Guilty...

As many of you know my husband Caleb and I are expecting our first child in October.  We are SO excited about our little baby boy.  About 75% of our daily conversations are spent discussing who he will look like, how we will do his nursery, what kind of personality he will have, how we are going to parent him, how fast and slow at the same time the weeks are going by and how my belly grows by the day.  This whole experience is both very scary and wonderful for me as a soon to be mother.   I worry about everything, and cry at the drop of the hat.  It doesn’t matter if I am shopping, listening to the radio, or just watching a funny video, emotions run high and tears are always on the brink of escaping.  Actually, me having my own children was never part of my main life plan.  I always wanted to adopt a bunch of kids instead.  But for my husband it was extremely important, and because it was so important to him (and as I grew older) it became the earnest desire of my heart as well long before our marriage.

In all of my preparing for and dreaming of the days when I would one day be pregnant, one emotion I never expected to feel was guilt. Joy, fear, and excitement are all common emotions associated with pregnancy, but no one ever prepared me for the overwhelming sense of guilt I feel for having a child.  Let me be clear that I’m not ashamed of having a baby. After all, I was one of the good girls who did things in the right order: love—marriage—baby.    I have several friends who did things in the right order too, but God has not blessed them with the child that they have so often prayed for.  To be honest, I don’t understand this, and have had this conversation with God on many occasions:  Why does the girl who doesn’t do it “right” always end up getting pregnant?  Why does the woman who doesn’t want a child and has an abortion, even have that opportunity in the first place?  Why are there so many abandoned orphans when just as many families long to have the joy of a child in their home?  I have been both blessed and cursed with empathy--the ability to place myself in the shoes of others and feel what they feel, and while I may not always agree with their actions or decisions I do understand the why behind them.  I have the ability to see frustration in the woman across the room longingly eying my belly.  I sense the sadness in the church on mother’s day.  I hear the half-hearted congratulations from my single girl friends who so badly want a family of their own.  And I feel guilt for getting pregnant when they can't.

I have tried to be sensitive to this in my conversations with other women and in my Facebook posts.  I try not to bring up my pregnancy. I hide the album of ultrasound pictures and most baby posts so that only family can view them.  But I also realize that this only goes so far and doesn’t really heal their hurt. So for those of you who are battling this (or have in the past) let me offer you some encouragement-- not as one who is expecting, but from one who was an abandoned child once.

God has a plan for you too, and it’s not for you to be childless. 

In our culture adoption has become like plan B.  It’s what people say to those women who are in their late 20-30s who are married and don’t/can’t have kids, “Don’t worry sweetie, you can always adopt.”  As nice as those words may sound and as kind as we mean them to be, that’s like saying, “I know you wanted the shiny sparkly diamond, but you can’t have it so take this cubic zirconium knock off replacement instead.” They pack more of a sharp punch than a gentle reassurance.  The women smile politely and thank us, all the while thinking “That’s not the same thing! That’s not what I dreamed of!”  or “That’s easy for you to say since you have your own kids!” 

Now let me flip things. Being adopted was never God’s Plan B for my life.  I say that to you now, but me saying that comes with a lot of praying and time spent healing behind it.   In my darkest days I remember expressing to my husband, “By all rights I should have never been born. My birth caused nothing but pain and heartache, a product of a sinful act. Why did my mother get pregnant and I was born, and not another woman who hurts in her heart for a baby?”  But now I realize the truth--we are all only born because of God’s grace on our lives anyway.  My birth mother did not get pregnant as a teenager simply to go through emotional pain as a consequence of a bad decision.  She got pregnant because God wanted me to be adopted by the Cashion family and sit here and write this blog to you today—I was born to bring healing and not destruction.  That was always Plan A.   

