Can you pick out the five people who joined our family
through adoption?

Adoption runs in my family.

• My dad’s mother died when he was a baby; several years later, his step mother informally adopted him.



• My great grandmother on my mother’s side was adopted.



• My brother’s wife was adopted when she was an infant. Several years ago, she located her birth parents. This Thanksgiving, her birth parents drove from California to Seattle and joined our extended family.



• Thirteen years ago, my husband and I adopted our first child. Nine years ago, we adopted our second child. We consider our sons’ respective birth families an integral part of our extended family, and visit one another as often as possible.

The latest twist
A few months ago, another member of our extended family, who’s in his mid-40s, learned that he is a birth father. Unbeknownst to him, he fathered a son during his late teens. That son, who was placed for adoption, is now 27 years old. This fall, my relative received the phone call that changed his life forever: “Hi. I think you may be my birth father.” The young man and his children made their debut at our family Christmas celebration.

Prior to our Christmas get-together, no one even mentioned they were worried about whether the family would accept these new additions. It was a ‘given’ that they would be welcomed as full, card-carrying members of the Christianson clan.

“For such a time as this”
God, with His perfect sense of timing, gifted our extended family with plenty of opportunities to get comfortable with the idea of open adoption during the last 13 years (since our son was adopted). I often wonder: Did God plan these experiences to prepare us “for such a time as this?”

As I related this latest adoption news to my sister-in-law (the one who was adopted) she shook her head in wonder and commented, “Just another day in the life of the Christiansons.”

It’s true. Our ever-growing family brims with adopted people, birth parents and adoptive parents. I need a spreadsheet just to keep track of everyone! I wonder what God has in store for us next?