I Am Not an Accident - The Best Birthday Note Ever

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43 years ago today, a 31 year old single mother struggled all alone in a hospital delivery room ending a hard and difficult 9 month journey - a journey that had included hiding out in a rural hunting cabin in the woods outside of Sumter, SC in order to avoid the "shame" of her pregnancy. She almost died giving birth to the little girl whom only months earlier she had come so close to aborting - having gone so far as to spend quite a stretch of time in the waiting room of a local "chiropractic" clinic which was but a cover for an abortion mill. Her selfless sacrifice is why I'm here and on this, my birthday, I give thanks to the one who suffered and gave up her dreams that I might be able to have dreams.  This post is one that I wrote several years ago after receiving a letter from that special lady.  It contains my story, her story, and perhaps even some of your own.

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I don't know how many of you know my story. It is one that I didn't know fully until about 12 years ago - and one that in many ways I will not know FULLY fully until I reach my eternal home. You see, I'm adopted. I've known that as a fact for as long as I can remember and it's never been a big deal. It's simply been a reality.

My adoptive parents never hid adoption from me. Instead they held it openly forth as a good thing - a very good thing and they repeatedly told me that I was chosen by them. (Now, I have to admit that the "chosen" mantra with which I grew up is not quite as precious to me as it once was. Several years ago my adoptive parents "chose" to end our relationship just as they had "chosen" to begin it 35 years earlier. They recanted on their adoption promise and left me sort of re-orphaned in the dust. No reason was given other than that they just didn't want anything else to do with me. That kind of hurt - OK that's an understatement, it was absolutely crushing- and their actions ended up putting a whole new twist on the fleshed out, rubber meeting the road definition of love and trust for me. But, I digress...)

Being "Better"

There is post that has been floating about on many of my friend’s Face Book pages over the past few days. It’s a picture post (a virtual poster that you can tack up on your cyber wall) which reads:

Now, at first glance that seems rather nice and innocuous and it is receiving “like” upon “like” upon infinite “like” by buddy after buddy of mine. I get the initial "likes" for it seems sweet and I’m sure is meant to serve as a good ol’ kick in the rump to get us walkin’ our talkin’ and livin’ our learnin’. You know, we could earnestly use a halting of the hypocritical but not at the expense or expulsion of reason or logic or ultimate truth. I think these 11 words may serve to do that very dangerous thing and therefore, underneath the nicety I think there may be a querulous quandary that we might need to consider. Might I ask you to look back again at these well-meaning words and see if anything strikes you as strange. 

"Your beliefs don't make you a better person,
your behavior does."

Two things rise up in my feeble mind almost immediately.