Parenting Backwards {Summer Rewind}

Raising a child from birth to adulthood seems like a cycle of teaching attachment and then teaching how to let go. First, you try to get a newborn to attach to a breast for feeding then after a few months, a few years for some, you ween them off of the breast and onto a bottle. The process starts all over again. Attach to the bottle then ween to a sippy cup and so on. Just think about it: we use things to comfort and nourish and soothe our children just so later on we can teach them that they will have to grow up and move on from them. A blankie, a pacifier, a crib, a toy, a home, etc. It’s a cycle of teaching them to attach and let go because that is what life is all about.

Well, parenting an adopted child feels completely opposite of that to me. I feel like I am having to parent backwards. Instead of teaching Jaydn to attach and let go, I am trying to teach her to let go and attach, let go of her defense mechanisms and the tools she has been using to survive her almost animalistic institutionalized life up until now and attach to us at the heart level, let go of her fears of abandonment and sense of self-sufficiency and attach to us, her loving family who she can trust and feel safe with because we aren’t going anywhere.

It is really hard to parent this way after years of doing it the other way. Call me selfish, but I enjoy the times when Jaxon and Jovie are playing in the other room while I do my quiet time or dishes or whatever I need to do for a little while. I have taught them to trust a babysitter or a Sunday school teacher so that Nathan and I can have a date, or I can enjoy worship with our church body. Teaching even toddler-aged kids to let go has its perks! But, parenting backwards is a conscious sacrifice of those perks. With Jaydn on my lap 24/7, I can only catch bits of the sermon between feeding her crackers or keeping an eye on her as she destroys my notes with a pen. Nathan and I don’t go on dates. Dishes, quiet times, and whatever else I need to do will just have to wait until she is asleep at night. And, to be honest, by then, I’m too tired, so it simply doesn’t get done.

Another example is last night. We went to a worship and music ministry party. We couldn’t get a babysitter because it’s too early in Jaydn’s development to leave her with anyone else so Nathan and I drove separately just in case I would need to leave because of the kids. So, as Nathan wandered around meeting and greeting people he will be working so closely with in the coming years, I sat on a couch with a 40lb 2-year-old squishing my face at an almost painful strength, knotting my hair with her forceful fingers, and then jerking herself backwards at random times with brut force almost breaking my arms as I attempt to catch her each time. A sweet new friend offered to watch her for a minute while I ventured to the chocolate fountain, and I jumped at the chance. “OH! YES! Kid freedom!,” I thought to myself. I returned from the other room a few minutes later, knowing I wasn’t really “supposed” to do that, but Lord knows I needed it (both the break and the chocolate-covered fruit). Then, it was back to my lap she came. I kept thinking about how the other two kids were upstairs, entertaining themselves, and what a gift that truly had become to me as one tired mommy. I went upstairs to join them and sat on the floor while Jaydn would get up long enough to grab a toy and then plop onto my lap again. The process of her seeing me as different than every other woman in the room is an arduous one.

Please know that I am not complaining. Actually, I am learning out loud. I am learning how to parent someone who has no experiential reason to trust/love me. I am learning how to walk through every painful door of her self-sufficiency and place Christ’s redemption story there. I am not Jaydn’s mommy because I had to be. I chose this role out of obedience to God’s command through Scripture. So, as in all things I experience in my life where I feel ill-equipped and unable, I believe that God has placed me here to be more reliant on Him. I know He can parent forwards, backwards, upwards, downwards, sideways and upside down–He is The Everlasting Father. My prayer is that through all of this, He will also teach me how to let go (and let God) and teach Jaydn how to attach.

________________________________________

I have been married going on 8 years to a worship pastor, a rock star, and the most involved and intentional dad I have ever seen! Together, we have the privilege of parenting three amazing children (Jaxon- 5 1/2, Jovie, 2 1/2, and Jaydn 2). Jaydn came to us through adoption from Uganda, Africa. We moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, but I am a west coast girl at heart. I enjoy photography, adventure recreation, and teaching high-school students about the most important decision they could ever make: to follow Jesus.

June 19, 2014June 20, 2014

Things That Matter {Summer Rewind}

I’ve been counting down the days until this Spring’s Created For Care conference for over a year.

I stayed up until midnight the night registration opened to make sure I got on the list before it sold out. I arranged a sitter months ago. I made new friends online and even arranged to share a room with someone I’d never met, which is huge for a socially awkward girl such as myself.

Created For Care is a conference for Moms who have adopted to come together and be refreshed. To learn more about what it means to parent for these kids that come from a broken past.

Cause y’all, it’s hard.

