We had barely gotten to our friends’ home after the adoption court hearing when our sons let out a wail. It was if the tension of the adoption had finally released, adding to their uncertainty over their future. In the orphanage, at least they knew what to expect the next day. Now once again their world had been turned upside down.

Adoption (like birth) involves uncertainty. As adoptive parents, we could not envision what the years ahead would look like. And the more we wanted our children to have our same likes and dislikes, the more we discovered that they were unique people shaped by their own abilities (and disabilities), emotions, and thoughts. They had not attached to us yet, even though we were very much attached to them.

In the same way that pregnancy resolves with the birth of another (all-too-soon-to-be independent) human being, adoption shapes both the parents and the child. How it does so, however, is more mystery than science. Because all humans were born for relationships, the boundaries and contours of those relationships make us who we are. Adoption is a mystery because, like marriage, it takes unlike people and binds them together in a permanent way.

Adoption requires vulnerability and transparency, things that do not come naturally for us. This is amplified if the birth mother is connected to the adoption. And how to love someone who is not your birth parent? That’s part of the mystery as well. All-in-all adoption is a roller coaster ride—you are at the very top right before the steepest fall.

Parents adopt for many reasons, but among the most common is a felt need on the part of the parents to continue their heritage through their children. This felt need, while a reasonable justification for proceeding with adoption, is not a need that the child experiences. The child’s felt needs center on a desire for control, certainty, and security. As a result, when the child acts out, the parent can be confronted with his own selfishness. This is part of the mystery of how God transforms us into His image.

A child’s assertion of his independence from his parents is the reverse of man’s declaring his independence from the Heavenly Father. All children enter the world vulnerable and desperately dependent on their parents, and they progress to the stage where they assert their own authority over the very people that love them the most. Yet, even after we are adopted as God’s children, we tout our independence from Him and others, and it takes a lifetime for us to learn the mystery of dependence upon Him.

What other mysteries have you unfolded in your adoption? I hope that you will comment on this blog in the space below, and share it with your friends.