Similarities

I found it funny that Kari and I chose almost exactly the same blog title for our final posts last night and that this morning Cindy's Older Child Adoption Blog entry touched on some of the same things I was thinking about yesterday.

I have been amazed over the years the ways in which my circle of friends has changed. Before I was married, my friends were all pretty similar. We shared the same church affiliation in a small denomination and thus we thought alike. We came from similar backgrounds, we believed the same way and most of us lived in the same part of the country. I didn't even think that I could feel close to someone who had a different belief system than I did.

And then came tough kids into our lives and while our friends didn't cease to be our friends, they slowly faded into the background because they "didn't get it." They didn't understand why we were making the choices we were making and they certainly didn't understand why we had to parent the way we did or our childrens' special needs. And so our pool of friends started to change a bit.

Now I am connected through the shared experience of adoption with all kinds of people who are different from me. Many of them are of a different Christian denomination, and some even practice a different religion. Some of them are not Caucasian. Some of them are involved in same sex relationships. They come from every walk of life and we only have one thing in common. But that one thing is a big thing.

It's amazing how much that one thing has broadened my world. And that is something I don't take for granted.