ABOUT this site …
This site contains the adoption journey of Richard L. McCulley. I was adopted along with four of my biological brothers & sisters in 1962. I was brought into a stable home at the age of 7, complete with a new sister that was 3 years older than me and eventually I would have a brother that was 10 years younger. I was adopted because my adoptive parents were unable to have children of their own. My mom had remarried after the tragic loss of her first husband in 1952 due to a car accident during their first year of marriage. After marrying my dad they were never able to have children of their own. My mother was seven months pregnant with my sister when she lost her first husband; so after mom’s second marriage, she and dad were hopeful of growing their family. After several years of not being able to have children they realized that it was not going to happen naturally so they chose the adoption route and that is when I came into the picture. Fast forward (for the sake of closing the loop) beyond my adoption, I was to learn that my mom and dad were expecting a child from their union which allowed me to have a brother that would be ten years younger than me.
Prior to the adoption proceedings I was asked by my new mom if I would like to be called something other than Richard; she informed me that I could legally change my first name during the adoption process. I declined for two reasons. For starters, Richard was the name that I had known for nearly eight years of my life so being called Horatio, Calvin, or Thaddeus just didn’t feel right to me. Besides that, I was named after my biological father & mother and that was the only remaining link that I had to my natural family. My dad’s name was Richard and my mother’s name was Lynn (Marilyn). I was named Lynn Richard Bush. Even at the age of seven my thought was that someday I would use that link to trace back to my heritage and locate my biological family. My new parents reversed my birth name Lynn Richard and named me Richard Lynn. As it turned out, that was exactly what I used to locate my original birth certificate in the State that I was born in. When I located it many years later I realized that nothing had been redacted as is normal in adoption proceedings. Through that document I found out that my dad was a ‘piano tuner’ by trade and that I was born ‘single’ (as opposed be being born married?). As I came into possession of other documentation I would also learn that my sister and I were born out of wedlock before 1958 when my biological mom and dad were legally married; making me an illegitimate son. That was certainly looked down upon by society in the 1950’s & 1960’s.
I remained in my new home for only 10 years before launching out into life on my own. It was a rocky 10 years for a variety of reasons. Being separated from family members that I knew by name and that I had a relationship with and being placed into a home filled with total strangers was a huge hurdle. Being ripped away from everyone & everything that was familiar to me and ‘starting over’ isn’t easy. I had a ton of behavioral issues to deal with. Some of those issues stemmed from the fact that I didn’t get the discipline and guidance that is so vital to children in their formative years. There was absolutely no structure to my life, and I did what I wanted, when I wanted; I literally ran the streets of Chicago without any adult supervision. My adoptive parents had ‘no idea’ what they had just gotten themselves into. And my new sister, well let’s say it was a wake-up call for her as well. I heard from a high school classmate of hers years later and was told that bringing me into the family totally ‘rocked her world’. I used to kidding-ly tell my wife that my mothers first exclamation after I was born was “all THAT for THIS?”. Of course I had no way of knowing anything about my mother’s response to my birth (the earliest picture that I have of myself was at age 7), but in hind-sight, that may have been what my new family thought as time went on..
The story I have to tell is a story of success , not a story of failure. It is a story of how an undisciplined, emotionally unstable young man found his way in life and followed it through. It is a story of how God stayed with me and didn’t pitch me onto the dung heap of life. He led me and guided me through the tough places of life and mercifully allowed me to see the day when I could once again be re-connected with every person in my biological family at one point or another. And in the midst of that journey, He allowed me to reconnect with the two people that I was closest to during those early years. These were the two that I remember playing with as a child and the last two that I spent time with before leaving the orphanage to start a new life.
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This linked video from CASTING CROWNS is my theme song. The words of this song could not more accurately depict the Power of the Word of God more vividly. Click below and you will see what I mean….then read more below the embedded audio player.Welcome to RLM’s Adoption Journey
Being adopted is a very complex & sometimes complicated experience. I do not know what it is like to be raised by natural parents, that is something that I cannot relate to; that part of me is missing. I have no baby pictures or even pictures of me as a toddler that I can drag out of a closet to look at. In my case, even though I was seven years old when we were given up and released into the custody of the American Home Finding Association, I have few memories to recall of those first years. As an adoptee you just do your best to fit in and survive. I would not have gotten to where I am today without the intervention of God in every facet of my life.
Out of a debt of gratitude it is my desire to promote the living, breathing, life-changing Word of God. Hebrews 11:1 says that “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God”. What that is saying is that if you want to grow in your faith in God, then you must feed on His Word. Hearing the Word of God brings FAITH! Acting on the Word of God that you have heard brings freedom!
The Word of God is the most POWERFUL force on the planet; and the most enduring. The scriptures say in the book of the prophet Isaiah that “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.” There are multiple scriptures in both the Old Testament as well as the New Testament that give testimony to this fact.
Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
Without question, the Word of God is the most important book in my life. The words within the pages of this book have totally transformed my life from someone who was lost & without hope, to a life filled with the confidence, knowing that my life had been totally changed by one simple decision in my life to follow Jesus. II Corinthians 5:17 sums it up when it states “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
This website allows me to fulfill two desires in my life. #1 – To share my testimony to those who may not know me. Although you will not find anything deeply personal, what you will find are stories that illustrate well the fact that God’s Word has impacted my life completely. #2 – to share ‘Faith Bytes’ to anyone that takes the time to read them. These are short and are my way of sharing with the reader the notes that I have written over the years on various topics that are important to me.
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