In this deeply personal episode, Mike Thorne shares his remarkable adoption journey. He opens up about the fear of abandonment that haunted him, his refuge in sports, and the transformative moment he decided to seek his biological mother. Join us as we explore the emotional depths and discover how Mike turned fear into freedom while finding joy in the world of sports.
“The odds are that everyone sitting in this classroom today
will not make it through this course. Some of you will drop out because it will
become uncomfortable to deal with the issues that will be brought up in
this class.”
This was said by my professor this past semester in a
Christian counseling course I took as part of my bridge work toward my
doctorate.
The professor was right. I recall three people who dropped out
mid-way through the course. And among those who didn’t, it became emotional
at times. I cried during two of the lectures and I remember glancing over at my
colleague who is another minister about my age – a big strong man. There he sat
at his desk with his head in his hands, handkerchief up to his eyes, weeping.
What was going on? A considerable amount of processing our past.
It isn’t always easy for adoptees to come to a place of peace regarding our past, or even our present, when it comes to our adoption. For some adoptees, they can’t imagine it. Until recently I would have been among that number. I experienced what is known among adoptees as “coming out of the fog” in 2012. Thanks to a lot of counseling and support I’ve come a long way since then. I would characterize myself as having peace in my life in general, but as far as having peace regarding my life circumstances surrounding my adoption, not so much. Recently though, things have shifted and I’m ready to share. Warning: this is going to be a long post. 🙂
In times past, I couldn’t imagine myself getting to the fifth
step of what is known as the Adoption-Reconstruction Phase Theory. Here is a
graphic created by Amanda at the Declassified Adoptee that helps to understand
what it is:
I remember first glancing at this theory years ago and thinking,
“Yeah…right.” I spent a lot of time the past seven years between steps three and four, teetering toward five but never getting there. As much
as I wanted to believe I would someday be at peace regarding my adoption
journey it did seem elusive. I couldn’t reconcile the actions of some people and where God was in all of it. Going there in mind at all would take me to a very dark place.
I now find myself on the fifth step, most days. I say most
days because I believe there are times, taking triggers into
consideration, that it’s common to flux between the steps on occasion.
There are three things in addition to the eight months of Christian counseling I initially underwent that helped me in getting from
step three to step five. The first thing that helped was two Christian counseling classes I took this summer. Adoption was never mentioned in the classes. But I gleaned a lot that I applied to my struggles.
I
realize a lot of people have no interest in taking
continuing education courses or they may not be able to afford it. That
is
understandable. I
anticipated receiving knowledge but was surprised at coming to a place
of peace regarding adoption. Being a student in the Christian Counseling class and gleaning insight on helping others, helped me too in my own personal life.
The second thing that was beneficial was a theology class where the
professor asked all of us what theological concept we struggled with the most.
We were permitted to choose our own topic for a final research paper and I
purposely based mine on my greatest theological struggle. Working on that for a few months helped me
wrestle with a lot of the “whys” I never thought I would be able to fully reconcile. Questions like, “Where was God in all this?” “Did He feel pain?” and “Was he sad too, over my losses?”
I consoled myself many times with what I thought were the answers to these questions, but honestly I had never drilled down to answer the questions theologically once and for all. I told myself what I wanted to hear a lot of the time, to stay sane. Believing that God could have “planned this for me from the very foundations of the world” as I had been told more than once, and that he may have no feelings for my losses in the matter was unthinkable to me. I set out to find out the truth. My final paper was on The Doctrine of the Impassibility of God: God Can Have Feelings Without Freaking Out. (I didn’t write the title until I completed my research.) My faith was greatly bolstered, in what I discovered.
As I studied, I was reminded: God is not a human being. He is spirit. (John 4:24) Almighty
God is not limited in his attributes as mankind is. The fact that God can feel
grief or sadness does not mean he is also subject to emotional instability.
First, not every human being becomes emotionally unstable when he or she is sad
or grieved. Surely the God of the universe can feel without becoming unstable.
Second, God is not limited in his attributes as humans are. We are not measured
on the same scale. Scripture says of God: “For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than
your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9 KJV)
God is a spirit and yet he has thoughts. It is not required
for him to have a physical body to have a thought. This lends itself to the
notion that a spirit who can have a thought would also have capability to have
a feeling. God has ability to do anything but contradict his own laws. It is no
contradiction of his laws that he possesses the ability to feel. God’s capability to feel does not mean that
he is subject to out-of-control mood swings. God has the capacity to be sad but
not shaken. People sometimes have a difficult time picturing one who is sad but
not shaken, but God is beyond what our minds cannot conceive and can do what we
could never do.
Scripture reveals that he is touched when observing our
sufferings, yet still holds the power to redeem all. “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence
saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and
carried them all the days of old.” (Isaiah 63:9 KJV)
I have come to terms that God allows things in our broken, fallen world that sometimes make Him very sad. And all along, He carries us. I learned so much in my counseling courses as well as in writing my theology paper about the love of God — a new level than what I had known before.
