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Am I a messed up person?  Yes!  Why?  It’s not because my parents messed me up or because I chose to be that way.  I just am.  But, I bet you are too!  But, before I go into that, read on as I have an update on my journey in finding my genetic family.

For those who read my blog posts several months back, I’m sorry it’s been so long.  But, a lot has happened since then.  Since I last wrote in this blog in January, I finally got to meet not only my birth father and his wife, but his son and his daughter who are both half-brother and half-sister to me (I’m withholding names on this public site, but my family and friends know who they are).  For the first time in my life, I was able to meet and speak with people who actually carried my genes!

After 40+ years of going to the doctor and writing “unknown” under the father’s family medical history section of the medical forms, I finally have some answers from both sides of my birth family as I was able to talk genetic health with them.  I could actually look them in the face and see resemblances that weren’t simply imaginary, but valid genetic comparisons.  If you hold some baby pictures of all three of us (minus the hair), you can’t tell us apart!  How cool is that when you have spent more than 4 decades of never seeing anyone that you connect with biologically!

All three of them are very healthy and intelligent people who I enjoyed getting to know and will get to know more as the years go by.  But, I’ve been especially pleased with being able to connect with my birth father.  He’s a great guy.  We not only look very similar, but share the talent of music and playing the piano.  It turns out that he learned piano on his own raw talent with no lessons – just his ear.  He still plays today and makes it a significant part of his life as he has frequently played the piano for wedding receptions, cruise ships and other venues over his lifetime.  When he learned of my talent, he quickly remarked that I was the missing link for this gift as his two other children’s interests/talents are in other areas (she is a trained and accomplished stage performer, especially in comedy; he is a competitive swimmer and film actor).

When we met in early March, we quickly brought the piano into our conversation and gave each other a little preview of our skills (I’ll admit, my preview was very brief as I had been out of practice and hadn’t polished up on my songs).  What was so interesting was that we both loved the same kind of music like romantic classics and contemporary music as well as romantic show tunes.  Maybe that was just a coincidence, or maybe it was something more.  Hard to tell.  But given that most men could care less about such songs, I would like to think that our genes played a part in our common interest.  Some things are just a part of our genes.

Connecting with my birth father and getting in touch with who I am genetically has come later in life, unlike my connect with my heavenly Father and Creator.  This is the reverse of what most people go through as most people (not adopted) seamlessly live their whole lives without ever thinking or getting in touch with their genetic roots as it has always been there for them.  Being adopted by my two wonderful parents (Bill and Betty) who are now in heaven brought me a lifetime of knowing my heavenly Father.  They raised me in their likeness and in their belief.  They raised me in their “spiritual image” as Christ followers and believers.  In the same way, my heavenly Father and I don’t have a genetic connection, we have an image connection.  He created me in His image and likeness.  He created all of us in His image and likeness.

So, what’s so significant about that?  It sets us (the human race) apart from any other created thing.  We are special above all other creatures made by God, our Father.  But, what it also brings in to reality is the utter depravity of who we are as humans who did not inherit the divine genes of God, but the genes of Adam who was God’s first created being for whom we inherited out sin nature by his transgression against God (Romans 5:12).  What does this mean for you and me?  It means we inherited our sin nature; yes, we were “born that way.”  Yes, I am messed up and you are too.

So, what is sin?  Basically, it means “missing the mark.” It means not meeting God’s absolute standard of purity in ourselves, our actions, our motives and our deeds.  It doesn’t require intention, because impurity is impurity whether our intentions are good or bad.  God’s nature simply is not fully in us.  Unfortunately, most of us have only been taught that sin was choosing to do wrong and disobeying the rules set for us.  There’s no question that this is sin, but it doesn’t explain sin completely.  Sin’s definition goes far beyond willful disobedience.  Consider the sacrifices made in the Hebrew scriptures (see Leviticus 4) where sacrifices weren’t just made for intentional sins, but for unintentional sins where we “miss the mark.”

So, is that hard for you to accept?  Then, think about this. God has already taught us about purity through nature.  If water is impure, it doesn’t matter whether it was intentionally or intentionally contaminated.  Impure is impure.  Furthermore, making the water pure cannot be accomplished simply by pouring some good water into the bad water.  The contamination must be completely eradicated by something outside of itself (burning out the impurity or infusing a purifying chemical).  Likewise, our sin nature cannot be purified or “forgiven” by good deeds or good intentions.  We need something more.  Basically, you and I, apart from a purifying source outside of us, are doomed for eternal separation from our Father without an outside change agent.

