Things I Wish I Had Known

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Things I wish I had known:

   I didn't need to feel rejected as a child and young adult wondering HOW a mother could give her child away (ie. "place for adoption") because of "Love". 

I wish I had learned much earlier about the societal history of shame

(see Ann Fessler's book, The Girls Who Went Away),
and a financially driven, supply & demand based industry that explains the reason most babies become "available" for adoption.

My mother didn't "place" me because she loved me.
She certainly didn't reject me.
She surrendered her own motherhood/child because of a society that rejected her, and

only accepted me if I was removed from her and my original, true identity.

 I didn't have to be confused by the myth that it must be God's will for me to lose my mother, family, identity, and original life so I could be "chosen".
To gain my new family, life, love, and blessings.

I grew up trying to force this idea into my head & heart, but it was completely incongruent with life, truth, and the adoptee's reality.

I lived with emotions of extreme guilt for feeling disloyal, wondering how I could really love my adoptive family if I had feelings of loss and longing.

I was relieved to "wake up" and realize that, like Joseph, when he was reunited with his original family, I also concluded,
"What the ENEMY meant for evil (separation, loss), God eventually turned for good."

I didn't have to be fearful and distrusting of God anymore because it was impossible to understand (what adults tell most adoptees for their own benefit) how God PLANNED and WILLED for me to be adopted.
He didn't orchestrate it.

I once heard an eye-opening sermon by Pastor Dick Bernal ("Jubilee Christian Center"). 
 He was talking about scriptures in the New Testament that spoke of us being "adopted" as God's own children. After doing an in-depth study on the word translated into "adopted", he found that the original meaning in the Greek language more closely resembled "reunited" or "reinstated."

First John even uses the Greek word "sperma" to describe us as God's beloved children. The Prodigal Son certainly wasn't his Father's "adopted" son, he was his biological offspring. 

 It was comfort to this adoptee's soul to hear this revelation. 
 That God didn't NEED to "adopt" me as His child in the same sense "adoption" is used today.

The scriptures also teach that anything hidden in darkness and secrecy cannot be truly made whole.

Yet adoptees' records and birth certificates are sealed by laws which perpetuate this shame and injustice.
Even "open adoption" is not legally enforceable by law, and certainly doesn't negate the profound loss every adoptee experiences.

I wish I had known that, just like Wilbur Wilberforce, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jean Patton,  
that it takes a lot of courage, fortitude, and perseverance to keep voicing an "unpopular" opinion, but a lived experience.

That I don't have to feel like the lone duck and the odd-one-out.
 I can stand up to criticism, with courage. That someday the cost will be worth it.

Until the monetary & marketing aspects in adoption are removed, and every adopted individual in America is restored their God-given right to own their original birth certificate and identity, adoption will continue to be simply an enterprise of human-selling.
Children who truly need loving homes will be overlooked and discarded.

Loving and capable Mothers will continue to be pressured to "do the right thing" and relinquish their precious offspring to those willing to pay.

And adopted individuals will continue to be seen as perpetual children in the eyes of the law and society, being treated with contempt and shame for wanting the same right as every other American citizen, for themselves and their children after them ~ simply to know their true genealogy, identity, medical history, and family line.