Pastor Linda & Me
The third thing that helped me was having some talks with my
friend, Pastor Linda Klippenstein, who is one of the pastors at our church.
From time to time we meet for coffee and talk things over about life and ministry. One day I was processing some things with her about seeing the very dark side of leadership and how to move through that and she gave me thoughts on coming face to face with the dark side of humanity in general. Our talks were not about adoption, but as she spoke wisdom into my life about the topic of the dark side of humanity, I began to consider it regarding my own family
both biological and adopted and my situation as a whole and it gave me some new perspective.
I don’t write here to just share what’s swirling around in my mind
but to encourage others. So, here’s the takeaway…
Don’t be afraid to wrestle. Go to the hard places and share your feelings, thoughts, fears, questions with God. Purposely go to the challenging area
sand grapple with the most distressing parts of your life and beliefs. Staying in
the fog is so much easier in the short-run and that’s why millions of adoptees do it. It’s
harder to force yourself to examine every angle there is and come to grips with what you really believe.
It helps to stay connected and open. Neither my professor
or my pastor-friend are adopted or have any close connections to adoption. But
they have both impacted my thinking about walking through the most troublesome
parts of life and arriving at a place of peace.
This post is not a how-to. We all have our own journey. My encouragement today is simply to keep your heart open and press on.
So, with all of this…long-term readers may wonder — do I still long to discover the paternal side of my family?
Yes, of course. But it is no longer robbing my peace.
Adoptees often face proverbial brick walls within their birth or adoptive family. These walls are fortified by misplaced
loyalty, secrets, lies, (many of being lies by omission) and the like. Many times well-meaning people will take up the cause of those who are committed to live in secrets and lies. Sometimes they are even loyal to the dead, which is the most bizarre of all.
If you keep secrets, you don’t love.
If you lie, you don’t love.
If you build a wall with people who have done nothing but seek
the truth and are committed to live in truth, that’s not love.
Why don’t we go where the light is…where the love is? It’ because we may not think we deserve it. That’s how I felt until very recently.
I am determined to a fault. Giving up is not my strong suit. And, for so long I did not want to
let go of toxic people just because I
went through hell and back to find them.
My walking path yesterday
Sometimes we have spent so much time walking
in the wrong direction, we keep doing it just because we are so committed to
it. We started out on this road, and by God we’re gonna finish on it! We feel like we have to keep walking down that same path because we’ve
invested so much. Do we really expect the wrong direction to suddenly become right? I did. For a long time, I did. I’m also a believer in miracles, and in people’s ability to change. God knows I’ve changed. I believe other people can too. But sometimes, they don’t. And there we are on the same broken down God-forsaken path that we are hoping beyond hope will change. The difficult truth is that everyone is not committed to truth, change and growth.
Life with toxic people is a one-way street. It won’t lead you back to where you belong. And
it prevents you from spending all the time you can with the people who really care about you.
If they lie to you, keep secrets from you or expect you to play along in any kind of
make-believe world, that is NOT OKAY.
It’s not normal.
It’s not healthy.
It’s not love.
Through some close
friends who have walked with me on this journey, I finally have it through to
my head that people who treat me this way do not deserve me. Life is too short to pursue people
who don’t have enough respect to tell you the truth and to live in the truth.
Someone who has to hide
their relationship with you doesn’t deserve you. Someone who tells people you
are a “friend” when you are really their son or daughter doesn’t deserve you.
Someone who tells people they have two children when they really have three
doesn’t deserve you. Someone who says they have one sibling and not two doesn’t
deserve you. Someone who takes up for their secretive lying family member to preserve their “dignity” pride doesn’t
deserve you. Someone who lies to you about who your father is, they do not love
you. Someone who gives you false clues about who your father is to throw you off track and preserve your mother’s secret doesn’t love you. If someone says they do not know who your father is, but they really do,
they do not love you. If they say they know absolutely nothing about him or the situation but they know even a shred of truth, they do not deserve the blessing of you.
Life is too short to
live in their fantasy world!!! This is not as complicated as some people make it out to be. If they
do not speak the truth and if they do not support you knowing the truth, they are
not kind. They do not love you. They are not a nice person. They are not a good person. It’s as
simple as that. God has more for you than this. You do not have to be a
suffering saint on behalf of your birth family, your adoptive family, or anyone in this world!! No
one has been given the destiny of a doormat and you were not created to be
anyone’s dirty little secret!
I have finally realized that there are pure-hearted people who actually care, who
love me or have the potential to truly love me (and vice versa) who have been
begging me to meet for coffee and the like but I just haven’t made the time
yet. Guess what, I’m making time!!
I’m so sorry to all the friends who
told me, “you deserve more than this” while I kept banging my head against the
proverbial wall trying to keep a connection with toxic people.
