The Empathy Antidote

Did you know that you are adopted—adopted by God? Adopting us as His children has been in God’s plan for each of us since the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1 begins this way: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (verses 3, 4).

God saw the future even before creation. He saw Adam and Eve’s sin and the fall of the human race. And yet, in love, He still chose to create us, “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved” (verses 5, 6).

God wrote our adoption papers before we ever fell. He planned our rescue, our salvation, and our restoration as His children. In God’s wisdom He adopted us back into the family. To adopt simply means to place as a son or daughter. God, through Jesus, placed each of us in the position of a child of God.

A Hidden Pregnancy

When Maggie received the news from the doctor, her hands shook. The results showed what she already instinctively knew to be true. She was going to have a baby. This wasn’t part of Maggie’s plan—at least not yet. She was 19, unmarried, and couldn’t see a future with her baby’s father. Frightened and alone, the next step terrified her: telling her parents. She called her mother, and then together they told her father.

There were a few extremely tense days in Maggie’s household. Then one afternoon Maggie, her mother, and her father got into the family car. They drove a few blocks to their church, walked inside, and went to the priest’s office. Maggie’s father asked most of the questions, and arrangements were made.

Leaving the church, Maggie saw the baby’s father and his parents standing outside on the lawn. Her father had arranged this one meeting between them as her one chance to explain the arrangements that had been made. The baby’s father wasn’t surprised, but there was a deep sadness in his eyes. This hadn’t been his plan either.

A few days later, with a small suitcase in one hand and her box of 45-rpm vinyl records in the other, Maggie sat in the car again. Without telling her friends or her brothers where she was going or, more important, why, Maggie left her childhood home. She stared out the car window as her father silently drove up the street and across the prairie until they reached the next-closest city. When they arrived at an unfamiliar church, a nun greeted them. Maggie felt her legs wobble as she stepped inside.

In a small office the nun mechanically explained what to expect. Maggie sat frozen in the wooden chair. She was told that she would stay in a church family’s home. She would work as a nanny to their small children as she carried her own child. This way no one back home needed to know her shame. She would give birth to the child and return home—all as if it never happened. No one would know Maggie’s secret.

Surrendering Her Child

For the next six months Maggie lived with the family. Alone, she felt her child’s first kick, soon followed by what felt like somersaults. When the day arrived, Maggie prepared to deliver her baby in a sterile hospital room. Her heart yearned for her mother, to hear her voice and to hold her hand.

At last the baby arrived with a hearty cry. A nurse placed the swaddled baby in Maggie’s arms. The child was so delicate, so pretty. Her baby. Her daughter. How could she let her go? Yet in tears she surrendered her child.

Through the pain Maggie reminded herself of what her parents had told her. This was best for her child. She was brave and strong and doing the right thing for the baby. But what was best for Maggie? Well, she didn’t have the luxury of thinking about that now. Instead, she pushed the pain, the love for her child, and the shame she felt into a corner of her heart. Without realizing it, she built a solid wall around her vulnerability. And then she closed the door.

As planned, a few months later Maggie returned to her childhood home, to the walls her father had built with his own two hands, to her little bedroom next to theirs. The wallpaper and the books on her shelf were all the same, but everything was different. She unpacked her suitcase and listened to her records, but it was all so different now.

Without realizing it, she built a solid wall around her vulnerability. And then she closed the door.

Her parents never talked about why she’d been away. They never asked about her child. Did her mother not wonder if she’d had a healthy baby? A boy or a girl? She must have—but she never asked.

Maggie placed her hand on the door of that wall she’d built in her heart. She reached for the doorknob . . . and locked it.

The Door Stays Closed

A few weeks later she left for college. There she met a boyishly handsome man with a mischievous smile who quickly won her heart. Soon they were married in the same church she grew up in—the church where the priest and her father had made their arrangements years before. Did she think of her pretty baby daughter that day? How could she not?

Maggie and her husband led busy, full lives. They pursued careers, moved from one opportunity to the next, and raised three children—two daughters and a son. The door inside Maggie’s heart stayed closed—most of the time. Every year on her firstborn’s birthday it slipped open, the pain escaping with it.

Then one day, 55 years after Maggie had locked the door, someone jiggled the doorknob and threatened to break in.

A DNA Match Changes Everything

The conversation began innocently enough. The oldest daughter Maggie had raised asked, “I have a match on Ancestry. Do you know this name?” Maggie’s heart beat wildly. She had dreaded a moment like this for more than 50 years.

She told her husband about the innocent inquiry, as he had always known her secret. And he also knew that Maggie had to decide what to do next: whether to tell her daughter about the child born so long ago.

