How Adoption Still Impacts my life

When I was eleven years old, my parents adopted my younger brother from China. When I was thirteen years old, my parents adopted my second younger brother and second younger sister from China. For almost eight years, my life has looked different than a lot of other people my age because of the adoptions. It wasn’t a bad thing. In fact, I was and still am grateful for it. However, when people ask me about my family and our experiences, there has always been one question I didn’t know how to answer. 

How do you think these experiences changed you?

It’s a hard question to answer because of how simple it is. I have found that often times it’s the simple questions that have the most complicated answers, and I never knew what to say when someone asked me that. 

Sure, I could say that it taught me how to share my stuff, or how to manage being in a grocery store with seven people. I could say that it taught me how to love a stranger or how to be okay with being one of five kids. But these are all things that this experience taught me, not how it changed me. 

It wasn’t until very recently that the Lord took this question that was buried in the back of my mind, dusted it off, and spoke life over it. So, in case some of you are still wondering how experiencing international adoption changed the life of a biological daughter, here’s your answer…

Two weeks ago I moved to South America. 

The Lord spoke very quietly over this question. In fact, it took a few days before I even knew what He was trying to say. It had been a while since someone asked me this question, so I wasn’t even thinking about it. But slowly the Lord spoke over it and I began to understand. 

Adoption broke my heart. It shattered it to pieces and the Lord put it back together in a way that motivated me to see the world through His eyes. My heart broke for the things that broke His. I became passionate about things that I had never been passionate about before. It was this that got me into international missions. It landed me in Haiti, in Kenya, in the Bahamas, and eventually here in Ecuador. 

I don’t know why the Lord asked me to blog about this. I don’t know why it took me so long to understand the way adoption changed me. And I certainly can’t say speak for every biological child whose family has walked through the adoption process. Everyone is different and everyone responds differently. I have seen adoption play out in so many different ways in so many different families.

But maybe, there is someone out there who is worried about how adoption might impact their families, particularly their biological children. And maybe, just maybe, the Lord wants to use this part of my testimony to speak life over those worries. If that’s the case, I am beyond honored. 

All my love.