So, you think you are good enough as you are?  Most of us, though we try our best, would have to admit that our motives for anything in life aren’t exactly and perfectly pure.  Though we can (and should) do our best to live by God’s moral law, we can’t do it simply by relying on our own good nature apart from Him.  All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23).  Our nature through Adam is simply contaminated (see Romans 5:12).  If what you are gleaning from what I am saying is dreadful and depressing, you are right.  But, read on and don’t give up.

Paul, in Romans 7, describes in almost graphic detail (without specifically mentioning what his struggles were) how he personally struggled with his own sin nature, doing the very things he did not want to do even though he tried to avoid them.  A nature inside his physical body made it practically out of his control.  He might win a few sin battles, but he was losing the war.  He did not say it was okay, make excuses or explain it away through his genetic disposition, environment or learned behavior.  Whatever the reason, he was impure and recognized it in himself.  Instead, he pointed to the only hope by which he could be rescued from his body of sin – Christ, where those who trust in Him are saved from condemnation (Romans 8).

Knowing and trusting in Who Christ is and His finished work by dying on the cross for our sins is our salvation, our purifying agent that saves us from our Sin.  Jesus was God’s only “begotten” Son (not a created being since no created thing separate from God’s own nature is sufficient).  Only God’s Divine nature that comes from Him alone can be the purifying agent that takes away our sin.  Jesus (God Himself – yes, a fully divine and fully human person, defying our flawed human logic in His nature) could only sacrifice Himself to save us.  For Him to do otherwise would mean that God would not be true to Himself and His own nature.

In a time and age where many think, in all respects, we should be “true to ourselves,” I’m only glad that God was true to His loving self, to die for me and save me so my impurity would be washed away.  Now, I can be in His presence when I go to eternity.  As we see society (our country in particular) gravitate away from the laws and norms that Christian immigrants set in place when our country was born, we must realize that society is just trying to be true to itself (yes, it’s being honest to its nature).

Our Father deeply loves us and wants better for us because being “true to ourselves” in all facets of our lives (not just some) ultimately requires embracing and glorifying our own impurity; something a Christ follower should never celebrate and embrace in themselves or those they love and care for.  In fact, we are sometimes called to do the things we don’t want to do or feel comfortable doing – living contrary to some things inside of us that aren’t good and showing how God’s plan and His nature is so different from ours.  It requires us to stand for His standards instead of creating our own.

The message we carry as followers of Christ is the redeeming message of God’s grace to us in giving us Jesus Christ.  He died for you and me to be the purifying change agent who cleansed us from the penalty.  All we must do is believe (John 3:16); trust in His sacrifice and not in ourselves.  Yes, this means you become, by definition, a hypocrite to this world (being something other that what is true to your nature), but there’s nothing natural about us living in this world.  This world is just our temporary place where Christ followers are the foreigners – the unwelcomed dwellers.  Our eternal home is with our Father.

Where is your eternal home?  Though you and I try to be good and love others, is it enough to save us?  No.  Our good deeds don’t eradicate who our true selves are.  Only Jesus can eradicate the problem inside us.  This world is messed up.  I’m messed up and you are messed up (just admit it).  We need something outside of ourselves.  We need Jesus.  He’s our answer to our messed up selves.

Trust in His sacrifice for your sins and see me in heaven.  I want to see you in heaven no matter how different you are from me.  All I am is just another version of “messed up” who wrote this blog.  I need Jesus and you do too!

Do you know what it’s like to be adopted?  Maybe you do, but don’t know it.  From the standpoint of being legally adopted as a child, you may not.  But, that doesn’t mean you don’t understand it more than you think.  If you have been loved or ever loved anyone and accepted them into your life, you really do understand it in a broader sense.  As I have gone through my journey to finding my genetic family, I’ve pondered this and truly believe that all of us really do understand adoption in a broader sense because we have all experienced it.  I feel as though I am experiencing it even now as my search for my genetic family has had some new developments over the last several weeks since I last wrote.  So, not only do I have thoughts about why you really do understand what adoption feels like (in a broader sense), but I can share with you these latest developments.

