When God Calls You To Adopt
Blindly, being led by the blind, they sign the dotted line, and years pass, and they don't quite know where things went wrong.
I have heard narratives for many years on why God might call someone to adopt a child, mostly from non-adoptees, specifically prospective adoptive parents and those who answered the call and are now adoptive parents.
Usually, I have discovered that those who responded to the call felt a whisper from God that this was "the right thing to do." But, in all fairness, they genuinely feel they followed their heart and calling.
But there are many problems with this; they often go into such a life-changing decision naively, lacking information about the realities of adoption and how it impacts adoptees for life. They lack doing enough research; when they do, they get it from those who don't have the lived experience of being adopted.
They seek out and possibly listen to the "pros" in the adoption arena. Still, no one is better suited to share the deep levels and layers of the trauma from relinquishment and adoption than the adoptees with lived experiences.
Lived experiences of adoptees are invaluable. They are the moments that shape who we are and how we see the world—each experience, whether big or small, positive or negative, contributes to individual growth and development. Moreover, our lived experiences being adoptees provides knowledge that cannot be taught in a classroom or read in a book.
Adoptees who share lived experiences give others a more profound understanding, allowing us to connect with others more personally. In addition, learning about the lived experiences of adult adoptees can inspire us to make changes and motivate us to be more compassionate, empathetic, and understanding toward each adopted person.
If we are making such a monumental decision, not only for our lives but the life of a whole human being, shouldn't we also research the "cons" of adoption? Shouldn't those who wish to adopt ask themselves, "What can go wrong? How do I learn more about this?"
Positive culture, at times, can step in the way of this, not to mention people genuinely want to believe in the good in everyone and every situation. But there is a different side to adoption than the world hasn’t portrayed.
What if people genuinely don't know?
I have learned throughout my lifetime, having countless conversations with non-adoptees, that many of them genuinely don't know that adoption is rooted in relinquishment trauma and that trauma can and does impact adoptees in every way imaginable.
Several months ago, I sat down face to face with the founder of a local adoption agency, and it was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I wanted to spark dialogue and to see how she was educating adoptive parents on the primal wound. Her response was, “What is the primal wound?” I was shaken up and learned how critical it is to keep sharing about separation trauma because she was making a living off of it, but she says she had no idea it existed.
WTF!!!??!!
That's where adult adoptee voices come into play. That's where MY voice comes into play. But we won't stop sharing our truth because adoptees are dying because of the lack of information on separation and adoption trauma.
How Christianity & The Savior Complex Plays a Role
As an ex-evangelical, I know from my time in the church and Christianity that if you speak negatively, you give the devil the door to bring those things to life. I had genuine questions and concerns and was silenced and shut down. So I see why the cons are not discussed in conversations about adoption. That goes against God's word.
"Just pray," they say.
Those same prayers didn't work for all the adoptees who died by suicide because their pain was too great. Those prayers didn't work for those adoptees who died in agony because they never learned who they were or where they came from.
Many years ago, I learned about Spiritually Bypassing. After spending a lifetime in the church, I started researching what Spiritually Bypassing was after hoping to be healed, yet never getting the healing I deserved. I started exploring and discovered this term and found it incredibly fitting for my life. I used spiritual practices to avoid confronting reality and my truth: prayer, fasting, serving, worship, and bible study were my life.