ADOPTED

Every so often, I am at a loss as to what to write.  Writing a blog is at the back of my mind on Monday, starts moving forward on Tuesday, and by Wednesday I start getting a bit nervous.  The blog needs to be ready by Friday morning and NOTHING.  Absolutely, nothing.  I no longer have days to write a blog.  I only have hours.  Thursday morning and still nothing.  And then....

And then I pick up a book by Jeanette Winterson:  Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?  One thing I am rarely called is normal so the title intrigued me.  The story is written by a woman who had a terrible childhood.  She was adopted into a very unstable house.  I have only read the beginning but there are a few sentences that made me think about how it feels to being adopted.

“Adopted children are self-invented because we have to be; there is an absence, a void, a question mark at the very beginning of our lives.  A crucial part of our story is gone.”

“Where you are born — what you are born into, the place, the history of the place, how that history mates with your own — stamps who you are, whatever the pundits of globalization have to say.”

“When I was born I became the visible corner of a folded map.  The map has more than one route.  More than one destination.  The map that is the unfolding self is not exactly leading anywhere.  The arrow that says YOU ARE HERE is your first coordinate.  There is a lot that you can’t change when you are a kid.  But you can pack for the journey.”

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We have an adopted granddaughter and she was in my heart the minute I laid eyes on her.  She is MY GRANDDAUGHTER!  I consider her a gift, but I also know she has had questions about her birth family.  There is a gap in her life, even though she came into our family from the hospital.  There are many questions for the adoptive parents also.  They have no family history which will help them understand this new daughter.  Will she be even tempered or smart or healthy.  They cannot look at grandparents or themselves to see a resemblance or a family characteristic that has carried through the generations. A crucial part of the story is gone.

I am adopted.  I have been adopted into the Family of God!

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!  1 John 3:1

The big difference, I know my past.  It is not a mystery.  The amazing part is that God knows my past and still welcomed me into his family.  

I would like to rewrite one of the author’s paragraphs.

When I was born, I became the visible corner of a folded map.  The arrow said, “MARY, YOU ARE HERE.”  I discovered there are many routes and many destinations.  As a kid, I could not change the path my parents placed me on.  I then followed the path I placed myself on and have walked that path with Bill beside me.  The most important path is the one that led me to being adopted.  All the things I had packed for my journey of life were quickly left at the foot of the cross.  At my adoption, I began a new journey.  I still have many paths and destinations to pick from, but now I know my adoption means there is no longer a crucial part of my story missing.