I am now happy to report that I have found and befriended members of my birth father’s side of the family.  All thanks go to both Tracy and a former wife of my birth father that Tracy found and befriended, who met us and willingly volunteered to make a gutsy call to him even though they had not spoken for many years.  This is something I would never have dreamed would either occur or actually be a positive experience.  As I first contacted my birth father, I didn’t approach him with the expectation or feeling of entitlement that he should embrace me into his life or that his children would necessarily be open to knowing or meeting me.  The only thing I hoped for was to get some medical information since that had always been a blank page whenever I filled out a doctor’s questionnaire.  However, he and his wife were interested in having me, Tracy and Abby be a part of their lives which is a true blessing.  We have already talked on the phone several times at this point and plan to see each other in the next few months.

My birth father also proceeded to tell his two children about me.  As a result, we have all connected on Facebook.  In fact, on the Sunday before Christmas, Tracy, Abby and I met my birth half-brother for lunch as he lives in the Dallas area.  It was a wonderful experience as we got to know each other.  I was particularly pleased at how natural the process was.  I am amazed that all three of my half-siblings on both sides of my genetic family are open and accepting, given that I have walked into their lives unexpectedly.  In many cases, adopted persons find out things they don’t want to know and reach out to birth families who want nothing to do with them.  For some reason, God has opened this door for me to have a different outcome.  So, the wonderful family I have had on both the Potts and Fees side of my families has now expanded to include both sides of my genetic family.

Because of this, it has stirred in my mind the question of why wouldn’t genetic connections automatically guarantee love and acceptance given that, in my case, it has happened to me?  For some of you who have always known and been with your genetic family, you know all too well that it is not a guarantee.  Just the same, being adopted or having a legal familial connection with someone is no guarantee either.  A court can neither declare nor create love between anyone, nor are they designed to do so.  So, whatever the case, neither a genetic nor a legal connection to someone guarantees or creates the reality that love and acceptance exists.  So, what is the glue that holds people together as family, friends or a romantic connection?  It’s the choice to love them.  They choose (adopt) that person into their lives.

One of the easiest forms of non-formal adoption that commonly takes place today are the step fathers, step mothers and step siblings who have accepted many of you into their lives.  They have no genetic connections with you and may not even share the same last name as you, but they have chosen to love you.  They have embraced and accepted you into their lives as though you were their biological child or sibling.  In my family, we have step fathers and step mothers who have considered the children from their spouses’ previous marriages as their own.  They made that choice as part of their marriage to embrace those children.  They, in some cases, became the “real” parents of those children because they played the role of the father or mother and love their children unconditionally.  The fact is, some may say that blood is thicker than water, but the choice to love is stronger than any blood or legal connection.

If you are not yet convinced that love is thicker than blood, ask yourself this question:  If I found out today through a genetic test or by means of a legal ruling that my mother or father wasn’t actually mine, would they feel any differently toward me and would I feel any differently towards them?  Of course, you would be shocked and go through a time of adjustment.  But, would that fact necessarily erase the relationship you built over time?  What if you thought that a child you believed was genetically connected to you really wasn’t after many years of believing so?  Would that change how you felt about them?  We know someone who encountered such a shocking revelation about their daughter many years ago.  Yet, their love for her never changed and their sense and role of responsibility as a parent continued to remain a top priority in their life.  Did they need genetics to love her?  Of course not!  Genetics in these cases play a role in classifying one as someone’s biological child, but they don’t create a loving bond or erase the bonds of love and relationships that have developed between the child and the non-genetic parent who raised them.  Despite our sin nature inherited from Adam, God placed within us a mechanism that makes it possible for us extend ourselves as fathers and mothers with or without having a genetic connection to them.

So, you may say that you have never had any of these situations in your personal life, though most of us at least know someone who has.  But, have you considered that if you have started a family of your own, you were adopted by someone and you adopted someone into your life – that being your spouse?  Consider this:  When you got married, you married someone who had no genetic or familial connection to you.  Not only that, but one of you likely changed your legal name as part of the marriage.  Marriage and sexuality, by God’s designed plan, is adoptive in nature.  Leviticus 18 specifically lists several forbidden sexual relationships among those who are connected genetically or by another family member’s marriage as well as among those of the same gender.  God’s plan for marriage and family begins with choosing and bonding with someone who is not like you.  It is an adoptive plan.

