Category: Adoption and Faith

How adoption and faith are connected

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It’s Mothers’ Week: His Miracles and Our Rescue

When things get crazy around here (which happens alot lately!), I am praying and asking that God would help me to stop for a few minutes and just live in this miracle. Between laundry and doctor’s appointments and cleaning up messes of all sorts and smells…well, sometimes it is just too easy to let my focus stay there. To buy into the idea that I have to keep doing…cleaning, fixing, working…and I cannot stop and just be here and sit in wonder at this little miracle unfolding right here in my house.

Because it is a miracle. All this. This child who is coming alive and blossoming so beautifully right here in my messy home. Scott and I wondered about all this as we sat all weary on the couch the other night: How does this happen? How does a child who has been alive for two and a half years and really has no idea that two people on the other side of the world have been preparing their hearts and homes to become her parents…how does she become so very ours in such a short time? We are her parents! Just think of that. In her little mind, two months ago, she had no framework even for that. What is a parent anyway? For really she had only known nannies and orphanage life.

How does she come to embrace us, to know us as parents in such a short time, in just the way our other children do? How can that not be a miracle?

And then there’s the other miracle. The one that Scott and I know in our hearts but may just not be able to explain. Just that we get to be a part of all this.

Adoption has etched in our hearts such a deeper, more living understanding of what it means that God has adopted us…rescued us…redeemed us.

She has been redeemed and rescued. Outside of simply not having a family, Mei’s future without intervention was not looking good. Because of her medical condition and simply because she was an orphan – this is simply the reality.

Please do not hear me saying that we are heroes or rescuers or redeemers. Because with all my heart I know that I am the one being rescued. We know deep in our hearts that all of this was about God’s love for Mei and His amazing plan to care for this child. And Scott and I? We are just so grateful that He would let us be a part as His plan unfolds each day.

And, in being a part of all this, we are being rescued. No, our need for rescue was not as obvious as Mei’s…but we knew. And we have prayed for this very thing. Because here, with our lives and our blessings being so abundant, we know how easy it is for us to fall into lives that are mediocre, self-sufficient, complacent, unaware, and, frankly, selfish. We know the pull the American Dream has on us when, with all our hearts, what we really want is to know and serve God with radical abandon every day of our lives.

Today I am more desperate for God’s presence than ever before. I am more aware of the suffering that goes on all around me in the world, and by His grace, I am more willing to be used by Him for His kingdom’s purposes. Everyday, every hour, I see glimpses of Jesus’ work all around me and in me. Everyday, I am less and less satisfied with anything but knowing Him more and being a part of His purposes both here in my city and around the world.

So, yes, God, in His grace had a plan to rescue Mei. But this plan is my rescue too.

(courtesy of Red Letter Ink, click image for more)

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Haley Long

I am a recipient of amazing grace. I’ve been married 11 years to my husband, Scott. We had 2 children, Isaac and Zoe. Then one day God met us both in the same moment and broke our hearts and filled them with love for orphan children. In 2008, we brought our son Beniam, now 3, home from Ethiopia. And, we recently added to our family again, welcoming home Mei from China. I am a Florida girl who loves sunshine, water, and sand. I enjoy almost anything you can do outdoors, especially in the mountains. When forced to stay inside, I love to read and write.

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It’s Mothers’ Week: Dear Birth Mom,

(art courtesy of amylee weeks, click on image to see more)

Dear Birth Mom,

As I wake this morning and spend a few minutes alone, I know we are thinking about each other today. The day our son turns five years old. I don’t know your name, and you don’t know mine. We have never seen a photo of each other, never exchanged a word, do not even know how to find each other. And, before anyone else wakes up and the celebrating begins, I sit here in my living room crying in wonder for what I have received and grieving for what you have lost.

The orphanage did not have any information about you to share with us. But, I tell our son what I

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It’s Mothers’ Week: Waiting for Isaac

It has taken me a while to sit down and write this post, but I believe the hesitation is linked to a very important lesson God wanted to teach me today.

