I GUESS I Knew This Day Would Come

"Are you adopted?"

Silence.

"Is he adopted?"

"Yes. Why?"

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"Did you tell them I was adopted?"

"Yes."

"WHYYY?!?"

"Well, they asked, and I didn't know there was any reason not to."

"I don't want them to know!"

Insert broken Mama's heart here. Delete rest of conversation that followed.

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If you have ever stumbled into the use of the term "real Mom" around me, you have probably found yourself in the presence of what is known as a Mama Bear. You may have left licking a few wounds. The thing is, I cannot imagine how Caleb could feel any more like my "real" child if he had crawled out of my womb. In fact, there are days that friends and I ask each other, "are you sure I didn't give birth to this child?"

And I think somehow, from that place of "real" mothering, I let myself slip into the naive fantasy that we could somehow avoid those potholes (or will they be ravines?) of wrestling with the reality of how Caleb came into our family. How others will engage that but really more importantly, how Caleb will settle that as he finds his true identity.

My hope and prayer for him is that who he is in relation to Joseph and me is never the most significant thing about him. And as he looks to his True Father, he will see that we are all like he is: adopted, desired and delighted in.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

~Romans 8:15-17

But now thus says the , he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you,...”

~Isaiah 43:1, 4a 

Real Mom (aka MOM, MAMA, MOMMY) - the one who has been raising him, and FIGHTING FOR him, all his life

Real Mom (aka BIRTH Mom) - the one who gave him the gift of life and chose a forever family for him