Love Beyond Blood: Our Adoption Testimony – How Love Built Our Family

The wooden courtroom bench felt hard beneath me as I clutched Lily’s trembling hand. At six years old, she understood just enough to know this day was important, but not enough to trust it was real. When the judge’s gavel fell with a final thud, declaring our adoption complete, time seemed to suspend. Lily turned to me, her brown eyes pools of cautious hope, and whispered the question that shattered and rebuilt me simultaneously: “Does this mean no one can take me away anymore?”  

Tears blurred my vision as I pulled her into my arms, her slight frame melting against me. The scent of her strawberry shampoo mixed with the salt of our tears as I whispered into her hair, “You’re ours forever now, sweet girl. This is your forever home.” In that sacred moment, years of foster care uncertainty, bureaucratic battles, and whispered prayers crystallized into a single truth: family isn’t born from shared DNA, but from chosen love.  

The journey to that courtroom had been paved with brokenness and miracles. We’d survived the sleepless nights when Lily screamed from night terrors, the heartbreaking visits with biological family members, and our own moments of doubt when we wondered if we were enough. But as I felt Lily’s tense muscles finally relax in my embrace, I understood – every tear, every fear, every desperate prayer had been worth it.  

Mark and I had mapped out our lives with the precision of architects. Married at twenty-five, we planned to have two biological children by thirty. But when month after month passed without pregnancy, our blueprints began crumbling. The fertility clinic’s sterile walls witnessed our most vulnerable moments – the invasive tests, the hopeful waits, the devastating negative results.  

I’ll never forget the hollow ache of sitting in our parked car after another failed IVF attempt, Mark’s hand gripping mine as we stared blankly at the clinic’s glowing sign. Why was this so hard for us when it came so easily to others? The grief became a silent third presence in our marriage, coloring even happy moments with friends’ baby showers and children’s birthday parties.  

Then came the Sunday that rerouted our lives. Our pastor, unaware of our private pain, preached from James 1:27 about caring for orphans. As he described the foster care crisis in our county – hundreds of children sleeping in office buildings for lack of homes – something primal stirred within me. That night, lying in bed, I finally voiced the terrifying thought: “Mark…what if we’re supposed to foster?”  

The months that followed were a whirlwind of licensing classes where we learned shocking statistics (a child enters foster care every two minutes in America) and sobering realities (75% of foster youth are taken from homes due to neglect). We transformed our spare bedroom into a child’s paradise – soft yellow walls, a twin bed with princess sheets, a bookshelf stocked with carefully selected stories about belonging.  

Then, at 3:17 pm on a Tuesday, the call came. A four-year-old girl with pigtails and a shy smile needed placement after being found alone in a motel room. “It’s probably temporary,” the caseworker cautioned. But when Lily arrived with her tattered backpack and wary eyes, something in my soul recognized her. The way she carefully arranged her three stuffed animals on the bed that first night told me everything – this child craved order because her world had been chaos.  

The first six months nearly broke us. Lily would eat until she vomited, then hoard food in her pillowcase – survival behaviors from going hungry. She’d flinch when Mark moved too quickly, a heartbreaking response to past violence. Most nights ended with her screaming from night terrors, tiny fists pounding my chest as she fought some invisible demon.  

One particularly brutal evening, after hours of soothing a inconsolable Lily, I collapsed in our walk-in closet among the shoes and laundry. Sobs wracked my body as I pleaded with God: “I don’t know how to help her! Why did You think I could do this?” In the darkness, the scripture from our adoption training came back: “He defends the cause of the fatherless…” (Deuteronomy 10:18).  

The breakthrough came slowly, in fragments. A child therapist taught us about trauma brains and therapeutic parenting. A veteran foster mom showed me how to create “safe spaces” where Lily could regulate. But the real turning point came during a simple bath time. As I washed Lily’s hair, she suddenly went rigid, then whispered: “The bad man used to make Mommy cry in the bathroom.” My hands stilled in the water as realization dawned – bath time triggered memories of domestic violence.  

From then on, we transformed bath time into something sacred – bubbles, glow sticks, worship music. Slowly, Lily began associating water with safety instead of fear. These were the holy moments that sustained us – when God showed us exactly how to love this wounded but resilient child.  

The adoption ceremony was simpler than we imagined – just fifteen minutes in a small courtroom. But when the judge asked Lily if she wanted to be adopted, her loud “YES!” echoed off the walls, followed by her whispered addition: “Because they’re my real family even though we don’t match.” (Lily’s mocha skin indeed contrasted with our pale complexions – a visible reminder that family transcends color.)  

Now at nine years old, Lily still carries scars. She keeps a “forever box” of mementos from her birth family and sometimes cries after visits with her biological siblings. But she also proudly tells cashiers, “I was adopted when I was six,” and plans to be a “baby judge” when she grows up so she can “give kids to mommies who will love them big.”  

To the weary foster parent: Your consistency matters more than you know.  

To the prospective adoptive parent: Your “yes” will cost you everything and give you more.  

To the doubter wondering if you’re enough: You’re not – but God is.  

“He sets the lonely in families…” (Psalm 68:6). Sometimes that family looks different than we imagined. Sometimes it arrives not through biology but through brokenness and redemption. Always, always, it’s worth it.