Nature vs. Nurture
The age-old question of nature vs. nurture has been a prevalent question in my life as an adoptee. I grew up with very little connection to my roots and many unknowns about my history (biologically and environmentally). Despite my many questions and longing for answers, I have come to find that even answered questions can often lead to more unanswered questions. I am reminded of God who knows all things, yet knowledge isn’t everything to God. We cannot fit an infinite God into our finite understanding. What He desires is that we know the depth of how much He cares for us. The same is true in how people don’t necessarily care how much we know until they know how much we genuinely care for them.
Being adopted was not the first key event on my timeline of life, though it was the first in my conscious memory. Reuniting with my birth family two years ago gave me insight into more of my life story in the past that connects to who I am today. My birthmother’s seven-month pregnancy with me was essentially unexpected, inevitable, and unwanted. Meanwhile, she was facing traumatic events herself including physical abuse and her clarity was depleted by addiction. She intentionally pursued a way out of this pregnancy, but thankfully God turned a lifeless situation into what has brought life abundant in Jesus Christ.
While many adoptees try to link aspects of their own nature to their story, there are still environmental factors that equally influence an adoptee even before their adoption. I consider my orphanage experience to be a major environmental influence on my life that lead to malnourishment, developmental delays, learning disabilities, and anxious-ambivalent attachment. However, when we focus entirely on cause and effect of our outcomes in life, the lines that distinguish someone else’s unique journey from our own journey can become blurred. That in turn can impact the ways in which we view our own identity and can quickly lead someone like me to believe that I am a product of addiction, prostitution, war, and abandonment. Many of those aspects are actually not my story to tell, but are my birth family’s story, yet it happens to impact me. Thankfully, not everything in life that impacts us is destined to derail us or determine our destiny.
I was adopted at four years old from Eastern Ukraine into an American family. Words cannot express how much they mean to me and the sacrificial love they’ve shown toward me, even as an imperfect family. Years later, the calling on our family toward respite and foster care did not result in permanent placement within our home, but it did make a permanent impact on the outlook of family for all involved. A journey that was both beautiful and grieving to me did expose the darkness and it called for prayer, community support, and wise counsel. Perhaps even the maladaptive aspects of this temporary life point us to the need for an eternal Savior who can lead us into a redemption journey of meeting us in the midst of our brokenness.
