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But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people
for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him
who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. I Peter 2:9
 "Abandoned, alone, and afraid." "Chosen, cherished, and loved." How was it that both phrases described what I felt as an adoptee?
I knew from a very young age that I was different. Mom said I was her "special little girl." She had chosen me. She and Dad both had wanted desperately a baby girl. So they went through the adoption process and brought me home from an adoption agency on December 7, 1964.
In spite of the love and care I received, I always felt like there was a piece of me missing. Why didn't my real mommy want me? Where was my dad? Didn't they like me? Was I defective? Unanswered, these questions plagued me for years.
I grew up hearing all the traditional explanations for my adoption. Adults remarked about how wonderful it was that I was cared for so deeply that my birth mom gave me to someone else, a mother who could take care of me, and wasn't it great that she gave me life? These explanations made sense to my head but didn't seem to have the same effect on my heart.
Through my teenage years and young adult life, I was constantly searching for someone or something to fill that hole in my heart. Not all these alternatives were good and wholesome, and my choices—including abortion—often added depth to the deep heart-wound that I already had. Unfortunately, I had no real concept of life or death and felt as though I might have been better off dead. After all, my own life seemed painful to me, and my actions were hurting my family and friends.
Later, when I was adopted by Christ into His family and came to understand what it means to be His child, I slowly began to grasp the magnitude of the love of a mother who chooses her child and claims her for her own. As a daughter of the King, I had a new purpose and a plan for my life. I was told that God would take away the pain of my past and use it to help others. How, I wasn't sure.
Shortly into my walk with the Lord, I was invited by a dear friend to visit a girls' home and share my story of hope and of how God had changed my life. Teenage girls came to this home to give birth to their children. Some would be keeping their babies; others would be choosing adoption. I felt a great deal of guilt that I had forsaken my own children by aborting them. God in His infinite grace and mercy was using this event and these brave young women to change my heart.
As we toured the building, I kept having the strange sensation that I had been in the building before. Fighting tears, I continued through the aging halls. My longtime friend informed me that the wing ahead had once been used as a hospital ward to deliver babies.
As we walked through this particular section of the building, I continued to have the odd sensations. Before we entered the room where I was to speak to my young audience, my friend stopped and said she needed to share something highly important and confidential with me. She informed me that she and another colleague had found my file and that I had been born in the very wing of the building where we now stood.
Shock, pain, and amazement filled me. Inside, I wept. Visualizing it as a bustling birthing wing was not difficult. The surreal vision of medical personnel bustling past us flashed through my mind. Prior to this revelation, I had believed that I had been born in another local hospital, not this place. I was stunned to realize that I was now in the actual building where I had been born.
At that moment, I needed God's strength more than ever in order to continue and to share my experience and God's grace with the young women now shuffling into the room at the end of the hallway. I couldn't get out of my mind the thought that I was speaking in the room of my very own birth so many years before.
Sometime later, while I prayed with my pastor's wife, she shared a picture of Jesus taking me lovingly from my birth mother's arms and placing me gently in the arms of my mom. Although I once wondered where God had been when I entered the world, the answer to that question had become crystal clear. He was right there all along.
At last, God had brought me full circle—where my past, present, and future met. I now understood the truth. Adoption was and is an act of love. My birth mom, regardless of her circumstances, made an unselfish choice when she gave me life. My Heavenly Father knew that a barren, childless woman (my adoptive mom) needed a little baby girl. He generously answered her prayers—with me. How could I ever again believe that abortion was an option? I couldn't.I have completed the healing process with regard to my abortions. The emotional and spiritual price tag for abortion is far too high for any woman to pay. It is only by the blood of Jesus that I am free to live and share openly about my past pain and shame. I'm always amazed when God graciously touches the heart of another woman by using my story of His grace. If my sharing my story can save one life, it's worth the pain of telling it. Adoption is more than an option ... it is a gift from one mother to another.
| Carol Van Atta is the founder of Becoming a Warrior for Christ ... One Step (and a prayer) at a Time. She is an author, speaker, and the mother of two children. Contact her at cvatta@aol.com or 503-492-1029. |
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