In eleven days I will be celebrating my second wedding anniversary. Yes, I know, I’m still a baby and I don’t know anything about marriage beyond the “honeymoon” phase. Maybe. Lord knows I still have much to learn about biblically loving and respecting my husband inside the walls of marriage. One of the chief tasks I believe God gave Caleb in our relationship was to love me with His love. I know what you are thinking, “That’s biblical Kate—to love your wife Like Christ loved the church.” This I also know, but it’s one thing to A) DO it, and B) experience it. The love of Christ is infinitely more powerful than we give it credit for, especially when it comes to healing brokenness. In my life, for example, God plays many roles. He set the example in my life for a Father who cares for me, providing for my needs and disciplining me when I need correction. He is the Lover who loves me no matter what I have done or do, and accepts me by saying, “I want you.” And He is my Savior, restoring my brokenness and healing my sin problem.
When we think of love in marriage our first thought is romance, but as so many of you know there is a deeper driving passion than that. Let’s be real, I love him to death but my husband is not always romantic! However there has never been a moment in our marriage where I have not felt the inescapable love Christ lavished on me from my beloved.
That’s beautiful…but what does this have to do with adoption? Well, several things.
As a child ages and begins to grow through the different stages of life new challenges and emotional struggles will arise—for any child this is true. For adoptees it seems that the more life experiences you go through the more you struggle with who you are and where you came from. I believe (next to slavation) marriage and children are the biggest life experiences that one goes through, therefore they seem to raise the most questions. The closer I got to my wedding day the more I wanted to know my identity. As a parent knows, the love you have for your child is every bit as deep and full of healing as the love between man and wife. This is true, and it takes a lot less effort to love your child that intensely because they are your child. This is why it is so important to pray for the spouse that your child—especially your adopted child—will one day meet. They will be entering your child’s life at a pivotal point. Not only that, but they aren’t going to automatically love your child the way you do. That is a love and a union that can only come from God. You might have shown your child that they are wanted by adopting them, but their spouse choosing them is crucial. Think about the love and acceptance you felt when you met your spouse. When my husband asked me to marry him, it said, “I love you and only you. No matter where you came from. No matter who you are. No matter what condition you are in. I want you.”
I doubt there is an adoptee out there that has not, or will not struggle at some point in their life with the issue of feeling unwanted. In my case, I struggled with the fact that I was conceived in sin. My mother was not married, and I believe sex outside of marriage is sin. You can call me old fashioned if you want to, but not only did it hurt her emotionally to have the burden of having a child as a teenager, but I in turn also felt the brokenness and abandonment associated with her sin. Please understand that I knew that my mother was sorry, and that she didn’t want to have to give me away but knew that was what was best. Still, I often felt like (and still do) I was simply the product of sin, not really meant to be born. If I was meant to be, then my mommy and daddy who were happily married and loved each other very much would have been happy to have me and done anything to never have to let me go…right? You may think that the eight your old child that you adopted at a very early age doesn’t understand the logistics of the birds and the bees and what that means for how they were created, but I guarantee you that they have a deeper understanding than your biological child who probably takes their “happy beginning” for granted. While my parents were the example of what a relationship between a man and a woman is supposed to look like, it wasn’t until I was married that I felt like I had corrected the sins of my parents by saving sex for my wedding night. I was made clean. I no longer wore their mistake, because I broke the cycle.
When I chose Caleb and he chose me, I was choosing the man who I wanted to build a family with. That may not sound like much, but through our children we will have a biological connection that I have never had. My future children won’t have to feel that they were made in anything but love. They will never have to feel unwanted, or like they were “an accident.” (I can’t think of anything worse than a parent telling their child they were an accident! ) I know that my husband will be the wonderful biological father that I never had, and I will always fight for my children.
When we were dating, Caleb would often ask me what feelings I had about being adopted and how that influenced my life. I don’t think that anyone had ever thought to ask me that before. Most people feel that it is too sensitive a subject and don’t go into much more details than, “Wow, you were adopted? That’s great.” I remember leaning over to him during the closing of one church service and whispering, “I want to find my mother. I really want to find her.” As always he wrapped his arm around and said, “I’m going to help you.” He was the first person that I called when I succeeded in this. When I received a discouraging message back from my family, and began crying uncontrollably, he was the one that let me cry. He didn’t say anything, didn’t try and tell me things I wanted to hear, he just held me. When I told my parents the news, when I finally met her, when I was conflicted with a million different emotions, he was there to hold my hand. As I write this blog and have begun to heal from deep inexplainable wounds, he is my biggest supporter.
Parents, I know that you want to be the one to be there for your child during this time if they ever go through a search for their biological family. I know you want to listen to all of their struggles and concerns about how their adoption has affected them. But the truth is, for many adoptees (I think many of you adoptees reading this can agree) we feel a sense of guilt for even wanting to approach the issue. I felt wrong for not being happy with just knowing my adoptive family. Once I found my birth mother many people told me, “But you know who your real mother is, right? You aren’t going to replace her.” Well, no. But that didn’t mean I didn’t want to be able to identify with someone biologically. I was so afraid in the months that followed meeting my birth mother that I was going to do what everyone told me not to do. I say this because even though you are the ones that want to be there, your child’s future spouse is probably going to be the one that they feel more comfortable pouring their heart out to about this particular subject. After all, in marriage God makes them one for a reason, and they will experience all of their pain together. If not a spouse, a best friend—for me they just happen to be one in the same.
In closing, I challenge you as parents to pray that God will grant your child with a spouse who will love and accept them with the love of God. Most importantly, teach them who Christ and encourage their relationship with them so they will be able to pick out the good guys/girls from the bad ones. As adoptees who are yet to find a spouse, pray for the man or woman that God has created for you, and set your standards HIGH—yes, one day your prince will come! And for those adoptees who have spouse that has lovingly accepted them the way mine has, thank God for placing them in your life, and don’t be afraid to open up and share your every fear with them.
As I said in the beginning, the chief task God gave my husband was to “be” Christ to me and he has so wonderfully allowed the Lord to work through him in this way. He cares and provides for me. He loves me infinitely. And he healed the emotional brokenness of abandonment that I had been afraid to face for so long.
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