My adoption story isn't unique, but it is my story. My biological mother was an exotic dancer and drug user in Seattle. In fact, my biological father was one of her clients. She was young and struggling to survive in the 60's, and became pregnant with yours truly. She used drugs her entire pregnancy which meant I was in NICU detoxing when I was born. But instead of having an abortion, which was a very real option for her, she decided to have me and put me up for adoption. My mom and dad moved from Iowa with my two sisters in the mid 60's to Seattle for my father's work. My sisters were 7 & 8 years old at the time they decided to adopt another. My mother contracted polio when she was 4 and her two pregnancies were very hard on her body, so adoption was the only option. I was in an orphanage on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle when my mom and dad visited me at 4 months old. As the story is told, my father picked me and I gave him a huge smile, he became teary eyed, looked at my mom and said, "This is my boy." The rest is, as they say, history. Interestingly, my mother was also adopted, and understood the complexities of being an adopted child. I never felt adopted. I've only known my family as my family. I grew up with amazingly loving parents, and never, not once, wondered if I was loved. In fact, my sisters would argue I was spoiled because I was adopted. In fact, when I was 7 my sisters told me I was adopted. The reason they gave was heartbreaking to a 7 year old. They said, "Your real mom and dad wanted to go camping and didn't want to take you so they dropped you off at an orphanage." Needless to say, I began crying, ran to my mom and asked, "Is it true I was adopted and my mom and did didn't want to take me camping?" To which my mother replied, "It's not true they wanted to go camping. It is true that you were adopted. But..." she said as she leaned closer, "We had to take whatever came out with your sisters. We got to choose you!" That early imprint memory of being chosen by parents who were under no moral obligation to adopt anyone, let alone the other 20+ children in orphanage, helped me understand the gospel 28 years later when I came to Christ. That I was loved by a Father who chose me out of sheer and utter grace. Who looked at me and said, "This is my boy." purely out of love. Is why I think adoption is a glorious display of what God has done for us in Christ, and why those who have adopted or been adopted understand something others may only experience as an abstract theological concept: Sovereign grace.