Do you think the cross was Plan B?  When Adam and Eve sinned do you think God was like, “Well, I never saw that one coming! Guess I’ll have to make another way for them to be my children!”  Absolutely not! Yes He was hurt by their betrayal, but adoption as made possible by the cross was God’s “Plan A” for all of our lives.  I know without a doubt that I serve a completely and totally SOVEREIGN God.  Those of you reading this who long for that child (or whatever it is you are struggling with in your life) God’s not surprised by it, and no matter how hard it is to go through, it was part of God’s plan to give you hope and a future and ultimately to bring HIM glory since that is the intended purpose for our lives.  As I said earlier, I don’t know why God chooses for some of us to go down more difficult roads than others.   I just have to believe that He is in control and can see so much farther than my simple human mind can grasp.

Let me reiterate.   

God has a plan for you too, and it’s not for you to be childless or remain broken.

One of my favorite Bible characters has always been Samuel.  Samuel consistently lived a life of faithful service to the Lord. I believe this was due much in part to the fervent prayer of His mother, Hannah.  I have prayed the prayer the same prayer Hannah and so many others have prayed—that if the Lord would just grant me child one day that I would give that child back to Him.  When I found out I was pregnant with a boy, I went back and marked this verse again in my Bible and plan to put it in my son’s room:

“And she said, “Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to the Lord.  For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him.  Therefore I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord.” 

-1 Samuel 1:26-28

This child that I have been blessed to carry is not mine anyway.  He belongs to the Lord, and for that I feel no guilt.  God may choose to one day send him to the other side of the world, or worse take his very life away, but still I have to say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”  His will is perfect, and mine is not.

Dear sweet sister, hand it all over to the Lord and let Him show you the joy in His Plan A for you. Samuel may not have been the key leader that he was if Hannah did not also first suffer through the pain of childlessness.  But she gave it to God and was blessed.  Please adopt, sweet friend. You were not meant to be childless any more than an abandoned one was meant to be father or motherless.  Quit making excuses about money or age or whatever it is that is keeping you from adopting and let God provide.  I can honestly say that you will never have a biological child that will love you as much as an adopted one—I know.  Adoption is not a semi-precious stone, and you will never see that child as less than anything other than your own.  Just make sure that when God gives them to you, you give them right back to Him.

I am so thankful that God calls so many to adopt, because without them I’d be stuck in Plan B. May you find as much love, joy, and grace in adopting, as I experienced in being adopted.

Finding E. Finding me.

It was around 12:15 p.m. on a Wednesday in February when I opened the single most important and long awaited message of my life.  I slipped into the bustling campus coffee shop to check my email and Facebook before my voice lesson.  As I opened my messages my heart stopped. “Hi my baby…” With trembling hands I clicked it. The guys sitting beside me in the computer lab must have thought I was crazy as tears began to roll down my cheeks.  Hurriedly I typed a brief message “Thank God! I don’t have time to write much now but I will write you later!” I searched the faces in the crowded room to see if I recognized any of my friends as I left. I wanted to scream, “Hey ya’ll I KNOW WHO I CAME FROM! And she STILL LOVES ME! ” There is something about amazingly life changing news that makes you just want to share it with someone and have them laugh and cry with you.  I spotted one of my best friends and ran up to her, “OH MY GOSH KAYLA MY BIRTH MOTHER JUST WROTE ME CAN YOU BELIEVE IT I FOUND HER AND THEN SHE FOUND ME!” She looked at me puzzled, “Is this good thing?” “YES!!” Then the hugging and crying commenced, “Yayyyyyyy!! I’m so happy for you!”  Thank God for friends like Kayla who love you and celebrate with you even when you are an emotional mess and don’t really make sense.

