National Adoption Day

To the world you are one person, but to one person you are the World!!

I believe God had a personal plan for my life before i was born.  He knew i would be raised by a mother and father who would provide for my spiritual and temporal needs.  However, i had to join my parents in a different way.

My birth mother was young with little to offer a newborn daughter.  So she gave me the greatest gift she could have given, adoption so that i could have a better life then she could have provided at that time.

My adoption was confidential, as all adoptions were back then.  But from the time i was very young my family talked openly about the fact that i was adopted.  I know it wasn't by accident that i am in the family i'm in, it was somehow part of Gods plan.

I have often reflected on the women who had the courage to give me a better life.  I wondered what she looked like, what she liked to do, what things we might have in common, and if she ever thought of me.  But honestly, these issues were mostly a curiosity and did not consume my thoughts.  What i hope for most is that this beautiful women, my birthmother whom i have never met, would know that i have an incredible life because of the decision she made.  I know her decision has affected every day of my life.

I was raised by an incredible mother and father and was given every physical and spiritual opportunity to become what i believe my birthmother would have wanted me to become.  I am grateful that my mother and father were able to be a daily presence in my life.  The relationship i have built with them stands to this day.  They have always been there for me and always will.  My four children adore them as well.

I have a strong testimony of adoption and know that it is in God's plan.  Adoption is the greatest thing that has ever happened to my family.  Today i am active in my church, a mother of four beautiful children, and a wife to a wonderful husband.  I know i have been richly blessed.  I am grateful to all of my parents for making these blessings possible.

Today, November 19. 2011, families, adoption advocates, policymakers, and volunteers will come together and celebrate adoption in communities large and small all across the nation.  This one day project was created by the National Adoption Day Coalition to share with the thousands of waiting children what this one day is like, and what it means to find their forever family.  I hope they all have the chance to find the one person they are the world to!!