Annika's Journey: From unwanted and abandoned to embraced and adopted

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this guest post are solely those of the author.

“No one has ever wanted you here. If you find a family that will actually love you, go be with them.” Those were the words spoken to me like a broken record, reminding me over and over that I was unwanted, abandoned, and despised. The very people who brought me into the world seemed determined to make me want to take myself out of it. 

Born into brokenness

I was born into brokenness. I can’t remember exactly when the abuse started because I truly can’t remember much of my life before it. What I do know is that I never thought it would end. Home was the place where I endured pain, suffering, and hurt at the hands and words of the people who were meant to love me most. I was so confused as to why it was happening to me. 

Instead of hating them, I started to hate myself. I was a free-spirited child who slowly became a broken and shattered middle schooler, and eventually a suicidal and hopeless high schooler. 

I was threatened into staying silent about the abuse I was enduring at home. My voice was stripped from me as I did everything I could to survive each day. Tomorrow did not feel promised. I held on as long as I could, praying for a miraculous escape, but my hope began to fade as the days passed without change. 

How my 'last day' became a new beginning

One night in late May 2010, I decided that I was finally going to go through with ending my life. As I went through what I thought was my last day at school, I was called into my school counselor’s office. She told me she had received concerns from multiple people about my safety and well-being. I played it off and said it was actually a friend who was in danger. I sat there as she called DHS on speakerphone to ask what they could do to get “this friend” into safety. I was terrified of being found out, so it felt like a relief when she seemed to believe my lie. 

When I got home that day, everything changed. I was so badly injured that I couldn’t even grasp what had happened before I was chased out of the home.

I ran to the nearest store with a black eye and blood dripping from a cut beneath my eye. A good friend happened to be there. When she asked what happened, I told her I had fallen and a branch hit my eye. She did not believe me. We got into her car, and she called our youth pastor. 

Soon, I found myself standing in a grocery store parking lot surrounded by police cars and fire trucks. I was a scared and confused 17-year-old, realizing that the escape I had dreamed of was finally happening. Yet I felt frozen because I had never known anything different.

Abused, neglected, unworthy, rejected, and abandoned was my normal. I had no understanding of what life outside of those labels could look like. The day I planned to end my life became the day I entered the foster care system. My life was preserved. 

Extended foster care and breaking down walls

My youth pastors became emergency licensed so I could stay with them, and I spent the next four years in their home. Everything felt new, yet I was still carrying the weight of a lifetime of trauma. That trauma showed up in my behavior, my words, my emotions, and the way I saw the world. It created challenges and misunderstandings that eventually led to relationships changing. Once again, I felt rejected.

I aged out of foster care at 18 without being adopted, and I chose to sign myself back in [for extended foster care] because I needed support to navigate adulthood. 

Even so, my dream of having a forever family did not disappear. I tried to bury that dream because I believed it was no longer possible. But a couple who entered my life in 2012 as worship pastors would become part of a story I could not have imagined.

I had built walls to keep people out, especially adults. I tested boundaries and challenged authority. Still, they remained steady. They moved through every wall I built with patience and care. Slowly, I began to trust again. 

A forever family

Over time, I noticed something changing in my heart. My longing for a family grew stronger, and I began to recognize that longing in my relationship with them. They had treated me like their own from the very beginning. It just took years of healing for me to accept that I could belong in that way. 

I never thought I would say it out loud, but one day the topic of adoption came up.

“We’d adopt you!” they said.

When those words were spoken, tears filled my eyes. I never thought I would hear that as a 26-year-old, as someone who had aged out of foster care, as someone who once felt completely abandoned.

I later learned that this had been on their hearts for years. 

On May 31, 2019, I stood in a courtroom surrounded by people who loved me as I was legally adopted. We celebrated afterward, marking the day I officially became a daughter.

The courthouse had once been an orphanage, which made the moment feel even more meaningful. During the hearing, the judge paused, wiped away tears, and thanked us for letting him end his week with our case.

Before we left, he said, “This is a happy day for the foster care system.” He was right. 

Spaces of belonging

It has been one of the greatest privileges of my life to learn what it means to be a daughter. I now share this story to honor what God has done and to advocate for youth still in the foster care system, especially those who have aged out alone.

My heart is to see more seats added to tables, to see more people open their lives to vulnerable youth and create spaces of belonging. 

My story is still unfolding. Redemption and restoration continue with each passing day. And the gift of being here to experience it is something I will never take for granted.