I’m Adopted By Rev. Joel Fritsche
M
y older brother always refers to me as the “chosen one.” He and my two other older siblings were adopted before I came into the picture. I was my mother’s case of “the flu” four years after their third and last adoption. Hmm. If I was the “chosen one” simply because I was the biological child of my parents and the baby, why are there fewer baby pictures of me? In fact, I would argue the opposite of my dear brother. I am not the chosen one. By virtue of their adoptions, they are the chosen ones. And I’m fine with that.
H I G H E R T H I N G S __ 4
My parents made sacrifices for all four of their children, whom they love equally, by the way. Parenting, like other vocations, involves the giving of oneself for another. Adoption absolutely includes sacrifice. Birth parents make sacrifices when giving up a child for adoption, despite the different circumstances of each child’s birth. Adoptive parents make huge sacrifices, especially with all of the legal and financial challenges that adoption can bring nowadays.
