Fearlessly Facing our History, Disabilities, or Our Child’s Ancestry in Adoption

My seven -year-old adopted daughter is partially deaf. I stand there, between clothes racks, witnessing hands moving between strangers.  In conversation without words.

I interrupt with my lips, not even thinking that they may have no voice and that I might make a complete fool of myself.

One vocalizes clearly in response, and I am relieved.

She has bi-lateral hearing loss, the rare kind of loss, my daughter was born with. She shares involuntarily, like opening a can of worms, how her mom started out like her…but then ended up being completely deaf.

As a young person, fear drove this stranger to learn sign-language and to turn from her world of speaking, to non-speaking…just in case she wakes up deaf one day too.

She is in her late fifties.

And isn’t it fear that always silences us?  Fear that keeps us from living in the fullness of what God intended?

Fear creeps in, from doctors reports, history, and how our daughter could also wake up with no hearing too one day…

Still, I fight to keep the faith, warring in the face, the truth that I serve a God who heals….

The one in the Bible who put mud on eyes, vocalized the mute, opened the ears of the deaf….time and time again.

But even if (and oh how we must never forget the “even if’s”).…even if He doesn’t deliver us from the fiery furnace of our affliction…He remains strong, sufficient….with us.  His love unquenchable.  And His promise is to stand in the flames with us.  And that alone is enough.  

Still….Who of us don’t war with our ancestry?  Who of us are not tempted to fear that we will become like,     so and so.     (fill in the blank)? Who of us are unafraid of falling down that slippery slope to nothingness…like a loved one we might have in our genetic line?

I sit down with my brother.  The brother I met when I was twenty-five.  The one adopted out at birth.  He is tall, thin, has features that mirror mine.  And still, there is something in him that, for the first time in my life…more than anyone I have ever met….says, “He gets me.”

We weren’t raised together.  The only thing we have is our ancestors.  Yet, we have everything in common.

We meet for lunch.  We both like tarter.  His humor makes me laugh loudly….as he speaks, and I unravel all he is….all I am.

My husband announces, somewhat awkwardly, in the conversation, “Jen is speaking!  They are flying her to a Women’s Conference to speak in Colorado! She will be talking about adoption!”

I gasp in embarrassment.  

The threads of yesterday and today get woven together at this gracious offer.  Still he smiles and I hear my brother says ever so quiet and humbly….

“I speak too…I speak often, and I really enjoy it”.  I had forgotten that a few weeks ago he was at a retreat center near my house. He leads a large ministry for troubled youth.  Of course he speaks.

I drill him, this bio that has become the joy I find in adoption.  I want to honor him, follow in his footsteps. hear the wisdom of one who has gone before me.  The one who I rejoice at calling, “brother”.

His heart for hurting children, writing, even speaking.  We have so much in common.

Yet, why do we fear genetics?  Why do we fear the chromosomes, as if they are conditional to who we are and where we are going?  What happened to free choice?  What happened to following that God-calling inside us, instead of sitting back a victim and saying “we can’t” because of genetics, our history, our circumstances, or where we have come from? When did someone’s history ever stop Christ from most graciously reaching down to touch them?  When did Jesus call us to built walls, and divisions, and hindrances in relationships?

I can’t say I will speak as well as my older brother at the Women’s Conference in April.
I can’t say that my daughter won’t wake up completely deaf one day.
I can’t say that there aren’t challenges to who we become depending on our past or our prior experiences….

But what I can say is….we are victorious.  What I can say is that we are meant to be like Moses….delivering the generations from where they’ve come from.  Leading our people, and future generations to the promise of a Savior….whatever that looks like for each of us.

A private message pops up on Facebook.  It’s a new bio sibling I have never met of my adopted daughter.  The face reflects the one I love.  We begin to connect and plan a meeting.

For I know, fearless living always multiplies love, always builds a bridge between relationships.

And we can draw close to those around us because Christ drew near to us, because love covers fear, and relationship always trump the need to isolate, protect, and wall ourselves from others.

The enemy wants us silenced…fumbling around with our hands, out of fear of what tomorrow might bring.  But, I say, as long as we have mouths…..let’s speak.  As long as we have ears that hear….let’s use them to listen, grow, and reach.

• Who do you need to draw close to today?
• What history do you need to battle against, war against, and declare the victory of a Savior over?
• How might you pursue further, real life relationship with those around you?

I encourage you today to not only get out from behind your computer….but really go, be, live called to those relationships God has placed right in front of you.