I have been wrestling with my feelings and wrestling with God. There are so many unknowns to this story and I have struggled to trust God with the answers. I

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I Heart Open Adoption

Rebekah (our birth mother, if you’re just tuning in) and I (also Rebekah) are both back to work and have full schedules right now. Gone are the days of talking weekly, blogging regularly, and sharing pictures and videos back and forth, often. We do the best we can, but it seems that weeks go by before we have a block of time to call and catch up.

I headed to bed early last night, in hopes to gear up for this coming week of work, but I was missing Rebekah and decided to call her instead. The time difference makes it difficult and although I set out to only talk an hour, we chatted well past two.

Friends come in a variety. Some are needy, some are high-maintenance, some walk in and out over time, some are there everyday/through every mundane detail, and some are glued to your heart, unfettered by time or distance. Rebekah is the latter. It doesn’t matter how much time passes, we always pick up right where we left off, sharing about work and kids and life.

It will never get old.

She is my son’s mother. I’ve said it before; there is something so unique that happens when two mothers love one son. We’re able to laugh and cry and enjoy Ty together as he experiences all his firsts. It’s as natural as life. It’s not weird or awkward or strained. I don’t have to hold back my true feelings in fear of hers and there’s a mutual respect in what we’ve done for each other. I know everyone doesn’t get this. I know it looks too good to be true. I’ve had haters write subsequent posts about me and our relationship and they question the authenticity. It doesn’t bother me. I know what we have – what we are experiencing – and it’s only made possible through God’s grace.

Last night, we laughed over Ty’s tendency to throw premature temper tantrums and agreed on the importance of reading to him. We gushed over his cuteness and were thankful for the closeness he shares with his daddy. We talked about his early rising pattern, which Rebekah admitted was a trend in her other kids. To that I jokingly exclaimed, “So, you’re responsible for this!?”

Like all moms, we think he’s the smartest, cutest, most advanced baby of his time and think he has the perfect blend of biology and family.

The three of us are flying out to reunite with Rebekah and her family, this April. I was so excited last night, I had a hard time falling asleep. The Bible talks about talents and the importance of using and sharing them versus burying them away to be hidden forever. That’s sort of how we (Ben and I) view Tyrus. Apart from Christ, he is the greatest treasure we’ve been given. We don’t want to keep him close to home in fear of what may happen. We want to share him and expose him to the world. We want him to be bonded with his first family and are joy-filled that he has the opportunity to know them. We can’t wait for our trip and to show everyone how much he’s grown!

Because there are so many instances in which God seems absent or his presence hard to find, it’s important to make a raucous when we can undeniably see his hand of goodness. When I look at the revolution that has taken place in my heart, the connections that God made to bring us our son, the relationship we have with Rebekah and her kids and extended family, and the ever present smiles on that crazy-haired little boy of mine, I say – GOD, YOU ARE GOOD.

And I say it rather loud.

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Rebekah

Next to my faith walk, I am a wife and mother first. My husband and I have been married ten years and have two incredibly, tender sons, Tyrus and LJ.
Our boys are essentially twins, yet neither boy was born from my belly. We adopted sweet Ty (domestically) in 2009 and have a wide-open relationship with his birth family. LJ was also born in the summer of 2009, but came to our family, this year, as a ward of the state (via foster care). Our hearts and abilities have been stretched to capacity, but God is moving, filling, and redefining family for all of us.

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My Favorite Desserts

I love dark chocolate covered raspberries. I love the slight bitterness of dark chocolate mixed with the sweetness of fruit. I love the magic of dark chocolate and raspberries melting in my mouth.

I love refridgerated homemade chocolate chip cookie dough. I love the chips and the smooth creaminess of the dough. I love the ridiculously large amounts of sugar and butter. I love the magic of spoonful after spoonful melting in my mouth.

If you gave me a choice between the two, I would pick both. If I really really had to, put a gun to my head, pick one, I would five times out of 10 pick cookie dough and five times out of 10 pick the dark chocolate covered raspberries.

