Essay

Adoption and the Sealing Power

If you are an adoptive parent—or hope to become one—you may have wondered something you do not always say out loud: Will this child really be mine forever? Does biology matter more in eternity? What if my child wants to know or love a birth family someday? Is a temple sealing after adoption somehow different from being born in the covenant?

Those are important questions. Let’s start with the clearest answer: an adopted child who is sealed in the temple to adoptive parents can receive every blessing of belonging to that eternal family. The Church teaches that children who come to a family through adoption or birth are equally precious blessings and that temple sealing gives an adopted child the full blessings of eternal family life.

Adoption does not create a second-class family. Through Jesus Christ and His sealing power, a family formed through adoption can become an eternal family.

What Does Scripture Teach About Belonging by Covenant?

Paul taught the Saints in Rome that through Jesus Christ they had received “the Spirit of adoption” and could become “joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:15–17).

Paul was not teaching that we are not already literal spirit sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents. He was teaching about covenant inheritance. Through Christ, His disciples can inherit what He inherits.

King Benjamin taught something similar. After his people entered into covenant with God, he told them that because of that covenant they would be called “the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters” (Mosiah 5:7).

That helps us understand something important about adoption. Scripture shows that covenant creates real and lasting relationships. Biological relationships matter, but they are not the only relationships God binds eternally. Through priesthood ordinances, He has provided a way for parents and children to be joined by sealing power.

What Does the Family Proclamation Add?

The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches that “the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”

That helps explain why adoption is about more than providing a home. Children need family relationships where they can be loved, taught, protected, and helped toward eternal life.

The Church’s teaching on adoption says it plainly: “Loving, eternal families can be created through adoption.” It also teaches that children sealed to adoptive parents can receive “every blessing” of belonging to their eternal family.

That is the heart of the answer. An adopted child is not partly part of an eternal family. The sealing is real.

Barbara Morgan Gardner Thought About Her Own Daughters

Barbara Morgan Gardner and her husband, Dustin, adopted two daughters, Alli and Jane. One month after the adoption, they went together to the Mount Timpanogos Utah Temple and were sealed as a family.

Years later, while teaching about Esther, Barbara remembered an international conference where people had questioned what adoption meant for her daughters’ birthright. She explained that the gospel had helped her see it differently: because her daughters had been adopted and sealed, “they actually received their birthright” as if they had been born in the covenant. (followHIM transcript)

Listen to Barbara explain what she learned about adoption, birthright, and sealing:

Barbara was not talking about adoption as an abstract idea. She was thinking about Alli and Jane and what their sealing meant. They had not received a lesser version of covenant family life because they came to the Gardners through adoption.

What Does the Sealing Give an Adopted Child?

President Russell M. Nelson taught that “exaltation is a family affair.” The goal is not simply individual salvation but becoming an eternal family—endowed, sealed, and prepared to live with God. Church teaching specifically explains that this opportunity belongs both to children born in the covenant and to children adopted and sealed to their families.

President Joseph Fielding Smith also taught that children who belong to the covenant have claims upon blessings of guidance, protection, and inspiration from the Lord. The Church has applied those same covenant blessings to children who are sealed to parents after adoption.

That is why the temple matters so much. Legal adoption creates a family recognized on earth. Through the sealing ordinance, Jesus Christ makes it possible for that family relationship to continue beyond mortality.

Does Biology Still Matter?

An adopted child’s biological heritage still matters. It may include ancestry, culture, medical history, personality traits, and relationships a child may understandably want to know more about. Loving an adoptive family does not require pretending that a child had no history before adoption.

The Church’s teaching about adoption and family history recognizes that an adopted person may feel drawn to learn about both an adoptive family line and a biological family line. That interest does not make the sealing weaker.

An adoptive parent might still wonder, If my child loves a birth parent, does that change my place in my child’s life? An adopted child may wonder, If I want to know more about where I came from, am I being disloyal to the parents who raised me?

Those questions do not have to turn family relationships into a competition. A child can value biological roots and still belong completely to an adoptive family. Heavenly Father is capable of honoring every righteous relationship while making temple covenants fully meaningful.

Research Shows That Strong Family Bonds Can Grow Through Adoption

Research gives us a hopeful look at how those relationships can develop over time.

In a long-term study of children adopted between ages four and eight, researchers followed them into adolescence. The young people showed increased attachment security and decreased disorganized attachment over time. Secure attachment in their adoptive mothers was also associated with greater attachment security in the adolescents.

Another longitudinal study of 146 internationally adopted children followed families from infancy to age seven. Researchers found that the quality of the parent-child relationship—including sensitive parenting and secure attachment—predicted stronger later social and cognitive development, even though the parents and children were not biologically related.

Research cannot tell us what a temple sealing accomplishes eternally. Revelation does that. But it does help us see something encouraging in everyday family life: closeness grows as parents consistently love, listen, comfort, teach, correct, and show up for their children.

Family bonds are strengthened through the life a family builds together.

Adoption Can Still Bring Complicated Feelings

Adoption can bring enormous joy without making every part of the story simple.

Some adoptive parents come to adoption after years of infertility. Birth parents may carry both love for a child and grief over separation. Adopted children may eventually have questions about identity, race, culture, biological relatives, or why the adoption happened. Children who experienced neglect or trauma before adoption may need particular patience and professional help as they learn to trust.

None of those experiences makes the adoptive family less real.

An adopted child should be able to ask honest questions about biological roots without wondering whether doing so threatens the family that raised them. Parents can help by listening without becoming defensive and returning often to something steady: You belong here. You are loved here. We are your family.

The sealing gives that belonging an eternal promise.

A Few Questions Worth Thinking About

• When I think about eternal family, have I sometimes placed more weight on biology than on what God has taught about covenant and sealing?
• If I am an adoptive parent, how can I help my child feel secure enough to ask questions about biological heritage openly?
• If I am adopted, how might the doctrine of sealing help me understand my place in my family?
• What are some ordinary ways our family can make belonging, trust, and covenant love more visible at home?

What Can You Do This Week?

Read Romans 8:14–17 slowly and notice how Paul connects covenant relationship with inheritance through Christ.

Then read the Church’s short teaching on adoption. If adoption touches your family personally, pay particular attention to its promise that children sealed to adoptive parents can receive every blessing of belonging to their eternal family.

Finally, think about how belonging is being built in your family now. Tell family stories. Create traditions. Pray together. Keep promises. Listen when difficult questions come. Honor a child’s history while helping that child know where he or she belongs.

Jesus Christ is at the center of every eternal family. Through His priesthood power, parents and children can be sealed together in relationships meant to continue beyond death. If adoption is part of your family story, you do not need to think of your family as a lesser version of something else.

A child who comes into your family through adoption can belong completely. Through Jesus Christ and His sealing power, that family relationship can be eternal.