If you don’t think marriage is a form of adoption, consider that we who are Christians (adopted by God) are also called the Church, who is the Bride of Christ, referred to in the four gospels and Revelation.  Adoption and marriage are the two illustrations the Bible uses to describe believers and their relationship to God individually and as a group.  Marriage is one of the greatest forms of adoption, bringing two unlike persons together and forming one new family under a new name.

In my previous post https://genesgenes.net/2014/11/29, I wrote about how God used adoption as a means to bring us into His family and gain His eternal inheritance in heaven.  So, those who place their faith in Christ do understand that God loved and accepted them though they had no physical lineage to Him or had His Divine genes.  But, the amazing thing about this is that His plan for human relationships was much the same way.  While the Bible contains a comprehensive lineage that goes from Adam to Christ, the only way that lineage is possible is through a constant series of adoptions.  Yes, people who were not family members who chose to bond with each other and form new families.  By no means was their genetic connections not important, but they weren’t everything.

So, what does this have to do with what I have experienced recently?  My recent experience in finding my birth family and their embracing of me as well as my embracing of them might seem like it’s just about genetics, but it really isn’t.  The fact is, we are choosing to accept each other into our lives.  Yes, genetics plays a key part in it and is the initial reason we had to connect with each other, but loving and extending ourselves to each other still remains a choice.  As ironic as it may seem, we are actually adopting each other into our lives.

So, does this matter to you and I as it relates to eternity and our relationship with our Creator?  Yes, because you and I have no genetic or legal entitlement to be a part of God’s family.  We don’t have God’s Divine genes.  Our physical relationship is to Adam and his sin nature.  Our “legal” connection is to Adam as well because we stand guilty as charged for our sins.  No matter how good we think we are or try to be, we can’t change our family connection to Adam.  We need something more because the inheritance of Adam’s family is one of death and separation from our Creator.

The good news is that God has made His choice to adopt you when He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus, to die for our sins.  Because Jesus was begotten and not created like you and me, He was God’s only “begotten” Son.  All that belonged to God the Father belonged to Jesus.  But, because Jesus died as a sacrifice for our sins, He took our sins upon Himself by dying as a sacrifice so we could we could be entitled to receive His inheritance (see Hebrews 9).  So, Jesus’ inheritance can now be ours.  But, this only comes through adoption, and adoption means to choose.  He chose us when He died for us, but we have to choose Him.  We choose Jesus when we place our faith in Him and His death on the cross that paid for our sins.  Choosing Jesus brings glory to God and is part of His plan for a two-way adoption.  He wants to adopt you into His Kingdom and eternal family in heaven.  The question is:  have you adopted Him?

Having been an adopted child and having adopted a beautiful daughter, I’m just going to “go out on a limb” and say something that some of you may think is shocking.  You can’t go to heaven unless you are adopted!  You can’t have eternal life in heaven unless you forsake your old identity and take on a new identity.  Maybe you know what I’m talking about.  But, in case you don’t, please read on and don’t assume I’m talking about what you may think I’m referring to.

No, I’m not an angry or despondent adopted person who just started a blog so he could pontificate to everyone on the significance of his childhood adoption as though it is superior to those of you who weren’t adopted.  No, I’m not specifically referring to legally disowning your mother, father, siblings or other family members and being legally adopted into a new family.  In fact, I have faith, as some of you do, that I will spend eternity in heaven with some of them and hope that I would see all of them there, from both my adoptive and birth families.  The family of birth I’m referring to is a family we were all born into and can all trace our lineage to; the family of Adam – the human race.

The Bible state in Romans 5:12 (referring to Adam) “So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned” (NET).  Basically, we were all born through Adam and inherited a sin nature that has destined us for a physical death.  Not one of us is going to escape this fate.  The problem with this physical death is that it will not lead us to inherit God’s Kingdom, because while we are all part of God’s special creation whom He made in His image, we aren’t automatically God’s children for eternity.  Why – because we have Adam’s sin nature and don’t genetically have God’s Divine nature.  We don’t have God’s Divine genes and don’t naturally seek Him as Father, though we may try our best to live up to His standards.  The “sin” that lives inside us is a part of our nature.

