Family Day: Choosing Each Other, Again and Again

This month we celebrate Family Day—the day we mark not a birth, but a becoming. The day our sweet little family was formed through adoption. It’s a day that holds both tenderness and triumph, grief and gratitude, all woven together into something sacred.

This is my second Family Day with Penny, and it feels both impossibly small and incredibly monumental to say that. Two years of officially being a family. Two years of waking up in the same home, of learning each other’s rhythms, of building trust one ordinary day at a time. And yet, there are five years of missed milestones that came before it—five years of moments I didn’t get to witness, hands I couldn’t hold, comforts I couldn’t give.

Adoption always lives in that tension. The joy of what is, alongside the ache of what was missed.

But today, I choose to linger on the gift of these past two years.

Our first Christmas together—wide-eyed wonder, new traditions, ornaments hung with care. A boat ride on the lake, Penny clutching the side at first, unsure, then laughing as the water sparkled around us. Ice cream for the very first time, her face lighting up with surprise at the cold sweetness of it. Fireworks that were more startling than magical at first, followed by cheers and clapping once she knew she was safe. Her first day of kindergarten, a backpack nearly as big as her body, courage tucked quietly into her small frame. Building a snowman together, imperfect and lopsided and absolutely perfect. Learning to ride a bike—scraped knees, deep breaths, my hands hovering just inches away before finally letting go.

These are the moments that fill the spaces where longing once lived.

There’s a video from one of our very first days together in China. We’re walking through a park, side by side. When I watch it now, what strikes me most is how tentative we both are. Our steps are cautious. Our bodies angled slightly away from each other. Two people who have just stepped into life-altering roles—mother and daughter—without yet knowing how to inhabit them.

We didn’t know each other then. Not really. Love was present, yes, but trust takes time. Safety takes repetition. Belonging takes patience.

Fast forward to now, and Penny runs freely into my arms. No hesitation. No second-guessing. Just certainty. That kind of closeness wasn’t instant or effortless—it was built slowly, tenderly, through showing up again and again. Through bedtime routines and whispered prayers. Through tears and repair. Through choosing each other, day after day.

Adoption carries loss. That truth deserves to be honored. There is loss for Penny—of her birth parents, her first home, her first culture, her first caregivers. There is loss for me—of years I longed to hold her, to know her, to mother her sooner. Those losses don’t disappear just because love grows. They coexist.

And yet, there is also a quiet, powerful beauty that rises from adoption—the beauty of people choosing each other to become a family.

Not by accident. Not by default. But by intention.

Scripture reminds us of this kind of love. “God sets the lonely in families” (Psalm 68:6). I have always loved that verse—not because it suggests adoption erases loneliness, but because it acknowledges God’s nearness in the forming of family, especially when the path there is complex.

Another verse that often comes to mind is Romans 8:15: “The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’” Adoption, both earthly and spiritual, is rooted in belonging, in being chosen, in love that claims us and says, “You are mine.”

Family Day isn’t about perfection. It’s about presence. It’s about honoring the courage it took to arrive here and the grace it takes to keep going.

If you’re in the waiting right now—longing, hoping, aching—please know this: time lost does not mean love lost. Moments can still be made. Trust can still be built. Joy can still surprise you.

And if you’re already on the other side, walking forward with a family formed through adoption, may today remind you to pause and look back—not with regret, but with reverence for how far you’ve come.

Two years in. A lifetime to go.

Happy Family Day. 💛