Tomorrow is a big day. Rather, it’s a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong day. 15-hour-flight-long. It’ll give me plenty of time to read some books that I’ve been dying to read as well as some time to do some really good thinking.

Some more thoughts after the jump.

A lot of very interesting conversations have started to swirl around my head as I have somewhat began to plan and prepare for this enormous event. One of those conversations revolved around the idea of how adoption is truly a “shared story.”

I didn’t always think of it that way, but now I do. And the implications of it have been extra-ordinary.

Adoption, for many like myself, is a very personal matter. And this doesn’t take much to prove or explain. It’s about me. It’s about you, the adopted person. You’re the center of attention, you’re the reason the time and money and energy and resources are being spent… it’s about you.

But this perspective is dead wrong. It’s not about you and you alone. It’s not just about your story. It’s about “our” story. It’s about your family, your parents, your siblings, and everyone who, at some point in time, “touched” the adoption process.

And this changes things completely. It opened my eyes, in particular, to the complete selfishness of how I viewed my adoption. And that just ain’t right, even if I have every right to feel that way.

One practical result of this new found reality is that it’s changed the way that I share about the story and my life. I am much more cautious and aware of the fact that what I’m sharing impacts everyone who is a part of that story. I’ve realized that I can be far too transparent for my own good and I need to take into account the other “parties” involved.

I think the application here for the Church and the Christian Community is also important too. What you do independently is never, completely “independent”. We’re all part of the same “body”… keep it healthy, right?

I’ll be thinking even more about this as I fly over the Pacific… keep all of us in your prayers… I think we’re all going to need them badly.