If you told me I could never have cookie dough again, and my dessert for the rest of my life was solely going to be dark chocolate covered raspberries, I would love it. I certainly wouldn”t care much. However, there would be times I would think, boy cookie dough sounds good right now.

Or, while I love my dark chocolate covered raspberries, I would like just a taste of the cookie dough. And then if you said no, absolutely not, no cookie dough. Then I would be fine. And in fact, I would rejoice in the fact that I get to have my dark chocolate covered raspberries. Because I love them.

Can anyone see where this is going?
Can you figure out the analogy?
If you can, let me know because you are awesome and have figured out what”s in my head and that”s freaky.

I love adoption and I think we”ve esablished that I would like to adopt a million kids. I love my girls more than anything on this planet (other than my hubs). As I snuggled with Hannah tonight in her bed and stared at her sweet little hand resting on her tummy and her adorable skinny legs propped up on the duvet, I felt such an amazing and overwhelming feeling of love for this girl (let”s not leave Olivia out, I love her too:)). I love these girls so much, in fact, that sometimes I”m amazed that people love their biological children. I”m serious.

And I would still like to be pregnant. I don”t necessarily want to reproduce my DNA. In fact, I kind of don”t want to because (just thinking ahead), if s/he would look anything like me, I really would cringe every single time someone would say that “s/he looks just like you” in front of my girls. Who will never hear that. But I want to experience pregnancy. And I want to give birth. If I could could give birth to an adopted baby, that would be perfect (we”ve already discussed embryo adoption, that”s off the table for us for now (but never say never, right?)).

Anyway, adoption has not squelched the desire to do what my body was created to do. I still track things. I still know where I am in my cycle. I still care. I still get jealous. I still sin.
But, if what I get for the rest of my life is dark chocolate covered raspberries and no chocolate chip cookie dough, I rejoice for the Lord”s plan for my life and I will fully, with all my being, embrace eating my dark chocolate covered raspberries. Because I love them

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Abby Brandenberger
Abby is a stay-at-home mom, married to her college sweetheart Matt. Matt is an elementary school teacher, a coach, driver”s ed instructor, tutor, and sports fanatic. Abby just tries to keep up with him and the two little ones they adopted domestically (15 months apart). They are right in the middle of their third adoption journey and are excited to see how God adds to their family.  Abby welcomes you to follow along at Our Little Hope.

 

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Letting Go of Expectations

No one ever promised us that adopting our children would be a simple thing. I didn’t expect to whisk Silas into the mix and then just go about my happy business.

I knew it would be really, really hard.

For like six months.

And then it would be sort of hard for another six.

Then we might have a few bad days over the next six months.

Then we’d be home free.

We’d be in “regular parenting” territory then, which is never a slice of pie. It always requires effort and attention. It can be frustrating sometimes, exhausting often. But the dark, bruisey days would be over.

We’ve had Silas with us for 19 months. My extremely generous timeline for unfavorable behavior has expired, and we’re still registering a solid Month Ten. At least this week.

It’s been one of those weeks that used to find me feeling bullied and defeated, but now, after much practice, I simply feel bone-tired. It has worried me, the way I’ve learned to compartmentalize. It has concerned me at times, the way my patience grips the very edge with its fingernails.

This adoption thing? It can be lonely business. It’s hard to find the kind of everyday support that I crave, not because people in my life are unwilling to offer, but simply because it’s different.

When these hard weeks come, I sometimes feel judged. She should be doing things differently. I feel inadequate. I’m tired of screwing up. I feel defensive. He’s had a difficult life. I feel exasperated. What will it take for him to start to understand how this stuff works? I feel rejected. My kid doesn’t love me.

I feel all of those things, at times. They are my knee socks, my jeans, my gray T. I wear them well. They fit just right, at this point and they’re surprisingly comfortable.

But then I pull on my love for my child. I zip certainty up to my chin. I ball up my hands and shove them into Promise.

