serviced and repaired their lawn mowers for years. SURPRISES are all over this story.

Within days I contacted my birth mother to make arrangements to meet her.

I pause here for a moment.  How would YOU feel if you were in HER shoes? She had given birth to me 40 years earlier, but chose (and wisely I feel) not to see me, or to hold me. Now, this once little one making herself known and the air is thicker than a brick. 

If you were the adoptive mother, what would you be thinking?  Amazingly, my Mom was pleased to come along with me.  She actually wanted to meet the woman who gave away her infant baby girl, not in desperation but in love.   

I surely didn’t want to face this delicate moment and reunion alone. I had no idea what to expect. 

Somehow my adoptive mother knew, and could comprehend the kaleidoscope of emotions.  Without any prompting at all, she offered to accompany me for a visit to meet my unknown family.

The revelation of a 40 year-long secret was just two miles away, and it would soon be exposed at the blatant revelation of my identity. 

As we approached the home of my step-brother, my pulse quickened. My heart was racing as if in the Indy 500!  How was this moment even possible after forty years?  There has never been a truer instance of the verse:  “Nothing is impossible with God?  

For with God, nothing shall be impossible.  Luke 1: verse 37

The first few moments of our meeting were subdued.  We could have heard a pin drop when all of our eyes met, and it seemed that no one was breathing a breath, or saying a word.  Is this what happens when reality and profound disbelief encounter each other?  In fact, it was a divine appointment … arranged forty years prior, by an all-knowing, and all-caring and loving God. 

We gradually and intermittently took turns intermittently exchanging comments and questions then staring at each other as we answered.  It must have seemed quite humorous, because it was apparent that no one wanted to be caught in the act of “continued eye surveillance.” 

These were tender moments that would be etched and forever recorded in my heart. I remembered that in the previous months I wasn’t sure I was ready to meet “this woman.”

Prior to meeting with my step-brother and birth mother, my husband addressed my fear of the forthcoming meeting by encouraging me with the explanation that I was the only one on this earth that could reassure this birth-mother of God’s forgiveness, and express my gratefulness to her that she had the heart to release me into God’s care.

Now, sitting in a home, which only a few weeks prior, had seemed like an infinite distance away, we needed to bring what seemed like hours of visiting to a close … for now. 

As we were getting ready to leave, a memory was created – one that will be forever engraved on my heart.  I saw both my “mothers” exchanging their parting words – in essence talking behind my back.

“Thank you for having this little baby so I could have a daughter,” my Mom said.  All this was followed by a warm embrace of these two mothers’ hands.  Watching this exchange flooded the heart and soul of this now grown up “secret baby,” an encounter which gifted my heart for a lifetime.

Here’s a funny …. I recall back to my grade school years. I recollect a classmate’s comment about my being “adopted.”

“You don’t look adopted” she said. To which I replied, “Well, you don’t look natural”. I was quick to notify this gal that I knew I was wanted … because I was chosen.  After all, parents of natural-born children only get pot-luck!

 To my thinking, and perhaps yours, my life wasn’t a “gift” to my birth parents.  My arrival was neither planned nor expected.  However, I was “on time” from God’s perspective.  Yes, they made a mistake, but God didn’t.  God created me … and you for a purpose.    

While we may know some facts about Him, He knows each one of us intimately.  Sadly not all who were designed by Him know Him in a “relational way.” 

Even though I was now all grown up, there still remained a “child-like void” in my life.   To an outsider, I likely appeared a happy person.  In reality, I was very insecure, lonely and without a real purpose.   There was a “presence” missing within me … a gaping hole that couldn’t be filled. 

 Though baptized as an infant, I attended confirmation classes and was accustomed to being in church.  In my late teen years I pulled away from church, as religion and God didn’t seem relevant, and  God seemed so impersonal and not at all interested in my existence.

A dear friend shared two great truths about life.  First, she was the first who told me the truth about Santa Claus … we won’t go any further … just in case some of you here still put cookies out on December 24^th.

Second, that God sent His Son Jesus, wrapped in human flesh, to die on a cross … to take the punishment for my sin.  Wow!  Talk about a good-news / bad-news announcement.  

I never liked the word sin…. still don’t.  But it was true.  There was no denying that I was a “sinner.”  Deep down I knew there was a separation between me and a perfect and holy God.  I would often try to appease myself by thinking ‘I’m not as bad as other people.’  But deep within I knew I wasn’t good enough to enter heaven.  Who is?   I told my friend that I believed in God … wasn’t that good enough?   James 2 verse 19 took care of that answer: 

“Even Satan and his demons believe, but I know their destination.”  James 2:19

My friend told me that Jesus took my death penalty for my sins when He died on the Cross, and that I could be forgiven for anything and everything from my past….present and future – if I allowed Him to.

She helped me understand that my entire life was visible on God’s computer screen, and His computer had been recording everything I had ever said, thought or did.  

By accepting the fact that Jesus took my place on the cross, and fully understanding that I could never erase my sin on my own – I’d be forgiven.  It’s as though God hits the DELETE BUTTON and completely erases every record of my every wrong.

