Living in the Right Now...

Last night we stood around the kitchen island, cooking and eating. The conversation took an interesting turn when my teenage son asked Annika, our 5 year-old, out of pure curiosity, “Do you know that you’re adopted?” Annika frequently browses her adoption baby album and she knows her birth family’s names and pictures. But did she know what the word “adopted” really meant? Her response was profound.

“I am not adopted right now.”

I was processing-stuck on her statement.  From her perspective, she was adopted the day she was born. When my husband and I reached out in the birthing room and took her into our arms-that was the moment she was adopted.

I love that Annika is living in the present. What Annika knows right now is that she is Alex and Kelsey’s sister and that Joel is her Dada and I am her Momma. That solid, resolute, and simple statement reminded me to be in the right now of life.

{I can't ignore the fact that adoption and identity is anything but simple-so let me take a moment to address it. As a psychology instructor, I teach about the complex nature of secure identity. My hope for Annika is that she will integrate the complexities of her self, including the fact that she is adopted. In a perfect world, she will come to understand that her birth family loves her as much today as they did when they made the difficult decision for adoption.}

Finding Joy While You are Waiting to Adopt...

How many times have you let your past or incessant focus on the future impede your right now?

Maybe your right now is a snapshot of you and your hubby. Maybe your right now is a quest to build a future family. In the midst of planning for your tomorrow, it is important to make space to experience joy in the moment-in the right now.

It is a hard task to incorporate our life challenges-like infertility, or loss, or illness-into our life story, and still experience joy and celebrate life.

Life circumstances might dictate the season you are walking through, but the core of who you are is never changing. You are His child. The Lord says “I have summoned you by name, you are mine.” (Isaiah 43:1).

He wants you to live in the here and now. Today, take a moment to celebrate the right now.

Scripture for the Road

James 4:14

How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog-it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.

Psalms 118:24

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

-Alison England, LMSW     Author of Best-Selling Book in Adoption-Tandem: A Devotional for Adopting with God in the Lead