Trading Questions for Answers

I saw the listing for a two-day substitute teaching opportunity and couldn’t help but smile. I just had to take the job. It wasn’t the subject – English – that grabbed me, although I do tend to prefer subbing for English and music teachers. It wasn’t the timing either – a Thursday-Friday assignment to close the week. Nor was it the expected ease of the assignment – likely handing our worksheets or proctoring tests. In truth, what attracted me to the job was irony, specifically the teacher’s last name – Welch.

My original last name.

As you may know, I am an adoptee with an atypical origin story. I only learned it a few years ago and could only reveal it last year. My biological mother’s name at the time of my birth was Welch. She changed her name to Barone when she married my biological father; my name became Casella shortly after I was born when Connie and Tony Casella adopted me. (Good thing. I really don’t think I look like a Welch!)

The irony of the sub job wasn’t just the Welch name, however. It also the timing.

Part of my Lenten routine has been a daily audio reflection that asks participants to seek God’s plan for each of us. Discernment has never been one of my strengths. Trying to determine where God wants me to go and what He wants me to be inevitably raises a couple of basic life questions – Who am I? and How did I get here? I’m sure these are questions you’ve asked yourself, too. For me, the questions are reminders that I come from two families – one responsible for nature, the other for nurture.

The Barone side – the “nature” – gave me my appearance, my height (or lack of it), my walk, and the sound of my voice. Nature also seems responsible for many of my preferences and ways of doing things: tea (bag in!) instead of coffee, affinity for hair (it’s actually vanity – thanks Dad!), guitar, and other inclinations. And, as with all of us, I also share congenital issues with my biological parents and siblings.

The nurture side, behavioral influences, came from Connie and Tony Casella, the parents who raised me. These include my moral code, including my religion and my attitude toward God. Their example helped me define society and my place in it – my attitudes towards education, government, sports, finances, and other routine aspects of life. They also modeled interpersonal approaches – how one treats others and navigates relationships on every level of society.

It is from these deep-seated influences – biological and cultural – that I must reassess in order to fully discern and accept God’s will for me. That’s what God is asking all of us to do – to risk the person we have become, to become the dynamic person God wants us to be. That’s unnerving. But that’s faith – all of us trying to replace “me” with “He.”

In the meantime, I’m exceptionally grateful for the imprints from both families. I’m also grateful for God’s patience with me. I hope that, one of these days, I’ll finally discern His plan for me. I don’t know if I’ll get there. I often doubt that I will. But as long as He doesn’t give up on me, I’ll keep trying. I hope you do, too.

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