So, what exactly is “sin”?  Sin means “missing the mark.”  It isn’t restricted to intentional decisions to rebel against or disobey God, but is anytime we either intentionally or unintentionally fail to meet God’s standard.  That’s why, in the Bible’s book of Leviticus, sacrifices were made for both intentional and unintentional sins.  Basically, it’s fair to say that we don’t just decide to sin, we are born that way and default to that behavior.  We are completely enslaved to this nature.  We sometimes sin when we don’t mean to or default to behavior that doesn’t meet God’s perfect standards.  That’s hard for many of us to believe because we want to see ourselves as basically good decent persons who are trying their best to be good.  We even want to believe that our children are born perfect.  But, it doesn’t take long before we see that, despite their beautiful innocence, they “surprise” us with not so innocent and downright selfish behavior that we spend our parenting years trying to correct.  We quickly wake up to the sobering fact that, no matter how skillful we think we are at parenting, our kids aren’t perfect.

So, basically, all of us fall into the same gene pool.  We need a solution beyond our own selves.  We can try to do good and follow the 10 commandments, but it ultimately will fail us as the commandments only show us how we “miss the mark” with God – they aren’t the solution.  Just the same, we can try to accomplish great works that solve many of the world’s problems and display acts of humanitarian love to each other.  However, we can’t escape our genetics no matter what great acts of kindness or good deeds we do.  We simply can’t get to heaven and spend eternity with God if we stay identified with this family (Adam’s children).  The problem is, we can’t physically change the DNA we inherited.  We can’t go back and be physically reborn with a different nature.  So, what’s the solution?  Adoption?  Yes!  That’s God’s solution for us.

So, what does adoption mean.  It means to be “chosen.”  That’s the solution God used throughout the Bible to save His people.  In the Hebrew (OT) scriptures, God used His “chosen” people, the Jews, to bring His message to the world.  The Jewish lineage wasn’t genetically connected to God, they were adopted – chosen by God (Romans 9:4).  Ironically, when God freed the Jews from Egyptian slavery, he also used adoption as He had baby Moses (a Jew) placed out of his Jewish family to Pharoah’s daughter so he could be raised by Egyptian royalty and be positioned to someday lead the Jews out of captivity.  But most the important placement was when God gave us the gift of Jesus Christ to save us from our sins.  God gave us His only begotten Son, Jesus, who wasn’t a creation of God (like we are), but was the Word that was God from the beginning.  John, speaking of Jesus, says in John 1:1-3 (NET)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God. ² The Word was with God in the beginning. ³ All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. ⁴ In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind. ⁵ And the light shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it.

Matthew 1:18-25 (NET) describes the miraculous virgin birth of Jesus on earth and placement with Joseph (His adoptive earthly father) in this way:

Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way. While his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Because Joseph, her husband to be, was a righteous man, and because he did not want to disgrace her, he intended to divorce her privately. ²⁰ When he had contemplated this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” ²² This all happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: ²³ “Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will name him Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.” ²⁴ When Joseph awoke from sleep he did what the angel of the Lord told him. He took his wife, ²⁵ but did not have marital relations with her until she gave birth to a son, whom he named Jesus.

God the Father placed His Son Jesus on this earth so He could save us from our sins by dying on a cross as a once and for all eternal sacrifice (unlike the OT sacrifices which had to be repeated over and over).  His virgin birth brought with it His Divine genes and did not carry with it the sin nature that we inherited under Adam, making Him the perfect sacrifice.  Jesus, being both fully human and fully God in nature, made it possible for us to be adopted into God’s Eternal family if we place our faith in Him.  By placing our faith in Jesus and His sacrificial death on the cross, we are no longer slaves and children of our genetically inherited sin nature, but we are adopted as His sons and daughters and can call God our true “Father.”  The Bible describes the adoption solution in Galatians 4:4-6 when it says…

 ⁴ But when the appropriate time had come, God sent out his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, so that we may be adopted as sons with full rights. ⁶ And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, who calls “Abba! Father!” ⁷ So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if you are a son, then you are also an heir through God.

