What branch am I?

I am the oldest of four kids. My parents adopted me when I was five days old. Actually, I was a prearranged private adoption. My birth mother was a teenager, not prepared to take care of a baby. My parents never kept the fact that I was adopted a secret. They were always honest with me and supportive when I asked questions, but we lived in a state that had sealed records and I was not allowed to find out any information about my birth mother back then.

I remember the day the reality of being adopted really hit me. I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but I remember the day. I think I was in the fourth or fifth grade. One of my friends in school found out she was adopted, but her parents had kept it a secret, and she was very upset. And hearing her talk about it and share with me some of her feelings, made me think about questions I’d always just taken for granted. My parents had always used the word adopted, but had never really explained what that meant and now I realized what that meant. Suddenly I felt like I didn’t fit in and I think I felt like that until just recently.

I should explain. Most people grow up knowing their history, knowing where they came from… Because a little piece of history is passed down from one generation to the next. When you’re adopted, that history is missing. It’s not just a flesh and blood thing, it’s a sense of belonging, a sense of shared history. A person needs that sense of knowing where they came from and without that, there’s a very important piece missing. It’s not that people made me feel like I didn’t belong, it was just an emptiness.

I remember the day my oldest daughter was born and they laid her in my arms. One of my first thoughts as I looked at that beautiful little baby was, “This is the first flesh and blood I’ve ever had. She’s the first real family I’ve ever held.” It hadn’t occurred to me until that very moment that she was my first flesh and blood connection. That moment sparked something in me. It started a longing to know more. And by the time my second daughter was born, I knew I had to find out more about my birth family. These little girls deserve to know their history, we all needed to know where we came from.

So I started signing up on every adoption registry I could find. Every means of connecting to someone that would be looking. It was my only means since my records were sealed. I got really sick about a year into that project and my doctors wanted to know my medical history and I had none, so my doctor and my dad wrote a letter to the judge that had sealed my records asking for information. All we got back was the name.… no birth date, no Social Security number, no address, no verifying information. One simple name that wasn’t going to help us, in the millions of people that lived in a state. I kept up the search for a couple years after that, but then I gave up.

But then a few years ago, along comes ancestry.com and the miracles of modern science. I really only did the test because my daughter wanted to know what our ethnicity was.

Let’s just say we got way more than we bargained for! It’s been a wonderful journey discovering new family and finding out where we came from. But one of the things that touched my heart the most is realizing that the other siblings that were out there looking for their history felt the same way I did. They needed to know where they came from.

I think our walk with Christ is very similar. Once we realize Who’s we are, the emptiness is gone. Once we realize we are a child of the King, there is a comfort and a feeling of safety that nothing else can bring. Anyone who is a parent understands that sense of protection, that deep unconditional love that bonds parent to child. To know that He will protect us and love us that way, and beyond, is all I need to know. He died for us - how much more do we need?

John 1:12-13 Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.