It took time for my mind and heart to absorb all this.  Deep within I had fears and a troubled spirit that I couldn’t just brush away.  It was my lingering fear of death and dying that frightened me.  I never wanted to know the truth about what would happen to me when I died. 

After all, our souls (the real us) were created to live forever … somewhere!  How easily we want to ignore the “big elephant’ in the room … and want to sweep it under the rug.  The fact is that one day every one of our hearts will cease to beat … and we will leave this earth.  Millions of gravestones around the world bear testimony that people die everywhere … and at all ages. 

That realization allowed me to discover that God was, in fact, very much interested and does wish to direct my steps.  From that point forward my life took on new purpose and meaning.  God brings people together and orchestrates circumstances in everyone’s life, and He desires a response from them … toward Him. 

Not long after our conversation, I saw someone on TV talking about the same thing my friend shared with me and I knew God was trying to get my attention.

I hadn’t really looked up to talk with God since I was four, but I made the decision right then and knelt down to talk with Him and asked Jesus for His forgiveness.   I asked God to come into my life, to make me new and help me to follow Him. 

His offer of forgiveness is like the “great exchange” I call it … giving our sins over to Christ, accepting that He died for all of them (past, present & future) so that I could go free from judgment and be free to finally get to know God and have a relationship with Him.

This salvation, or being born again, was His gift to me … as it is to anyone who turns from their way of living to His way.  For years I sat in church trying to ‘be good’ … thinking I was ‘in’ as far as heaven was concerned.

But once I realized the difference between doing … rather than simply accepting what had already been DONE … for me, a great peace took over.   It makes sense that God, our Creator, knows what’s really best for us, because He loves us unconditionally. 

He took me, just like my adopted Mother and Dad did, JUST AS I WAS.  There was no cleaning myself up for Him.   It will take a lifetime of ‘tidying up to look more like His Son’ while still here on earth.  When I breathe my last, I’ll just move into His presence.  For Christians dying just means we’ve moved to a new and better location. 

Well, you’ve been privy to my first birth (a human, natural birth) … then my human adoption by my parents.  And now, my second birth (where God gave me new life…a life that now could respond to Him).  

Regardless of the circumstances surrounding your birth, God designed “you” in someone’s womb. He fashioned you individually and intricately … with your own personality, your own appearance and your unique body structure.  YOU are a “masterpiece” of His design! 

I may have been “unplanned” and “unwanted” by two people, but God had plans for me in spite of the circumstance of my birth.  It was now possible for me to stop wondering about who I was, why I was born, and what was my purpose in life.

I was “not a mistake” as I thought, but delightfully fashioned by my Creator with purposes beyond my imagination.  And He has designed each of you … with that same delight.

The disconsolate young woman standing, crying in front of an adoption agency after learning that she was “illegitimate” was now shedding tears of joy.  Through my friend I was now learning and absorbing Biblical truths that brought changes to my everyday living.  This was just the start of a journey planned even before my conception. 

My Mother developed many medical issues in her latter life requiring full-time care from her adopted daughter.  This gift of having my Mother in my home to care for brought me joy, fulfillment and the privilege of a lifetime.  Here is where the fabric of “Divine providence,” orchestrated with all its beauty began weaving a new twist of events. 

I felt honored that this would be my opportunity to extend love and care for the woman who gave so much to adopt me.  She wasn’t a young woman when she chose to do that. 

At the age of 97½, just three months before she died, the adopted little girl, now a woman, had the privilege of praying with her mother and assist her in receiving Christ as her personal Savior, accepting His forgiveness, and adoption into God’s family. The “gift of adoption” had now travelled through the full range of life’s journey. 

It seemed as though the adoption experience that began with a “chosen mother” for two daughters (myself and an adorable adopted sister), now came full-circle. The first daughter now had the privilege of being chosen by God to assist in His adoption “of her mother” into His family.  

My Mother was herself adopted into God’s family!  She too was born in the heart of God before creation (Psalm 139) and was now brought into His family.  God had ordained all these “adoptions” for many Divine purposes.

My story is of a gal who had thought her life was nothing but a tragic mistake, due to someone else’s recklessness.  However, the real blunder was not understanding a wonderful truth:  that each of us has been created by God’s purpose and design.  Psalm 139

The greatest act of love was expressed at the Cross … offering everyone a ‘clean slate’ … with nothing left to condemn us, so that when each of us stands before Him one day (and everyone will!), we can point to Jesus stating that He alone took the punishment for our sins.  Nothing will be held against us.

JESUS OFFERS HIMSELF FREELY……AS A “GIFT” TO YOU

Gifts are wonderful aren’t they?   Whether at Christmas or on our birthdays or “just because” gifts from a friend who loves us.  Gifts are meant to be received … they are not gifts if they are earned.

Why not take Him up on His “gift-offer” and enjoy the greatest decision you’ll ever make!

 “In this man Jesus there is forgiveness for your sins. Everyone who believes in Him is freed from all guilt and declared right with God.”  Acts, chapter 13, verses 38 & 39.

“I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me (Jesus).”  John 14, verse 6