Why did my parents give me away?

Only your parents can answer that. But I can tell you this: they didn't give you away. They gave you up. Do you know what the difference is between giving something away and giving something up? Well, we give things away when we don't have any use for them any more. For instance, when you outgrow your clothes, we don't throw them away, we give them away to someone who needs them, right? It doesn't hurt us to give away things we don't want or need, does it?

Now, let's think about things we do need and want. We need our arms and legs, don't we? It would hurt a lot to give them up, don't you think? We need food, too. Would it hurt very much if we gave that up, and never, ever ate anything ever again? Sure it would! Why, we'd soon starve to death, wouldn't we? Well, God set human beings up to want and need their children almost as much as they want and need food and water and air and sleep and their arms and legs. So it hurts the parents a whole bunch if something happens in their lives to make them have to give up their children. Sometimes we have to sacrifice something we want or have, and when we don't WANT to make that sacrifice, we say we're giving something UP, not AWAY.

Now, we may not know what happened in your parents' lives that forced them to give you up, but they must have loved you an awful lot if what happened to them was so terrible that they gave you up so that it couldn't happen to you, too. We can be pretty sure that they didn't want to give you up, they didn't like giving you up, and that they feel cheated out of the very best thing (you) in their whole lives because they had to give you up. They're probably hurting as much inside as you are. They may even be afraid you're always going to be mad at them, when all they wanted to do was make sure you were safe and healthy and that the terrible things that happened to them would never, ever, not in a million years, ever happen to you.

Always remember that your parents didn't give you away, as if you were only an old shirt or something. No, they gave you up, because you were the most important thing in their lives and they would rather be miserable all their lives than let anything bad happen to you.