 When I was adopted, the State of Texas gave me a new identity.  While I still had the same birthdate and birth certificate number, they redacted my birth certificate and changed my name from “Baby Boy …” to the new family name of “Potts.”  While I am proud of that name, that adoption was just a new human identity.  No matter who my birth family or adoptive family are and no matter what I find out about my original birth family or my adopted family, I cannot escape who I am – a human being born with a sin nature under Adam.  I must be adopted by God.  The only way that happens is through faith in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son.  By believing in Christ and trusting in Him as the sacrifice for my sins, Ephesians 1:13-14 (NET) says that I am “marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, who is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory.”  What is that inheritance?  It is eternal life for those who believe (John 3:16).  That’s the solution to my sin problem.

The Texas Family Code seems to mirror exactly what the Bible states about our adoption as children of God when it says the following:

Sec. 162.017. EFFECT OF ADOPTION. (a) An order of adoption creates the parent-child relationship between the adoptive parent and the child for all purposes.

(b) An adopted child is entitled to inherit from and through the child’s adoptive parents as though the child were the biological child of the parents.

If you are adopted by God in Christ, you get everything through His Son, Jesus Christ.  You no longer are condemned to receive the inheritance of your old sin nature when you die, which is to eternally perish in hell, apart from God.

So, the question is, are you adopted by God and promised His Eternal Inheritance?  If not, place your trust in Christ today as the sacrifice for your sins and ask for His forgiveness, and that Inheritance will be yours.

If you’re adopted and you have ever told someone that you wanted to find out about your birth parents and genetic family, did they tell you that you should just be happy about your adoptive family?  I know some have been told that.  In fact, as a young child, that was my opinion for which I boldly expressed to others when the subject came up.

I was very blessed to be adopted by my lifelong parents, Bill and Betty, who had only been married a few years.  When they adopted me, they were older than most parents (44 & 43), especially in the era of the 1960’s (it’s now not such a weird thing as I have since followed in their path, adopting our daughter at the age of 43).  After trying to conceive and eventually going through a hysterectomy, adoption was their only chance for a child.  I am more than blessed by having them because they gave me a wonderful childhood, a sister (Carla – also adopted), took us to church and brought me to Christ.  If I died today, I could be satisfied knowing that God blessed me with both a wonderful earthly family and adopted and an eternal forever family in Christ.  But, that hasn’t left me without questions or the feeling that maybe I should and could know more than I do.

As I mentioned in my Introduction, I was adopted from the Gladney in Fort Worth in 1968, having just turned 1-year old when placed.  I’ve yet to know for sure why it took me so long to get adopted given that I had no health or other factors that would keep a new-born from being immediately placed.  However, as I got older, we did discover that I was hard of hearing in my right ear (only 20% capacity to hear) for which there was no cure.  So, over the course of time, I have let it work to my favor.  If it’s noisy when I’m trying to sleep, I just turn on my good ear and most of the noise is drowned out.  If I’m singing in a choir next to a “tone-deaf” person, I just make sure he’s on my right side as I can completely drown him out and sing the right notes.  On the other hand, it’s not so good when I’m in a crowd, like the dinner table, when I can’t understand half of the conversation and eventually retreat to my own thoughts rather than constantly asking “What?” or turning my head around to try to hear someone on my right side.  However, if I could get it corrected at this point in my life, I don’t think I would.  After all, I might hear sounds that I don’t like or are distracting to me that most of you are used to.  Besides, I’ve always been able to live this way since I can remember.  It didn’t stop me from finding a beautiful wife and being a father.  But, as I think about this condition that I’ve lived with my whole life, it’s helped me answer why, after 35 years, I changed my mind and decided to find out more about my genetic family.

Though I did have questions for years, I never really cared about finding my birth parents until 2002.  By then, both of my parents had died.  My dad died when I was 11 after a lifelong battle with a WW2 injury.  My mom died when I was 29 after a year-long battle with cancer.  By age 35, I finally felt free to explore those questions without worrying that I would be dishonoring them.  So, I contacted the Gladney Center to see if I could get any information about my birth parents since this was a closed adoption.  My mom and dad did leave me with some information about both my birth mother and birth father.  I knew that my birth mother’s family was Russian Ukrainian and had been a part of the Greek Orthodox church.  My birth father was a self-taught pianist and competitive swimmer.  As it turns out, once Gladney sent me the “non-identifying” information (that means, they blot out anything on the documents that identifies anyone), everything checked out.  Not that I ever thought my mom and dad would lie to me, but it was just confirmation that I had been told the complete truth as far as they knew it.  For some reason, just knowing and actually seeing the truth gave me a sense of empowerment.

