I am incredibly touched that Searching for Mom has garnered a gold medal in the memoir category of the Illumination Book Awards, “Shining a Light on Exemplary Christian Books.” What an absolute honor and what fine company I’m among.

A part of me wants to keep this on the down-low, after prattling on so much about my journey with this book—how I came to realize that looking for outside validation in order to prove my worth and share my voice wasn’t serving me: only keeping me silenced and feeling unworthy. Is it okay to be crying joyful tears over outside validation right now?

But I can’t help it. I am truly so moved by this award—which is feeling especially impactful personally because it’s in the Christian space. I am aware that my story and my faith may not be for everyone, and that’s totally okay. But there has been some very damaging messaging in the evangelical space for decades when it comes to adoption. It’s very hard to break into the Christian space as an adoptee memoirist and speaker because there is such a clinging to that message. There is almost nowhere where adoptees are silenced more than in the church, where the focus can be largely about “doing God’s work,” with little knowledge or regard for the wake of grief that’s experienced by first families and adoptees. And so there isn’t a lot of literature about how adoption affects our primary attachments—especially to our adoptive mothers and to our God.

It was confusing to grow up surrounded by this messaging. It took me an entire memoir to work through it, and I’m still processing it. To sort of understand what it’s like, imagine your mother dying and not a single person providing comfort or room for your sadness—only telling you over and over again how “God is so amazing and wise in his ways” for making sure everything worked out so beautifully for the person who is telling you this. You’d find it off-putting, to put it mildly.

I did not understand this as an infant or as a child—nor for much of my early adulthood. I only knew that I seemed wired to keep both my adoptive mother and my family’s faith at an arm’s distance from my heart. And then, as my mom was dying—my second mother-loss—I experienced a profound shift when I discovered that God had been grossly misrepresented. God was there for me and cared about my part of the story, too, all along … only I had no idea until I got to know God myself, without any go-betweens. Unfortunately as humans we are all flawed, so misrepresentation is going to happen when it comes to putting a face on any religion. And no matter how well-meaning and loving any family may be, we all have blind spots. The grief that is a part of adoption is a huge blind spot within many Christian families, as well as in our culture.

Now that the book has been out for a few months and I’m hearing from and talking to real readers, I’m also understanding that it’s no longer about just me. Allowing others to silence me wasn’t serving ANYONE. Telling the truth is the only way to break through to authentic relationships. Holding secrets close when it comes to adoption’s heartaches supports the false narrative of adoption. A lie. Being truthful, while still holding on to hope, is the only way to honor God, those closest to us, as well as today’s adoptees and their families.

For all of these reasons I’m overjoyed to have received this recognition for Searching for Mom. I hope that it gives my mother-daughter story some extra wings—to help broaden its reach for the large numbers of people who are touched by adoption, as well as anyone impacted by complicated mother-daughter relationships, grief, or the twists and turns in their own spiritual journey.