As a child I always knew I was adopted. There was never a time I didn’t know. I knew my mother and father were musical, I had several siblings and I was 5 1/2 months old when they “got” me. I knew my last name and where I was born. I also knew I was given away at birth.

There are so many reasons rejection followed me through my life. As an adopted child, my life began with rejection. Add to this my dysfunctional childhood with an alcoholic mother, and the sum result is an adult who lived her life running from fear of rejection.

As many before me have said – but God. It took me until my 40’s to learn what God had for me and who He says I am. Finding my identity in Him changed my life, although it is a weakness I fight often. In my faith I’m able to maintain my peace and God’s grace continues to keep my heart full of His love. So at a time when God led me to a new career, blessings beyond measure and a life I’ve dreamed of the idea of finding my birth family seemed a far away dream.

As a child I never thought much about my birth family. My adopted mother, who honestly I’ve never added that distinction until recently, reminded me often that I was given away and rejected from the time I was born. With this in mind, why in the world would I want to find a family who didn’t want me anyway?

Until now.

This last Christmas my oldest son and daughter in love gave me a dna test from Ancestory.com. I didn’t ask for it, and had not given it a second thought. But when I opened it, I cried uncontrollably. This was something my heart knew and my mind had not accepted. I had an innate need to know where I came from.

It took me a couple of weeks before I could bring myself to take the dna test. I didn’t know what to expect but I knew this was opening a door I wasn’t sure I was ready to walk through.

When I received the results I didn’t know what to do. My ethnicity wasn’t exactly what I expected and this test linked me with others who had similar dna. D.N.A. This links me to people, real humans, I am related to by blood. Something I’ve not had knowledge of my entire life.

Interestingly enough my first link wasn’t to someone through DNA. My son found a link to who he was fairly confident was my brother – or some relation very close. So I took a leap. I messaged him. I sent him an note, opening my heart to rejection, and gave him a short description of who I am.

It took a few weeks, but I received a response. I will never forget where I was when I received that first email. He was letting me know I must be mistaken. He wasn’t aware of any baby not in his family and he was very kind – but it wasn’t the right person. **SIGH** OK, so maybe we were wrong.

Shortly after, he emailed again. He let me know he contacted his older sister – and there was baby he didn’t know about. There was a baby given away around the time I was born.

I was speechless.