So, I decided to send a letter to my birth mother through Gladney.  They contacted her and sent the letter.  It was about 4 months before I got a reply from both her and a birth half-sister who was told about me when she was 18.  Again, it was empowering for me.  I was taking hold of some information about me that other people (the Gladney Center and the State of Texas) had about me and claiming it for myself.  This may sound like no big deal to the average person, but those who have never experienced any form of connection or communication with someone they are genetically connected to can sometimes feel like something is missing.  So, I wrote back to both of them, but didn’t hear back from either after that.

Fast forward to 10 years later: I resumed my research.  Having never heard back again from my birth mother and birth half-sister, I just let it go for a while.  During that time, I met Tracy, my wife.  I married her after a short engagement.  Since neither of us had ever been married or had kids, we didn’t mess around.  It was 6 months between the time we met and got married.  But, given that I was about to turn 40, who cared.  I knew what I wanted and hoped we would have our own family.  However, I married her knowing that our chances were slim for having our own children naturally due to some conditions she let me know about when we were dating.  But, she also had told me that she once had desired to adopt when she was younger.  Did that bother me?  No.  In fact, I was more excited about that than I was trying in vitro and going through the struggle that many couples in their late 30’s and early 40’s go through.  As it turns out, that was God’s plan for us.  So, here was my second brush with adoption.  Now, I’m an adopting parent.

After vetting some of the adoption agencies, we settled on an agency in Houston called Alternatives in Motion.  What was so unique about them was their concentrated ministry to birth mothers.  They ministered to them whether the mother gave up the baby or kept it as their agency was funded by both fees and donations.  As part of their orientation, we actually met former birth mothers who came back to the agency and testified about their decision in the past to give up their babies to a loving couple they picked.  When they found out about my adoption, they feared I might resent them since that was my birth experience.  But, I assured them that I did not.  However, it gave me great insight into how birth mothers thought and cared about the babies they placed for adoption and gave me some insight into what my birth mother went through.  So, after waiting for about 12-13 months, we finally had a birth mother select us. When we were notified, she was due in about 3 weeks.  So, we met her with the agency workers in Houston and formally agreed to the open adoption.  This was so much different from mine, but it re-ignited my desire to eventually find out more about me.  After all, my daughter’s experience would be one of openness in that she would see pictures of her birth mother and father.  Besides, in an age of social media and the web, you can find out about almost anything with very little information to start with.  Even though agencies in Texas still have to keep the identities of the birth parents confidential, it was easy enough to find out what we wanted to know with what we already knew about them.  But, in my case as an adoptee, that would be virtually impossible given that I came from Gladney, the mother of closed adoptions.

Given that I never heard back from my birth mother even though Gladney claimed they had sent my second letter, I had concluded that maybe that was the end of the road for my search.  But, I became dissatisfied because now that I had my own adopted child through an open adoption experience. I should at least experience a little of what she would, which was knowing the identity of her birth parents.  I needed to be ready to help her in the future when she would start processing what being adopted meant to her.  This gave me new resolve to reopen the door to the unknown in my own genetic family experience.  I wasn’t just doing this for myself now, but for my daughter.  But I have to admit that researching further still left me a bit anxious and apprehensive.  Luckily, Tracy boldly stepped in and started this for me.

It was early in 2013 when Tracy put some of my birth information on an adoption registry website.  Within a day, someone wrote back on the site claiming that they may have found the name of my birth mother.  Sure enough, they confirmed my birth certificate number with the birth index they had from the official State of Texas library in Austin.  It turns out that this “adoption angel” searched through the index for my birth date in the county I was born in.  The way she figured it out was that I was listed as “the infant of…”.  Given that it was the only “infant of…” boy for that day with no father listed (that’s what they did back in the 60’s), she thought it might be mine.  (As an interesting but significant side note, I later went to a local public library and found on microfiche that same original listing of my birth in the Texas birth index, so it’s not as big of a secret as I thought).  So, now I have my birth mother’s name and could request an original certificate from the State (that’s a new law that came in effect a few years ago).

