Tomorrow I'm being Adopted

... and I've hardly told anyone.  I'm not ashamed, mostly I keep forgetting, because honestly we have been family already. But also I just don't know how to explain to people why.  So, I'm writing this mostly for me, since I'm a processor and also so maybe someone else can understand.

I need to put my thoughts together about how I feel about tomorrow.  I am 30 years old and tomorrow I am being legally adopted into a family that I’ve been a part of for nearly 15 years.  It’s quite redemptive really, when I was 15 I lost the people who were raising me.

If you don’t know my story here’s a quick recap.  My mom got pregnant with me at 19 and gave birth to me, my birth dad left some time after that. There was some sort of family squabble.  My mom took care of me those first years of my life with help.  She ended up living with her (aunt/mom and husband) who I called my Nan and Pa (my great aunt and great uncle).  I’m not sure how the conversation went really, but my Nan and Pa ended up taking guardianship of us when I was about 4 years old and my sister was around 3.  My mom got married sometime after and lived with her husband, my sister and I would visit still. 

Fast forward to me at 15.  My nan had a lot of health issues and one night she fell in the bathroom.  We called the ambulance and they came to take her to the hospital.  This time she didn’t come back.  About 6 months later my pa has a stroke and ends up in the hospital for about 3 or 4 months.  My aunt Laurie started taking care of us.  When my pa got out, he never really came home. He got

remarried and we didn’t end up living with him again. My grandma and aunt Laurie got joint guardianship of us.

I am beyond grateful to all of these people who took care of me during my life, I could never repay them for all they did for me, and all they sacrificed.  And that’s what parents do for their kids.  They do their best where they’re at to give their kids the best life they can. 

Sometime that year we got a new youth pastor at the church I attended with some of my best friends.  He was funny and I remember laughing so much during his first sermon.  Little did I know what that man and his wife would be for me.  Little did I know all that God had in store for me. 

I didn’t even fully understand how broken I was, how sad I was, and how much I needed healing. 

The first time I really talked to his wife she was painting her living room.  They had just moved in.  For some reason I word vomited all over this woman about my life.  She just listened.  Little did I know how many more times she would listen to me about my life.  Little did I know all that God had in store for me. 

I remember telling the story non-chalantly, as if it was no big deal.  I had no tears, no sadness, just walls and walls guarding myself.  I had no idea how lonely I was.  How hurt I was. Now, as I write this I have tears streaming down my face. 

Chris saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.  He saw a leader.  I had long forgotten the bossy, creative, strong little girl I once was.  But you know he saw something in me.  He invited me to be a student leader, then a junior high youth leader when I got older, asked me to be on the worship team (a mistake lol), asked me to share my testimony around the campfire at a youth prayer night.  Asked me to lead small groups, to have a girl’s bible study. Be a leader at camp and mission trips. Then he started having me teach the youth.  The list goes on.  Then I started getting my own ideas, my own vision.  I wanted to lead a discipleship group, put on a prayer and worship night, start a homeless ministry, teach this and that lesson.  Then when he was offered another pastoral job he recommended me for the youth pastor position.  

Kim poured into me and mentored me.  She started a young women’s discipleship group where she taught us so many things about Jesus, about love and hospitality.  She prayed with me countless times.  She would invite me to go shopping, to dinner, to babysit her kids.  She would give me rides to church or wherever, even with her 4 small kids.  She would call me out when I was being stupid and give me advice I wouldn’t listen to.  But she loved me, even when I screamed at her and cussed a few times and told her “you’re not my mother!”  I kept going back, no matter how mad I would get, I knew I was loved by them.  She has been a rock to me, someone who I could cry with, pray with, laugh with, eat with, and cook with.  

I was 15 and their oldest Emily was 5, the twins Madi and Krista were about 4 and Ethan the baby was 2 when I started hanging around.  As they got older they would tell their friends about their “big sister.”  Something I just did not understand.  If I was a big sister, I wasn’t a very good one, but just like a Robbins they loved me unconditionally too.  To this day they tell people I’m their big sister, and sometimes I still have a hard time believing that they feel like I’m family. 

It’s a weird thing that happened.  It wasn’t planned by me or by them.  But our lives just fit together. I had needed them, and I didn’t even know it. And they needed me, and they hadn’t known it.  I still have a difficult time explaining it to people.  Sometimes I fumble over my words explaining our relationship.  We’ve had a lot of people say, “you’re not really family,” some jealousy and even some being left out of things because not all parts of our family understand.  I know it doesn’t make sense that a 15-year-old who never lived with these people gets called a daughter, or why a 30-year-old would be adopted.

That’s the funny thing about God’s family though, he invites everyone to his house to sit at his table.  He invites everyone to be a mother, daughter, sister, brother, dad, son.  We all get invited.  Psalm 68:6 says, “God sets the lonely in families.”  Let's admit it, we can all be lonely, we all need to be set in a family.  

I am not discounting blood here at all.  I love my mom, my aunt Laurie, my pa, my sister, my uncles. I miss and love my nan, my grandma, and my uncle Bob.  All these people who have raised me and made me who I am today.  We will always be family.  My family just grows tomorrow, it doesn’t get replaced. This also doesn’t take away from all the other families who have poured into my life, my best friend Amber is the one who brought me to church, her parents told me about Jesus, they were a second family to me as a kid.  I am forever grateful for everyone who has poured into my life.  And it definitely doesn’t take away from my family on my husband’s side, I love all of you also, and thank you for accepting me as yours. 

If I’ve learned anything from the Robbins it is this: everyone is always welcome at the table, we are inclusive, our door is always open and there's always room for one more.  God will provide what we need to feed people.  This showed me what God is like. I swear God multiplies food at their house like he did at the feeding of the five thousand (can someone tell me how these people always get free food!?)  

When they first asked me to adopt me, I was so taken back, and it sounded weird and crazy and unnecessary.  When I prayed through it though God showed me that this wasn’t about a piece of paper announcing that we were family, (though even then I had a hard time accepting that they truly loved me like their daughter or sister) it was more about being vulnerable enough to let people love me and learning how to receive that love fully so that I could fully give love out. 

So what is family?  Is it blood only? Then what about adopted kids?  Is it just people with a common last name?  Is family people who live in our home? Or is family more?  Maybe we can be inclusive. Maybe family is those that sit around our table. Maybe it's those who say yes to us, and we say yes to them.  Maybe it's being willing to say, "these people are my people" and embracing them with open arms and hearts.  I mean we teach our kids to share from a young age, we have to learn to share our family, and in the end it is so very worth it.  

For 15 years I’ve known the Robbins, which is as long as I hadn’t known them. God has redeemed much of my past, he’s taught me about family, being a mom, raising children and loving others. I’m still growing and learning every day. 

I’ve been a Robbins for a long time though, tomorrow it becomes official and legal.