Who's Your Mother

Steve Flaig, of Grand Rapids , Michigan , had always known he was adopted. On his 18th birthday, he decided that he wanted to try to find out the identity of his birth mother. His adoptive parents, Pat and Lois Flaig, supported him in his decision.

Flaig asked D.A. Blodgett for Children, the agency that arranged his adoption, for his background information. He received the information a couple of months later, and it included his birth mother’s name.

Flaig’s birth mother, Christine Tallady, who was single and very young when Flaig was born, left the adoption record open, thinking her son might want to contact her someday....She was right!

When Flaig received his mother’s name, he began searching the Internet for her address to no avail. But last October, after searching for four years with no results, he realized that he had been spelling his mother’s surname incorrectly as “Talladay.” When he typed “Tallady” into a search engine on his computer, he came up with an address less than a mile from the Lowe’s store where he worked.

Excited about his possible find, he mentioned it to his boss at Lowe’s. In amazement, his boss said, “You mean Chris Tallady, who works here?” Flaig was stunned.
For the next several weeks, he said, “I would walk by her, look at her from a distance, not knowing how to approach her.” Should he just walk up to her and say, “Hi, I’m Steve, your son.” What if she rejected him?

Finally, on Friday, December 14, 2007, Tallady and Flaig, who had known each other casually as co-workers for several months, met for the first time as mother and son. It was a tearful and joyful reunion. *

The Bible gives us the story of how we are adopted by God. We are brought into the family of God. But this story of Steve Flaig speaks of reunion. God is our Father whether we accept that fact or not. Our sins have separated us from this holy family. When we come to God through the blood of His Son, then we are reunited with this Father. What a glorious day it will be to be reunited with the Father in heaven for eternity. May our daily lives be focused on seeking the Father.

* Story received from David Sargent (preacher, relative in Mobile, AL) Information gleaned from “Man's journey to find birth mom ends — at work.” By Pat Shellenbarger of Newhouse News Service in The Seattle Times -- http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004081699_found19.html

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