Welcome to 2019 and a gal who finally knows her value.
My friends and I are still hard at work on my father-search. I go into any potential paternal reunion a different person. This search WILL ultimately result in success
at some point. The DNA databases are exploding. They say it’s only a matter of
time before everyone on the planet has a first or second cousin on both sides. And more people are testing
internationally every day. More Greek matches are coming for me, for sure. I am going
into my paternal reunion in a different head space. My father may be dead by
that time my case is solved, but the rules will apply for any family member I meet. I will go into
this future reunion knowing my value. That will make for a very different
scenario than it did with my maternal reunion. I’m entering this from a place
of strength, not weakness.
Join me, my friend. Let go of what is toxic in 2019. Live in truth and love and make room for all the goodness God has for
you. Wonderful people will line up to meet you for coffee, I promise.
I’ve got to get this
off my chest, so here goes.
Usually I do not use
this blog to vent, but to share my journey, educate, and open people’s minds to
another way of understanding life adopted. But today, I’m ready to rant.
So this week I met a
man. His name is Kenny. He’s the nicest man in the world. I’ll take it further –
he’s not just nice, he’s amazing. When I take my next trip to Virginia, I’ll be
stopping off to have coffee with Kenny, for sure.
It’s amazing how in just a week’s time
you can connect on a deep level with someone. I’m part of a Facebook group that is made up of people from my natural mother’s hometown. I joined in hopes that someone there would know something and help me. These people have been so kind and generous to me, trying to do anything it takes to help me with my search. It was recommended by some of them that I talk to Kenny. His family lived only a few doors down from my natural mom’s family and they are very well known in town. Not only that but his 94 year old mom is still alive and has a mind as sharp as a tack.
Kenny doesn’t
have a Facebook page, and he doesn’t even text! He’s one of those rare people
in the world unconnected to social media of any kind. But, when I called he
already knew who I was, because so many people on the Facebook page had told him my
story.
Kenny immediately
welcomed me into his life and his heart and wanted to help me. He wants so
badly for me to find my natural father. He wants to do anything it takes to
make that happen. So far on his own suggestion he has not called but driven to
and stopped by several people’s homes to talk to them about the situation…people
he feels certain know something. On Thursday night he actually went to the nursing home to talk to his mom about my situation. He implored her, “Mom, keep thinking about this. If you remember anything, no matter how small…please let me know so we can help Deanna.”
“You deserve a Christmas miracle,” he says. “You deserve to
find your Daddy…” he says. “I know if this was my Daddy, I’d want to find him.
Who can’t understand that?” he says.
By now you are wondering what in the heck I am here to vent
about. Here goes…
On my journey I have met several people
who have been willing to help me at this level and in some cases beyond. Many
people I have cold-called have actually taken DNA tests for me. They have immediately opened their hearts and their homes to me. Numerous people
took my cold call, talked to me for weeks or months, and after meeting me said,
“Oh my God! I hope you’re my sister!” or “I’m hanging on waiting for the DNA results hoping you’re my cousin!” or “We’re already planning a family reunion to
introduce you!” I’ve been through this again and again…with people who just
days or weeks ago were STRANGERS and are now among my cadre of friends!
What I’m venting about is that the people who DON’T have the information are most often
the most amazing, loving, nicest people in the world. And the people that DO
have the information? I can’t even say here what they are without losing my
ministerial credentials!!! I can’t even describe them without God Almighty
telling me to watch my language!!!
The people who DO have the information can be the nastiest people
on the planet.
WHY? WHY? WHY?
One of the people in my natural (maternal) family who I am sure knows more than they are telling is always posting stuff on social media about kindness. Stuff like this:
I wish they would stop posting stuff they really don’t believe or practice. They aren’t kind. If they withhold information about who and where people come from they are NOT KIND. They are not nice.
Truthfully it’s starting to concern me a little bit that if my
natural father’s family already knows about me, they may be included among the mean people who hoard information and don’t want to know their own flesh and blood.
Why are some people WITH information so mean? Why do they feel it is their right to withhold information from people who by all human rights should know where they come from?
If you are reading this and you are holding information from anyone whose pain could be taken away by you sharing it, can I implore you to please give up your mean card and tell them what they need to know? What they deserve to know?
Kenny brought me to tears on Thursday. I was leaving work when
he called. He had a phone number of somebody he felt it would be helpful for me
to call. I let him know I was driving home from work and asked if he could text
me the number. “Remember, I don’t text,” he said. Can you get a pen and pull
over?” I promptly pulled over into a church parking lot nearby…the “Church at
the Mall” in Lakeland, Florida. Sitting there I took down the name and number
of the person he wanted me to call that night. A few minutes later after I wrote down the information and was still talking to him, I pulled
back out of the parking lot onto Memorial Boulevard and he said, “Deanna, when
all this is over, will you call me sometimes, just to let me know you’re okay?”
[Insert tears here.]
