is a common misconception that actually can make or break an adoption if it is truly believed.

Love conquers all

Love wins

I believe in love

I truly do believe in love because at the end of the day, no matter what befalls you, if you have love, you can approach the following day as a new beginning….another chance, another hope, another opportunity to make sure the new day is not a repeat of the old.

I don’t quote scripture too often but it is clear that in the Bible God/Jesus talks about what happens if you don’t love. It is not talking about the acquisition of love, it is talking about love being a part of speech….VERB.

Love is something you do.

You do things for people

To people

With people

and these are ways you show your love. 

People do things for you

with you

to you

and these are ways they show love. 

So when a religious person says “love is enough” in adoption in general, what they are forgetting is that the act of love is enough. Which means, they should be actively doing things that show they love their adoptee.

The very act of love can actually create a place within a person where they learn to appreciate themselves and the world around them.

But the key word here is act. It is something you do.

Like prayer….you are to be the hands and feet and the actual “answer” to the prayer, not just the words uttered out of the lips.

In 1st Corinthians 13:2 we see that people can have a lot of things, and do a lot of things but if they do not act and make love into a verb, they are really nothing.

Religious people can say “love conquers all” but if they do not take the steps to make sure their child feels comfortable in their environment, surrounded by racial mirrors, surrounded by social mirrors, uplifted, empowered, -like kings and queens….then guess what, love has conquered NOTHING.

Love is something you DO and it is something you teach your children to do by example.

Love, like prayer, includes hands and also feet. 

A few days ago I had a very emotional conversation with a family friend from back home. We talked about many different things that shaped our lives and formed our ideas of love. At some point, she said “love is enough” and it made me cringe.

It made me cringe because I had heard this rhetoric in the adoption world so much and I did not receive love from my APs…..I received material things that were used as a replacement for all the evil done to me.

So when she said “love is enough”, I had to correct her. She prefaced her phrase with it sounding like a storybook fairy tale which made me even more nervous as to what she would actually say.

Love is enough.

But then, she did something amazing and I believe it is what she thought all along. She told me NO….not your adoptive parents love. Your real parents love.

Immediately I got goosebumps. I had never heard of it like this before. Every situation is different but in my case, the love my real parents had for me, the fact that they spent many years looking for me and finally found me, the knowledge that I was trafficked and it was never supposed to be this way, the feelings of despair not only from my side of the world but also from theirs…..the fact that THEY wanted me, was enough.

Their love for ME was enough. Their continued search for ME was enough. Their desire to know ME was enough. It gave me wings.

The rhetoric that says “your parents loved you so much they wanted the best for you” has been proven false over and over again. Love is not giving kids away, it is not abandoning them, it is not drinking that adoption Koolaid fed by agencies, orphanages, private lawyers, Holt, or any other corrupt system.

That rhetoric is bullshit.

If you really believe in God’s Will then you have to also believe that you were not “meant” to be, otherwise you would have “been.” You would have been the person birthing the child, you would not have been infertile, you would not have been lonely, you would not have been “called”, enticed, motivated by money, motivated by fear, addicted to companionship…the list goes on and on.

God’s will is NEVER to cause damage in order to make strangers happy. 

This is not the God I serve. And if you serve this God, I suggest you change zip codes because this kind of God should not be welcomed in that area.

So, is love enough? NO and YES

When you put hands and feet to love and make it the verb that it should be, and help stop the pain, and prove that you are caring…..you make love enough…but not everything.

I learned, on a personal note, that the love of my real family was/is enough to keep me going each day. Knowing that they never stopped loving me and always wanted me, makes me the happiest person in this world.

And for those who were given up and your families didn’t search, or hold on to that hope, but you searched, held onto that hope, and let go of the line….your love for them, and desire to know and understand, and to keep going….is enough.

Because YOU will not be that person who says “love is enough” but sits on your ass and does nothing about it. You will make sure that your kids, your grand-kids, from all sides, know that the love YOU have for them is what will also keep them moving forward, into the next day and many more to follow.