An Adoptee's Prayer*

LORD, you've given me all things (my life, my health, my family, my home) but never let me forget that they are really Yours and only loaned to me. Father, I give You my rights to my birth family. Because they are Yours and being guided by You, I want to do nothing to interfere with Your plan for their lives. I only want to do what I can to build a healthy, loving relationship based on the present and looking forward to an eternity made possible and shared by You.

I thank you, Lord, for their imperfections. You will ask them to give up their dreams of a "perfect family" in order to accept ME, so I, too, relinquish my dreams of perfection so that I can more realistically relate to them. I give up my rights to their time and attention, and if, out of you Your goodness, You grant me time with them, I will accept it from Your hand as a priviledge. I won't complain about lost days or wasted years. I will enjoy whatever time we have together and accept our time of separation as also from Your hand.

By Your grace and wisdom, I will seek to honor You through my search. I promise to refuse all thoughts of self-pity and resentment if bureaucratic red tape hinders my search. In essence, I'm asking You to arrange all the circumstances of my search and its results according to Your lovingkindness. And because I trust Your judgement, I will accept all the circumstances as being from You, acknowledging You as the blessed controller of all things. I also promise to accept the circumstances, not as I wish they were nor even as they should be, but AS THEY ARE.

Father, I confess that vain imaginings only rob me of spiritual vitality, so I will, by Your grace, continually bring each of my thoughts captive unto the obedience of Christ my Lord. Grant me peace of mind and heart through this time, in Jesus Name.

Amen

(This prayer is adapted from Charlene Potterbaum's prayer
on pages 22-23 of her book "Thanks, Lord, I Needed That")

I know that I said I wouldn't put stuff on this site about searching, but this isn't about the search process. It's about the attitude one needs to carry with one when searching. And re-reading this prayer helped me to get my feet back under me and started me looking for a new perspective on my situation. For that reason, I've included it here.