Not Just a Game with Our Adopted Daughter

We sat in a hodge-podged circle around the living room, giggling and snickering about the adornment on our heads. We were each given a “head band” designed to fit snuggly around our head and to hold a card facing out. Everyone else in the group can read the card held up on your forehead and knows exactly “who you are”, except you. It’s a game of deduction, filled with lots of questioning, mental wrestling and guesses.

 My adopted daughter went first. We flipped over the salt timer as she promptly asked 2 questions and knew exactly who she was. “Am I the moon?” “Yes!” we all howled with enchantment at the speed and ease at which she had solved the riddle. Later on, after the game we had to confront her. Sadly, we concluded exactly how she had derived at her answer so quickly, so easily; it was not possible without some “extra” help. She lowered her eyes, resting her chin on her chest. She had peeked ahead of time and knew what the card said before the game had begun. When asked why she had cheated, she whispered her simple response, “I wanted to be good at it… I wanted to be like everybody else.”

I don’t condone cheating but I cannot fault her for her reasoning. I resonate with her

longing to be good at something,

longing to fit in,

and, more than anything,  

longing to be accepted and loved.

It is not just an adoption issue. This is the condition of the human heart. If you have a pulse, in some way or another you share in this hunger for fulfillment and the feeling of being complete.  Just check out any book store (Christian bookstores probably more than any other) with shelves lined with books about how to find purpose and fulfillment in life. Oh, if only it were as simple as pulling a card from a deck and sliding it in a slot on our foreheads to easily answer “who am I?”

Our lives are a pilgrimage to find these answers, for my daughter, for me, for all of us. Some find them easier and sooner than others. Some must travel and wander for years before discovering who they are and the value they hold. No matter where you are at in this expedition… my prayer is you will uncover a Savior that loves you, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute! It is not with a job, position or a completed task that we will find purpose and meaning but through a relationship with our Heavenly Father. He is the beginning, middle and end of each one of our journeys.

And the answer to the question of “who are you?” You ARE His!