Our adoption story isn’t filled with the selfless act of a birth mother wanting a different life for her child, one better than she could provide. Our child’s birth mother neglected her children, focusing more attention on her own desires and pleasures than on her children and their needs. A judge, not the birth mother herself, decided she was unable to parent.
My husband and I didn’t get to see her first smile or watch her take her first steps. We were there, however, for her first plane ride, the start of middle school, her first kiss, the first time she drove a car. We’ve weathered many challenges together and celebrated many good times. We’ve created a safe place that is supported through unconditional love. We’ve been a family, in the best sense of that word.
No matter how a family is formed–whether by birth, adoption, marriage, or something less formal–a family is all about people who love you unconditionally, people you can always trust.
This message is adapted from Living from the Heart of God: A journal for life’s stages, published by Women of the ELCA in 2007. Today we remember Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, martyr, who died around 115.
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