Loved from the start

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, July 28th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: when your origin story changes.

Ryan Bomberger grew up knowing he was adopted. But at age 13, he found out he had been conceived in rape.

REICHARD: His new memoir is titled Should Have Been Aborted.

I spoke with Ryan recently about how the revelation of his origin shaped—and ultimately strengthened—his faith.

Here’s an excerpt of our conversation:

Your story does begin with violence, as you say, but it is defined by love. So when did you stop thinking of yourself as a a child conceived in rape and start thinking of yourself just as Ryan, loved by God?

RYAN BOMBERGER: I always believed and understood that I was loved by God. I understood my identity was in Christ from a really young age, 'cause I had two parents who loved Jesus. It was only when I was a teenager when I found out my actual origin story that I started to doubt that.

REICHARD: And then what happened, whenever you started to doubt that you were loved by God, how did that manifest itself in you?

BOMBERGER: Well, so finding out at thirteen, but you know, it's kind of a devastating time 'cause your teenage years are already tumultuous anyway, so throw in there a rewrite of your origin story and it becomes even harder. I knew I was wanted by my parents and by at least most of my siblings. That's a whole other story. But I really challenged that and struggled with that because I just thought, wait a minute, how could someone conceive in such horrific circumstances be loved and have purpose? Like so there were these two competing things, having grown up being told this and taught this and yet questioning it. And it went into my adult years and the way it manifested itself, unfortunately, was in perfectionism because I didn't want to do anything wrong, because I had a lot of self-rejection that definitely did not come from my family. And unfortunately it led to severe depression. And it was being set free from that that also solidified the truth that I am wanted, wonderfully made like anyone else. Psalm 139. There's not an asterisk there that says, “Wait, sorry, if you were humanly planned, then all the rest follows.”

REICHARD: I want to talk about the title. It’s kind of jarring. I mean, I'm a pro-life person all the way too, but when I heard Should Have Been Aborted, it kinda unsettled me. So I'm curious as to why the decision to use words that will maybe unsettle people.

BOMBERGER: It's in my nature, because I don't tend to do things, I guess, in a conventional way, but they're actually inspired by people telling this to my face, saying this to my face. In particular, I mean, at a debate at Harvard where I had an LGBT activist who came up afterward and said some choice words that I cannot repeat and then said you should have been aborted. So to have people say that, it was so, I guess, it's shocking to me that someone can be so cold and so callous and also have this weird sort of privileged mindset that, I mean, you had nothing to do with your conception. You have nothing to do with the fact that you existed in the first place, but yet you want to throw shame on someone else because of circumstances that I couldn't control. So that was one of many times of being told that to my face or at least a similar sentiment. So I just thought, you know what? I wanna disprove the world's mindset, the world's lie that somehow if you're unplanned, you're gonna be unwanted, you're gonna be unloved because it's so untrue.

REICHARD: Well, Ryan, am I right that your parents adopted ten kids and had three biological kids as well?

BOMBERGER: Yes, they had three biological children and I was the first of ten adopted.

REICHARD: Alright. So what did they do that made you feel wanted?

BOMBERGER: Yeah. I was united with my parents when I was six weeks old. I was actually adopted officially on Juneteenth, which is why that day has a particular special meaning for me. But I was loved and I knew that I was loved. And when you had kids of different colors who didn't look alike and kids from different backgrounds coming into the family, and you were treated the same way. Although I do think that I was the favorite in the family and remain the favorite. I don't know, I'm just saying that, but I knew to the core of my being I was loved, which is also why finding out that devastating news of, you know, having the wrong origin story in my mind, apparently—I had created that—that I could not completely fall apart. I mean, my parents, as many children as they had, 13, spent individual time with us, they brought us up in the Word, which is everything. To know that you're loved by God, to know that you're loved by Jesus, and then they live that out. I had parents who I honestly can say I never once thought, my word, they're hypocrites. Not that they didn't make any mistakes. They certainly—all parents make mistakes. I have four kids. I make mistakes all the time. But I knew that they loved Jesus, and I knew that they loved each and every one of us. They endured really hard circumstances with a number of us, including myself. But we all knew we all lived it and I think just the outcome of our lives shows that just the evidence of being so deeply loved.

REICHARD: There's much more from Ryan Bomberger in our full interview. He tells the remarkable story of searching for his birth mother, reflecting on surviving depression and serious health scares, and explains why he's convinced that every person is "wanted by someone." You’ll hear the whole story Saturday on a special edition of The World and Everything in It.

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