After a few anxious days Maggie called her daughter back. “The person you matched with on Ancestry,” she somehow managed to say, “is your half sister.” Maggie wasn’t sure what she expected her daughter to say, but she assumed it wouldn’t be good. Naturally, her daughter would likely be angry, upset, and call her out for pretending to be someone she wasn’t all these years.

But to Maggie’s great surprise and relief, her daughter wasn’t angry. She was understanding, even joyful. Joyful that another sister existed.

Relief swept over Maggie. And yet she wasn’t ready to unlock the door in her heart. After a few conversations she asked her daughter to stop updating her. She encouraged her to connect with her half sister if she wanted to, but Maggie needed more time.

Her daughter respected her wishes and reached out to her newly discovered sister, Debbie.

The sisters emailed, then texted, then spoke on the phone. They had so much in common right from the start. Maggie’s daughter relayed small snippets of these conversations back to her. She felt so much relief to finally know the little baby’s name and a few details about her life, but that was all Maggie was ready to hear.

Still, Maggie felt the emotions she’d locked behind that door seeping out. Shame and fear plagued her. She felt she had to tell her other children.

Facing What Was Hidden

I have not yet said how I know this story. Maggie is my mother, and I was the daughter whose unexpected DNA match brought her hidden past back into the light.

My mom didn’t realize it yet, but she had an incredible opportunity to experience Ephesians 1 in a way I never could. She could feel what God feels when He welcomes us back into the family. My mom could, if she chose, adopt back her child, placing her once again in the family.

Would she choose to accept God’s grace? Or would shame paralyze her?

Shame is a strong emotion. Shame about our past sins, mistakes, or experiences can make us feel unworthy. Our shame tells us that if people knew what we were really like—who we really are—they would reject us. We may even believe that our closest family members couldn’t possibly love the real us. That’s how my mom felt. The news of my DNA match awakened her hidden shame.

What did my mom encounter in response? Not rejection. Not judgment. Not repulsion. She was met with empathy. Empathy is the antidote to shame. Shame withers and dies when confronted by empathy.

As my mom shared her most closely guarded secret with me, she wrestled with shame. And during each difficult conversation, I met my mom’s shame with empathy—and it wobbled.

Shame withers and dies when confronted by empathy.

I sat on my parents’ couch as my brother and sister sat on kitchen chairs across from us. As my mom shared her secret, my siblings instantly got up and hugged her, crying, “Oh, Mom.” I sat on the couch, a spectator to this incredible scene of empathy. My mother’s shame wobbled again.

My mom had experienced my empathy, and my brother’s and sister’s. But she needed someone else’s empathy even more. That moment arrived last summer.

The Long-Awaited Reunion

My three siblings and I planned a trip to see my parents. It was time for Mom and Debbie to meet. When the day arrived, my mom was a nervous mess. When I met Debbie at the hotel, she was an even bigger ball of nerves than Mom was!

We arrived at the house, and I watched as Debbie turned the corner up to the front door where Mom was standing outside waiting. She later told me what she felt in that moment: She didn’t see a grown woman walking toward her; she saw her baby, the baby a nurse had once pointed out through a nursery window.

I told you that my mom had held her baby on the day she was born. That was the story she first told me, but it wasn’t true. It was the version my mom wanted me to hear because the truth was too sad.

My mom, young and alone, had been sedated during the delivery. When she awoke, a nun led her to the nursery window and pointed to the bassinette that held her delicate child. A pane of glass separated them. My mom never held or hugged her firstborn—until that day last summer.

After they hugged, all nerves were forgotten. Mom and Debbie sat on the back porch alone and talked for nearly two hours.

That afternoon my mother’s shame was dealt a fatal blow. It could not survive Debbie’s empathy. Debbie has had a good life and harbors no resentment toward her birth mother. Still, my mom’s shame convinced her that she didn’t deserve empathy or love from the child she had given away. Yet that’s what she’s received.

Debbie worked in television for many years, including at a station my parents often tuned into. Very often my mother’s child was on her television screen—again, separated only by a pane of glass.

Shame Defeated by Empathy

My mom had her Ephesians 1 moment. She adopted Debbie, placing her into our family.

Our shame doesn’t scare Jesus. On the cross He dealt it a fatal blow. Christ paid the price for our sin and shame. “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2).

Our shame is universal, but so are God’s love and empathy.

There are those we interact with every day who carry secrets deep in their hearts, hidden behind walls of shame. They may believe that if you really knew them you couldn’t love them and that God couldn’t love them. Our empathy—a reflection of God’s empathy—is the antidote to shame.