At this point it took no time for us to find out information about me.  My birth mother’s information (like number of brothers and sisters) from Gladney quickly matched everything we found on the web, especially on Ancestry dot-com.  The most exciting thing we found out was that I was a first generation American.  My birth mother had immigrated from the Ukraine as a very young child with her family.  Tracy found the boat manifest with all of their names on it.  Everything we found out matched with what Gladney had in their non-identifying files.  What a discovery!  But finding them on social media was a different story.

For over a year, we searched and searched for my birth mother and birth half-sister, but to no avail.  It wasn’t until Tracy was searching on a high school reunion website in September 2014 for the upcoming class reunion for my birth half-sister that she struck gold.  My birth half-sister’s husband was on that site and saw that she was asking about her.  Tracy called me at work to tell me she had found her.  That night, we were actually talking to each other on the phone.  What a surreal experience!  After talking for an hour, I think we were both on some kind of “high”.  Neither one of us probably slept much that night.  It turns out that she never got my second letter from over 10 years ago.  But, it really was no surprise to me.  Gladney claimed they had sent it and reaffirmed that a few more times when I called them, but it wasn’t true.  It wasn’t but a few weeks later that I called my birth half-sister again to talk about the family history.  Even though my birth mother had yet to feel comfortable communicating with me (and still hasn’t to this point) we still wanted to communicate with each other.  However, my birth mother had no problem passing along to her the birth father’s name.  So, early into the second phone call with my half-sister, she dropped the name.  Unlike my birth mother, he was easy to find on the web.  We even found his two children (a son and a daughter) on his Facebook page.  Both of them strongly resembled me as children.  The son looked almost exactly like me.  However, I have yet to this day felt come in contact with them.  I’ll have to keep everyone posted on this one as there are still chapters to be written.

So, why would I would I want to find my birth parents?  Is there really any need aside from medical history or just personal curiosity?  Maybe there is more to it after all. Not knowing anything about my genetic history is a lot like being hard of hearing.  I could function my whole life without addressing it and survive just fine as I am.  But, like being hard of hearing, it’s a handicap.  There’s information out there that is being kept from me, but known by others.  Maybe that’s fine for a child, but that shouldn’t be the case for a 47 year old man.  None of us ever know completely everything about ourselves or our genetic history (every family probably has some untold story) but there’s something wrong when I can get more genetic information about a dog than I can about myself.  So, forget Gladney and the Texas laws that don’t believe the adopted person as an adult is near as important as they should be.  My ears may never hear everything most of you hear, but why should I live with the handicap of not knowing my genetic history when the information is out there and available to me?  Yes, I may “hear” some disturbing things during my quest for information, but why live with this handicap when I don’t have to?

Hi.  My name is Gene.  I am a 47-year-old husband and father of a 4-year-old daughter.  For some time, I’ve wanted a platform to share my general and theological thoughts about various topics of the day.  While many enjoy sharing their thoughts on Facebook and other social media, I’ve not been as comfortable with doing that directly on such sites only because I enjoy learning about others without discussing topics that may be controversial or creating tension on a platform designed for fun and learning about others.  If I want to discuss issues, I would rather reserve another “room” for those thoughts without sparring directly on a popular social forum.  However, by no means does that mean that I don’t have any thoughts or opinions, because I do!  I have always been interested in the issues of the day.  I have always enjoyed discussing politics and theology.  I have taken an active interest in both politics and religion as far back as my pre-teen years.  I was one of those not so normal kids who liked discussing issues, watching the evening national news and learning about religious beliefs.  In fact, I spent over 4 years in seminary after starting my initial career in accounting, earning a Masters of Theology.  Given that November is National Adoption Month, the fact that I am both adopted child and an adoptive parent of four years, and the recent revelation of certain facts about both my birth and adoptive families, I’ve been inspired to write my thoughts in this blog as a spring-board for sharing my thoughts publicly.  It’s my hope that these thoughts might challenge, inspire or bless anyone who reads them, particularly any thoughts I have about my genetic family, my adoptive earthly family and my adoptive eternal family.  It’s also my hope that anyone who ever reads anything I write about in this blog would be led to be adopted into this Eternal family, the only true Forever Family.