Many people ask me how I found her, and why I wanted to find her.  Well, I always wanted to find her.  I know some adoptees are older when adopted and who come from bad situations don’t always want this, but for me (and I would say a greater percentage of adoptees) there is a deep driving need to know who you are and where you came from.  If you weren’t adopted there is no possible way you can understand this, because you can’t imagine what it is like to not know who your family is.  You don’t sit and wonder where you got your big brown eyes and strange looking nose from, because you know.  My father had always told me he would take me to find her when I got older, whenever I was ready.  While I had been quite content to wait, my curiosity had been growing lately. One night while staying with my parents over the Thanksgiving holidays, I snuck downstairs and made my way to the fireproof box which held all of my adoption papers.  After a few minutes of sifting through the files (and hoping my mom wouldn’t walk in and ask me why I was sitting in her closet) there was the little pink rectangular birth certificate which had her name on it.  I put the rest of the papers back and nonchalantly made my way through the living room and up the stairs to my awaiting laptop.  I sat there for a minute turning the card over in my hands. Now what?  I don’t know about you, but when I ever I want to find out about somebody I Facebook stalk them.(Admit it—you do it too).  I typed the name in the search bar and waited. Then, voilà two names popped up. The first one I knew I had to be her. She lived in Venezuela, she was the right age, and most importantly she looked like me. The second name that came up I assumed was her mother.  They were friends and had almost the same name.  Once again I asked myself, Now what? I called my support line (aka Caleb) and talked it over with him. “She has your nose, Kate. That has to be her.” I decided that instead of writing her and taking a chance that her husband or kids or someone else who had no idea that she had had me would read it, I wrote her mother. It was pretty simple. Your basic I’m your long lost family member kind of message, “Hi my name is Katie.  I think that I might be your granddaughter.  Write me back if I’m right. K, thanx.” The next day she wrote and confirmed that she was the right one, and asked me not to write to her daughter yet.  I agreed, and for the next few weeks we wrote back and forth.  She shared with me the whole story, told me about her daughter and her family, and tried to explain to me what had led them to the decision to give me up.  It was after one of these messages that I became overwhelmed with the guilt of my birth. I had caused this family so much pain, and for me to come back now would only bring back more.  We didn’t write for a long time after that--I didn’t know what to say.  I pretty much gave up on the idea of ever knowing the woman who had sacrificed so much for me.

At Christmas I decided to tell my family what I had been up to.  I expected them to feel betrayed, unloved, and disappointed in me for doing all this behind their back.  Boy did I ever underestimate them.  If there was ever a time when my parents exemplified the love of God it was then. I was met with love and understanding, even joy and excitement at my new discovery.  They encouraged me to not give up hope of contacting her.

Then came that February day three years ago in the computer lab when she found me…

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but for me curiosity pretty much just left me really confused. I went from being really excited, to really depressed in a matter of months. I was angry and unrational.  I suddenly felt like she was trying to take the place of my real mother.  I didn’t want anything to do with her despite her constant texts and messages asking me what was wrong, and if I was ok.  I still am not sure why this happened.  At one point I even sought counseling, but stopped after the first session when the counselor stared at me in a daze and bit his finger nails the whole time—seriously?  Two things happened that brought me healing. First, I watched the movie Octoberbaby. If you have not seen this film, then I encourage you to head to your neighborhood Redbox right now and rent it.  From it, God showed me that I needed to learn to forgive—both myself and my birth mother.  The second thing that has brought me the most healing, has been talking about it.   The Lord showed me that I was not alone.  Not only did I have family and friends who loved me, but there are millions of adoptees in this world who battle with the same feelings of anger and insecurity.   I hope these blogs have blessed you as much as writing them has blessed and encouraged my heart.  Things still aren’t perfect with me and E.  I still am not to the point where I want to call her and spend hours on the phone, but when she writes now I can respond.  We can talk online every now and then. It has taken me years to finally say that I am glad that I found her.  But mostly I am thankful that God makes all things new—even me.  If you have been adopted, don’t be afraid to talk about it. And I don’t just mean admitting the fact that you are adopted, because you know that.  Explore those doors of your heart that you keep locked away before you make the decision to contact your birth family, because it will change your life.  Furthermore, I would strongly discourage you to do so before you graduate high school. That task is hard enough emotionally and mentally without having to balance two families on top of it.

May God bless you and strengthen you, and I hope you find your E too.