How Being Adopted Helped Me Understand God’s Love

Written by Leah S, Canada

I was found in a public location in China when I was a few days old and taken to an orphanage.

I first met my adoptive parents at the tender age of nine months. My mother recalls seeing me for the first time, bundled up in layers of clothing because the orphanage lacked heating. She says my adoption was an answer to 15 years of prayers.

Growing up, I never thought much about my adoption because my parents were very open about it and completely accepting of me. After working and volunteering in the non-profit space for some time, I came across an opening at an adoption non-profit. Upon joining the organisation, I began hearing more stories from other adoptees, which led me to reflect more on my own journey.

Here are three gifts adoption has given me:

1. Adoption gave me a new and solid identity

Often, children who are adopted will question their identity and relationship with their parents.

After coming home from Nigeria, my friend’s adopted daughter kept eating and eating, afraid that she would one day no longer receive more food. Other parents report of adopted children testing limits with unruly behaviour, unsure of the permanence of their new living arrangements.

Although I never questioned my relationship with my adoptive parents (since I was adopted as an infant), hearing of other adoption stories made me realise how adoption can lead to an identity crisis, and how it takes time for one to stabilise and embrace their new identity.

I, too, struggled with my identity for many years, constantly feeling like I didn’t fit in anywhere, and it made me wonder if it was because I had been abandoned and adopted.

But in time I realised that my identity crisis was mainly because I was looking for validation in the wrong places. So many different environments—friend groups, school culture, work situations—have dictated and defined my identity growing up.

Ultimately it was my second adoption—accepting Christ as Saviour and becoming a child of God—that led me to find my identity and security in Christ.

Romans 8:14-15 says, “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by Him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’”

After renewing my commitment in college through baptism, remembering my identity in Christ enabled me to stand up to worldly influences and not absorb their misguided messages about my worth.

2. Adoption made me thankful for God’s complete understanding of me

Adoption is not an easy process. From the get-go, there is the trauma of having been separated from birth parents.

In my case, it also meant growing up with adoptive parents who were ethnically different and wired very differently from me. My interests in books and schoolwork stood in contrast to my dad’s farming background and love of hands-on, outdoor work with machinery. I remember sitting in front of Ivy League application papers with my adoptive parents who had never attended college and wishing that I had someone to guide me on how to apply my skillsets.

For the longest time, I had idealised the biological connection, thinking that it was the missing piece. But since becoming a Christian, I have come to understand what it means to have a Father who created my inmost being and knitted me together fearfully and wonderfully in the womb (Psalm 139:13-14). Because He made me the way I am, He is the only one who truly understands me.

Knowing that God is my provider and strength has helped me to feel less lonely and lacking in support, particularly in areas where I didn’t have a role-model to pave the way. I stopped searching in people for that sense of belonging and guidance that I could only find in Christ.

3. Adoption helped me understand unconditional love

So many of our relationships (e.g., work or business, or even friendships) are based on transactions or expected reciprocity instead of commitment, which is why there is something transformational in choosing to love a child who has nothing to offer in return.

In adopting me, my parents promised to love and protect me and legally assumed responsibility for me. Even during those different periods where I rejected and rebelled against them, they stayed steadfast, patient, and prayerful. They also didn’t impose any expectations on me, in terms of what career I should pursue or whether I would live nearby to take care of them in their old age, but simply encouraged me to live out God’s plan for my life.

In that way, they reflected God’s constancy and how true covenantal love is something chosen by the giver, not based on the recipient’s merit.

Adoption always begins with loss, but adoption is not the problem. It is an imperfect yet beautiful solution to broken circumstances.

God has used a lot of the questions raised by adoption (e.g., Who am I? Where do I belong? Who understands me?) to point me back to Him as the provider. He has also used my adoptive parents to illustrate His love through tangible, everyday examples of what it means to pursue, sacrifice, and endure (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).