Interbeing: Mutual Transformation

Rabia's love was never one-directional. In her relationship with the Divine, she was both lover and beloved, giving and receiving transformation. In adoptive families, this mutual interbeing is profound. Parents often approach adoption with the narrative of "saving" or "helping" a child, but the truth is deeper: the child transforms the parent irreversibly. A parent's assumptions about identity, belonging, family, and love are shattered and reformed through the lived experience of adoption. The child teaches the parent what resilience truly is, what it means to belong despite (or through) complexity, and how love expands beyond expectation. Simultaneously, the parent offers the child security, witness, and a larger identity. Both are changed. This mutual transformation is not a problem to solve but the heart of the adoption journey. When both parent and child can recognize their mutual impact—the ways they shape each other's becoming—the relationship moves beyond roles and into genuine kinship. This mirrors Rabia's understanding that love is always reciprocal, always transformative.