Hope in the Mourning

I was placed in foster care at five months old. I don’t remember the beginning, but I remember the homes. Chaotic. Overcrowded. One home was so full that my sister and I ate on the floor while the dog ate from our bowls. I experienced mistreatment in multiple placements. These were not circumstances of my choosing they were the reality of a child welfare system that often fails the very children it is designed to protect. At age six I was adopted by a woman who is the same race as me and who chose me and my older sister when most people wouldn’t have. I had an open adoption and knew my birth family, though I did not grow up in the same state as them. Having access to both worlds did not make the questions easier. If anything it made them more complicated. Who am I? Where do I truly belong? Why did this happen to me? Growing up I carried those questions quietly. I hid pieces of my story because they felt too heavy, too complicated, too much. I spent years longing for what felt like a normal life — one where people didn’t ask uncomfortable questions, one where I didn’t have to explain myself. I was embarrassed by my own story. And then I felt guilty for being embarrassed. It was an exhausting cycle that followed me from childhood into adulthood. Even after adoption, the grief didn’t disappear. There were seasons where I felt completely alone. Seasons where I questioned whether I mattered, whether I belonged anywhere, whether God had forgotten me. College changed everything. It was there that I gave my life to Christ and that decision changed the entire trajectory of my life. For the first time I had a Father who would never