Harder then I ever imagined.

Josie’s six now and it’s been about six months since the questions started.

Some are easy, “How big was I when I came home to you?”

Some squeeze my chest until there’s no air left and I have to actively fight the tears back, “Can I call her Mommy? Does she love me? Would it be OK if I love her?”

It wretches and twists.

I selfishly want her all to myself, but that’s not the truth. She once belonged to someone else and even if that woman has no clue what she gave up when she walked out of that hospital and left my Josie Girl behind, Josie has a right to know about her, to love her if she wants to.

I want so, so badly for her to have a positive view on her adoption story. It’s special and,miraculous. Touched by God so obviously that anyone can see it. And everyday that Josie gets older I’m more aware that how she feels about her adoption will lay largely on how I react to her questions.

We’ve been age appropriate, but open with her.

We’ve recently began sharing more details with her when she asks. We don’t know much and a lot of her story she won’t be mature enough to hear for quite awhile, but she has names and her birth story and, yes baby, you can love her too.

“You don’t look like your Mommy,” her true to the world six year old friend states matter of factly and I see her eyes searching mine. I know that she’s feeling shy so I take her hand in mine and share the mystery of adoption with a huge smile on my face. I watch her friend get excited and yell out, “you got to be adopted?!?!” and there’s Josie’s smile. She’s ready to share.

Born in an ambulance, made to be a Pope but had to find us first. It’s her story and she’s piecing it together and I’m letting her grow and ask and trying hard to hold fast to my peace that I get to be her Mommy now and it’s ok, it’s good, to share.

So it’s hard and I was excited to go to Created For Care.

I was going to meet other moms that could really understand me and hear me and know I wasn’t complaining or ungrateful, but learning and feeling my way though, hoping I don’t screw up these kids.

And maybe a little bit scared too.

The closer the conference got though, the crazier our days were getting. We have a few big trips coming up and I am struggling to find ways to fit everything in. I tried to fight it and push on, but the feeling that something had to give kept pushing back.

And after a stressful morning where I was unkind to Josie, I looked at her coloring at the school table and my solution became clear. I didn’t need a weekend away to refresh and regroup. I needed a weekend away with her.

Just the two of us. Where we can talk and make memories and nurture this bond.

And so we are.

This morning we hopped on a plane and are headed to our Winter Wonderland. We should land in Minnesota anytime now. We are going to have tea and meet Baby Ralphie and, if I can talk myself into it, spend some time sledding down hills in the freezing cold.

Sometimes I have to get out of my own head and refocus on what’s important. I’m sure I’ll go to that conference someday. But today I’m going to hold my daughter’s hand and celebrate everything God gave me when he handed me this child.

It isn’t easy, but it’s everything I’ve ever wanted.

________________________________________

Nicole is a Northern Girl turned Southern Belle. She loves Starbucks, Photography, and Homeschool Curriculum Catalogs. Passionate about Jesus, adoption, and squeezing all the love and joy out of each day. You can follow along with her life at www.JourneyToJosie.com

June 16, 2014June 16, 2014

Between Beauty and Brokenness

I’m on vacation in one of my favorite places on earth- the Florida beach on the Gulf of Mexico.There’s a 7 mile stretch between Pensacola and Navarre called the Gulf Island National Seashore. It’s a protected area so there are absolutely no buildings- no high rise hotels, no restaurants, no bars, and no tattoo parlors; only a two-lane road with a 35 mph speed limit. It’s the beautiful beach the way God made it. Two years ago when we drove through with our kids, I told Tom, “One day, I want to come back and run this gorgeous stretch. You can drop me off and pick me up on the other side”.

Well, the “one day” just arrived today! I excitedly prepared for my run of beauty which included lots of sunscreen, lots of water, and my favorite sunglasses. There were special signs placed all along the road reading “Shorebird nesting- 20 mph”. How cute- the Mamma birds are nesting so the cars need to drive even slower. Just perfect!!! Maybe I’ll see a nest or two. I just can’t wait!

It wasn’t long before my “How cute!” turned into “Hey!!! what’s going on???” I had no more run 100 yards when these cute mamma shore birds starting flying overhead, screeching and dive bombing my head- obviously threatened by my presence. Tom and I were running the first few miles together, and I was a few steps behind him laughing at the one brave bird who got within a foot of his head, swooping down over and over. Laughter soon turned to dismay as the number of birds increased and I started hearing splats hit the ground beside me. How could my much anticipated run in such a beautiful location be so full of poop?

