Born Brokenhearted and Expected to Be Whole: Adoptee Grief, Faith, and Healing with Anita Garber

What if the wound you carry has no memory attached to it... and your body remembers anyway?

In this episode, Julie sits down with Anita Garber - social worker, worship leader, and author of Wading in the Waves: A 40-Day Journey of Healing, Grief, Identity, and Belonging in the Presence of God - for a conversation about what it actually takes to step toward healing without bypassing grief.

Anita shares the story behind the book, born from her observation that adoptee spaces were having every conversation except the one about God - and from a writing assignment that surprised her: a letter addressed directly to adoption itself, containing the line that stopped Julie in her tracks: "I was born brokenhearted and expected to be whole."

Together they explore the difference between feeling unsafe and feeling uncomfortable, why the meanings adoptees absorb early - banished, unwanted, too much, not enough - root so deeply, and what it means when the body relives a separation the mind never consciously recorded. Anita opens up about her own moment of being called out of an orphan identity ("You are living as an orphan and called to be a daughter. Change your clothes."), the armor she didn't know she was wearing, and what "getting dressed" has looked like in real life: slowly, with safe people, with accountability that calls you higher instead of shaming you.=

This one goes to the very center of the work: nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. And your body has been telling the truth about it all along.

IN THIS EPISODE:

- The story behind Wading in the Waves and why Anita wrote a faith-centered book on the seven core issues of adoption

- Why healing is a choice - and what happens in the body when we avoid pain too long

- Feeling unsafe vs. feeling uncomfortable: the nervous system question that changes everything ("Am I in danger right now... or am I remembering danger?")

- Why beliefs like "I was too much" or "not enough" root so deeply in adoptees - the primal wound, ambiguous loss, and preverbal imprinting

- Day 14 - Orphan: the prayer-time moment that confronted Anita's survival identity, and the armor she had to take off

- Living as an orphan vs. living as a daughter - and how this maps onto survival identity vs. true identity

- What "getting dressed" practically looks like: safe people, accountability, and choosing belonging consistently

- Day 15 - Truth: Anita's letter to adoption, what surfaced in her body as she wrote it, and why telling the honest (not grateful, not polished) truth creates freedom

- Day 16 - Rejected: "I have no memory of being given away, yet my body and spirit have internalized the trauma" — implicit memory, body memory, and why "you were just a baby" misses the point entirely

- The "blank slate" myth adoptive parents were told - and what it cost

- How preverbal rejection shows up decades later: reject-first strategies, trust, and attachment

- Jesus and adoption: why Anita believes He understands the adoptee experience on a lived level

- Forgiveness vs. bypassing pain - releasing yourself from prison vs. pretending you're not in one

- Can forgiveness exist without honesty? (And what to do when the other person won't give you theirs)

- What healing actually looks like in real life: felt safety, safe people, and starting with God

- Two-way journaling (listening prayer) as a starting place

- What "coming home to yourself" means: integration, living unfragmented, and being deeply known, held, and loved

MOMENTS THAT STAY WITH YOU:

"I was born brokenhearted and expected to be whole."

"You are living as an orphan and called to be a daughter. Change your clothes."

"My mind had forgotten, but my body remembered well."

"Forgiveness is releasing yourself from prison. Bypassing pain is staying in prison and telling yourself you're not in one."

"Nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you."

If this episode meant something to you, a five-star rating or a few words in a written review helps this work reach more adoptees and the people who love them. You are never alone in this.

LINKS + RESOURCES:

- Get Anita's book, Wading in the Waves - available on Amazon

- Seven Core Issues in Adoption and Permanency

- The Roar: God's Sound in a Raging World by Bob Hazlett

- The Danger of a Single Story (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

- Adoptee Voices writing community

- Schedule a conversation with Julie

- The Refuge Membership Community

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