I walk in the sunny-day truth that I often know the right thing and choose the wrong anyway. I do not always obey the very first time. I shove and kick when I’m scared, or when I think my idea was better.

And still, just as I love my angel-lashed boy, I am loved.

I could never have known for sure what this journey would look like or how it would feel. I might have run screaming for the hills had I understood that it would be this hard this long. That is the thought that threatens to break me. I might have turned my back on one of the blessings of my life. I might have missed the moment where he turns to me and says, “I lu yew Mommy”. I would have missed stifling a laugh when he looks up at me and says all mean and sassy, “I tickle yew”. (He finally understands that “I spanka yo bottom” wasn’t working for him, so he improvises now.)

So, I’m learning to let go a little. I’ll not take personal the days where he wakes up spitting mad at me and the world, because these days come in waves. I’ll ride it out knowing that maybe tomorrow, or next Monday, he’ll smile straight into my heart and giggle me through my day.

Every day is a step in the right direction, even when it’s hard.

Every day is a chance to remember that God honors this work. He honors it full. He cheers us on, reminds us that the dark days move faster if you dance a little.

Every day is one more opportunity for grace – for all of us.

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Shannan Martin

Shannan Martin is an ordinary girl who searches for and finds beauty in the everyday. She’s the wife of a man who thinks all of her jokes are funny and who regularly indulges her late-night, thinking-out-loud ponderings. They have three funny shorties, Calvin, Ruby, and Silas, who came to them across rivers and oceans. Together, they are embarking on a fresh adventure and are confident that God will meet them there. And though they no longer live on the farm, life remains a heaped-up pile of blessings, and Shannan will forever remain a Farmgirl at heart. She has blogged for three years; come take a look.

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When There’s “Nothing” You Can Do

Have you ever had a really, really big problem? I have. Frankly, it seems like Dan and I deal with them all the time.

We have two adopted children. They came to us from unbelievably harsh circumstances and have many demons in their closets. There are days that I fear they’ll never fully recover… and there’s really “nothing” I can do about it.

Our ministry serves imprisoned children. Imprisoned. Children. It’s a problem so big and so complicated that there’s really “nothing” I can do about it.

Really big problems tend to make me feel… really helpless. Can you relate? Have you ever faced a mountain so big that you knew you couldn’t scale it? Or perhaps you’ve heard these words from a doctor… “I’m sorry. There’s ‘nothing’ we can do.”

This week, I was blessed and encouraged by these words from my morning Bible study…

There is rarely nothing you can do.
Being still and knowing He is God a long shot from nothing.
Trusting in a God you cannot see is a long shot from nothing.
Holding your tongue is a long shot from nothing.
Counting it all joy is a long shot from nothing.
Submitting is a long shot from nothing.
Confessing sin is a long shot from nothing.
Resting in Christ is a long shot from nothing.
And hear this one really loudly: praying is a long shot from nothing.”

— Beth Moore, Mercy Triumphs

No matter how bleak the circumstances, no matter how high the walls… we serve a God who’s bigger than all of our problems combined. There’s rarely “nothing” we can do. And I will rejoice and rest in that.

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Shelly Owens

Dan and Shelly live in Atlanta, Georgia with their five children. Dan is the CEO of SixtyFeet, a ministry serving the imprisoned children of Africa. Shelly is a stay-at-home-mom who does volunteer work for SixtyFeet and delights in homeschooling her crew.

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Isn’t There Another Way?

Last night my mind was running through all of the paperwork for adoption grants yet to be applied to, then to all of the paper work yet to be filled out when we apply to agencies, then to all the paper work that I don’t even know about that will likely happen after being matched with a birthmom. As I was mentally picturing all of these papers yet to be filled out and all of the papers that we’ve already done, well…I felt tired. Then I thought, “Isn’t there an easier way?”

God instantly brought to mind Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, staring into the cup of God’s wrath that awaited Him as He looked ahead to the cross. And He pleaded,

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