Having the opportunity to meet with, interview, and write about all the families in The Believer’s Byline Adoption Series has been incredible. My goal from the beginning has been to show adoption from multiple points of view. So far, I’ve covered private adoption, foster adoption, and international adoption. I believe each of the families I have written about would agree that their experiences have come with extreme challenges as well as boundless blessings. Even so, for each of these families, the process of raising their adoptive kids is still in progress, so for this article, I would like to focus on a family where the adoptive children have been raised all the way into adulthood. That family happens to be my own.
No, I am not personally adopted, nor do I have my own adopted kids. However, from the time I was about six, foster and eventually adoptive children have been part of the Fields family’s life. My parents, Dave and Glenifer, met in Cape Carteret, North Carolina back in 1980. At the time, my dad was finishing his tour of duty in the Marines and my mom, a native North Carolinian, was a schoolteacher in Cape Carteret. They were introduced by mutual friends, and by June of that year, they were married and on the road to Oregon, my dad’s home state.
They settled in Stayton, Oregon to be near my dad’s parents and so that he could train to be a paramedic at Chemekata Community College in nearby Salem. Fast forward just over a year later, and in June 1981, I was born. A year and a half after that my brother Jake was born, and for the next several years our family continued to live in Stayton. Eventually though, my dad was hired as a paramedic and firefighter at the Crook County Fire Department in Prineville, Oregon, so my family made the trek across the mountains to the town where my brother and I would spend the rest of our childhoods. However, the Fields family was still not quite complete.
You see, day by day something was stirring in my mom’s heart. As a schoolteacher, she had the opportunity to work with multiple students who were in foster care. Learning each of their stories, she started to feel the tug toward becoming a foster parent herself. It did not take much convincing for my dad to agree, and shortly thereafter, they opened their home to any child the Lord willed. And, of course, the Lord willed that they cut their teeth as foster parents with teenagers! My mom laughed as she recounted, “We learned you have to grow into teenagers.” At the time, my brother and I were still quite young, so it was a bit of a learning curve for my parents working with teens. Eventually though, these teens returned to their own families or went to other foster homes. It would not be until two particular younger kids came along that the Fields family would be changed forever.
The first was my adoptive sister, Rene’, who is just a little less than five months younger than I am. Generations of the Fields family had been relatively without daughters. In fact, until two of my cousins came along, the Fields family went nearly 90 years without any girls being born. So getting to add Rene’ to our family was a special blessing.
My brother Beau joined us a few years later. He was only a toddler at the time, and he was only meant to be a temporary foster child. However, the Lord always has better plans, and now over 30 years later, Beau is still part of our family and my brother.
Both Rene’ and Beau were eventually adopted by my parents. As with any adoption, their individual adoption journeys were long and far from easy, but they were also filled with the clear evidence of God at work. Now, decades later, all the Fields kids are grown, and Rene and Beau both have families of their own. Perhaps in a future article they’ll have a chance to share their stories in detail, but as I wrap up the last article in what will become the first printed edition of The Believer’s Byline, I decided I would focus this article on the advice, wisdom, and encouragement my family would give to both prospective adoptive parents and prospective adoptees. I pray their insights will be a blessing to all concerned.
My parents were the first to share and to remind prospective adoptive parents that, “Adoption is a special calling. Probably every child entering into the adoption process without exception comes from a background of pain. You, as God’s chosen parents for them, have to be willing to enter into that pain – and love them through it. There will be days when you will be exhausted, frustrated, and even in tears yourself, and you will wonder if you can even make it through to tomorrow – but you will. Just trust God and remind yourself that He is with you through it all. After all, these are really His kids in the first place, and in His perfect timing He will show you those days of joy – and you will learn as much about His love from your adoptive kids as they will from you.” My mom added that it is also important to be open to doing things differently, and family counseling can be very helpful during the teen years. Above all my parents advice to prospective adoptive parents is, “Never stop loving!”
For adoptees and about to be adoptees, my sister Rene’ shared, “If you are adopted realize that this family chose you. God brought you all together, and you should feel special that your parents chose you. Your relationship will be more fulfilling if you appreciate this and hold it close to your heart. I don’t recommend looking for your biological family. God put you in your current family for a reason. Look forward toward where you are going and not to where you have been. Unless it is for medical purposes, leave the past in the past. If you have not been adopted yet remember God has a plan. Also you and you alone decide the outcome of your life. Make good decisions, make goals, and have a relationship with God, and you will have endless opportunities and will break whatever family or life cycle you were apart of. Never believe you are a victim. You may have been a victim of some sort, but don’t let that be an excuse to not strive for the best. Your decisions now depict how hard your adult life will be. Throughout life God puts people in your life to guide, protect, and be your friends. Keep them close always. They are also your family.”
My brother Beau shared, “If I were to give any advice to a kid about to be adopted, it would be that just because you are being accepted into another family that does not mean that you are not still part of your biological family. You are so incredibly lucky that a family was willing to add you to theirs. I would tell them to embrace every aspect of it and to not feel guilty for leaving their old life behind. It is a beautiful thing once you realize that your heart is capable of loving an adopted family just as much as your biological family. I would tell them that not all kids are this lucky and that it is a gift.”
I hope I have proven in this series that adoption is a beautiful thing! It takes you from one often broken family and gives you full legal rights and status in a new family. Those rights can never be revoked – even your very birth certificate is changed! It is the same in the kingdom of God. Galatians 4:4-7 remind us:
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”
English Standard Version
May the earthly picture of adoption always remind us of this eternal reality that every Christian shares. For we are all adopted into one family, and one day we will stand together and cry, “Abba, Father!”
References
Scripture quotations are from The ESV ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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