Lynne Ellis-Gray knows what it feels like to wonder about biological parents. Adopted as a baby, her parents did the “right” things by sharing her story in a positive way and made her feel chosen and wanted. As she grew, she wondered and explored for information about her birth mother. Her interest in adoption led her to write her master’s thesis on adoption issues that adoptees face. What she found is eye-opening and can be very helpful for adoptive and foster parents, as well as adult adoptees who still find certain things trigger feelings that are based deep inside.

Jim Daly, President of Focus on the Family, shares his personal journey of being a child in foster care and explains how going through that painful time created a passion in him to work on behalf of children in foster care and how, even as an adult, he still feels the effects of foster care in his life.

Kirsten Smith believes her past experience prepared her for her present reality, although “nothing could fully prepare me to be the mother of nine!” She grew up with an idea of what foster care was, and after college she worked as a social worker with families in crisis, aiding in reunification, but also seeing the effects of child abuse and neglect. “It was a hard job,” she says. “I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know why God put me here.’” A few years later she realized that some of her own children came from those scenarios.