The story of my life: the beginning

So many people have asked that I write about my adoption story and my journey to finding my birth parents. I have tried to start blogging a couple of times, but every time I did, it seemed like something more happened and I needed to take time to process and work through it all.  Now seems to be the perfect time to get started, so here it is.  Please remember as I work my way through this journey, this is a journal of my own thoughts. Although I can speculate at times or come to my own conclusion regarding a situation, I cannot begin to pretend that I know another person's thoughts or feelings.

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Even now, as I sit and try to think about how to begin writing my story, I struggle. Where exactly do I start? Usually the first chapter of a book fills you in with some kind of background about a character - where they are from, the setting, situations that have influenced their lives.

I, however, have no significant background to be able to share. There are a few pieces of information that will give a hint of insight. For example, whoever my biological parents were, they were not married. But that little tidbit only leads to more questions, ones that cannot be answered. Were they in love?  Were they boyfriend/girlfriend? Was it a one night stand? Or even the tragic, could it have been rape?

For most of my life, I created a fairy tale in my head. Surely they were in love and just made a mistake.  Even though the consequences of their bad choices created what some would consider to be a permanent problem, my birth mom chose life, choosing to sacrifice and give me up because she could not care for me. Maybe she made this choice because she herself had been adopted and she knew what a gift it was to give a child a loving family to raise them. She must have truly loved me.

It is my guess that I look like her.  The non-identifying information from the adoption agency says she has brown hair and brown eyes. It also says she plays the piano, so I imagine this is where my love for tickling the ivories has come from.  I must get some of my height from him, since I have grown to be 5 ft 5 inches, a whole three inches above her listed height.  He graduated with a business degree. Does he like math? He must. I love math! So where else could it have come from? What does he look like? Since I feel I look like my birth mom, I can imagine him to be whoever I would like him to be. It says he is 6 ft 2 inches with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. I decide to pick Don Johnson during his days on Miami Vice as a very likely candidate. He is so handsome and what little girl wouldn't want him as her father?

But who loves to cook? The few typed paragraphs that take up half a sheet of paper don't tell me that.  Where does my stubbornness come from? Again, another unknown fact.  Being adopted sometimes feels like you are a main character in a book about yourself, but the first couple of chapters are missing. You can kind of figure out how the story began as you keep reading. You can pick up clues that help you fill in the missing details as you go along. But none of these things are certain. Just guesses.

So as I begin this journey, I will start at the one place I am absolutely certain of.....

...43 years ago on this date, a baby girl was born.

I was not an accident. I was planned.

That's right. I think so many times people assume that an adopted person was somehow an “accident”. When you hear that there was an unwed mother and father that led to a child being given up for adoption, it is just assumed that mistakes were made and the child is also often considered a mistake.

I am here to tell you, I am not a mistake.

If you read Psalm 139:13-16 it very clearly says...

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place,

when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

all the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

On that day, all those years ago, God made me. He knitted me together. He fashioned me just the way He wanted me to be. He created me and it was all a part of His plan.

His plan for me to be His child.

His plan for me to be a teacher.

His plan for me to be a wife.

His plan for me to be a mom.

His plan for me to be a part of so much more.

But most of all, as someone told me not too long ago,

He created me to be a gift to my parents.

He didn't just create me and leave me there. It has been so very obvious to me that He had guided and directed my steps along the way.

As I unfold this story in the days to come, I am excited to show you how God planned not only my birth, but also so many other events and circumstances over the course of my life, so stay tuned.....

It's coming.....so stay tuned!!

After taking a break for a year and a half, I have decided to start blogging again. When I came to blogspot this morning to start working on a new post, I found that my old blog was gone. Completely erased. Google said the account didn't even exist anymore.  At first I was a bit frustrated, but then I have decided that maybe it is a good thing. Time to leave the past in the past and move forward.  

When I originally started this blog two years ago, I was in a very different place in life. I was hurt, disillusioned, and just flat out struggling with circumstances in life.  In the midst of all life's confusion, God just showed up and reminded me that He is in control of everything.  He did something so unexplainable, that the only explanation for all of it is Him.  And along the forty plus years of this journey, there is unquestionable evidence of His hand in all of it.

What is that thing, you ask? He allowed me to be reunited with my birth family. I was adopted, you see, in 1973 through a closed adoption. There was no way I would ever be able to find out who my birth mother was....that is unless God intervened. And He did...

Many of you saw the post in August of 2014 when I was reunited with my half siblings. I have had lots of questions from people asking how it happened. Some adoptees have contacted me asking how it came about in hopes of finding out some information that would help them along their own journey of discovery.  So I have decided to share with you my journey: the ups and downs, the emotions, the questions, the good and the bad. 

While there are many characters that will surface in this story, I cannot represent any of them. I can only represent myself. My thoughts, my feelings, my situation....

And it is coming, so stay tuned!!