It was then that I remembered a word picture given by Dan Cruver at the Together for Adoption convention in Atlanta last fall. He said that adoption is the road between beauty and brokenness. Adoption is so beautiful because it pictures what Christ does for us- taking us as His children and calling us His own. But it is only possible because of brokenness in our world. Dan said that he realized this as he stood on a road in Haiti with the beautiful emerald ocean on one side and a mass grave with thousands of hurricane victims buried on the other. As I ran along today trying to dodge the bird poop falling down, I also thought of my own adopted children. They are so beautiful and were so anticipated. Yet because of their early years of abandonment and institutionalization, they have a lot of yuck to work through in their hearts and lives.

This sometimes translates into difficult parenting. But isn’t that the reality of adoption?

When I reached the other side of the Gulf Island National Seashore an hour later, I was covered in bird poop. But along the way I chose to enjoy the beautiful white sand, listen to the roll of waves, smell the salty air, feel the breeze on my face, and thank God for my wonderful, adopted children.

____________________________

Rebecca Cruttenden, founder and director of Team Orphans, is a dedicated mom of three adopted children, and a three-time Ironman finisher. She has raised over $80,000 for adoption grants in the last three years. She, her husband Tom, and their three children live in Rockford, Michigan. Her next race is Ironman Florida on November 1, 2014. You can read more about Rebecca’s work with Team Orphans on their blog.

May 20, 2014May 20, 2014

Once Upon a Time Until Forever {Part Two}

There’s a new picture hanging in my kitchen today, a new masterpiece to our mixed media gallery, hanging between Olaf magnets and a flyer from school.

Yesterday was her last Chinese class of the year. Little dark-haired people skitted around the room while soft-spoken Lao Shi tried to shepherd their bodies with seemingly swelling energy. Typically, one of us sits in her class and typically tries to read despite the reason why we’re there. But, with the senioritis that suspiciously attacked even these preschoolers, I was needed.

Lao Shi had brought photocopies for the children to complete and staple together as memory books of the year. Way over the heads of children who can barely write their own names, most of them were scribbling and distracted and alternating between singing Liang Zhi Lao Hu and Let it Go. Lydia clutched a red pen in her little fingers, firmly held it motionless over the ABOUT ME page before her and swung her feet with gusto below her. As the teacher tried to help other kids, I pulled up to her desk to help her, filling in the blanks with the words she supplied to me.

My age: 5.

Where I was born: China.

My parents: Mommy and Daddy.

Brothers & Sisters: Ashlyn, Drew and Evan.

Pets: Mojo and Bebo.

My picture:

Okay, Lydia. Go ahead. You draw a picture of yourself there.

Pressing hard on the page, she drew her typical person—a round circle for a head, an oval torso, stick arms and legs, eyes and a smile, and some hair around the head. But, then she started intensely working on that torso. I thought she was intent on giving herself a dress that matched the one she was wearing. I watched until she put the pen down with contentment.

That’s a big belly and inside that is a baby that was beautiful called Yue Yue that became Lydia.

It was not a dress she was intensely drawing, it was herself in the womb of her first mother. I smiled and waited for her and for the lump in my throat to dissipate a little. While I waited, she picked up the pen again and went back to her drawing, this time drawing a little body on the chest of the stick figure that was her China mommy.

A doctor helped me to come out of her belly because that’s what doctors do.

Is that your China mommy holding you?

Yup….I don’t know her name.

I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know her name either. I wish we did….

No one stopped to listen. No one there sat with me and marveled at all this little 5 year old girl is processing when she is told to complete a picture appropriate for the title ABOUT ME. This little moment just blended into the energy of the room and class went on without a notice of another step in the journey of a little girl and the woman who is her second mother.

_____________________________

Kelly has a passion for supporting adoptive families, specifically to encourage parents to be intentional and understand their own hearts more clearly as they seek to care for their hearts of their children. Kelly has a Master’s degree in counseling and has been working with adoptive families since she and her husband Mark founded the The Sparrow Fund. Married to Mark since 1998, they have 3 biological children and 1 daughter who was adopted as a toddler from China in 2010. You can learn more about their adoption story, how they’ve been changed by the experience of adoption, and what life for them looks like on Kelly’s personal blog, My Overthinking.

April 30, 2014May 4, 2014

The Beauty and Brokenness of Foster Care

It was a Wednesday. We received a call from our foster care agency at 3:30 in the afternoon – a newborn baby girl had been taken into custody by Child Protective Services at the hospital and was in need of placement. “Are you interested?”, they asked. Of course we are.

By 7:30 that evening they were at our front door, holding a tragically fragile little girl who needed a home to live in and a family to love her.

It was the best and worst day of her life.

She was wholly unaware of all that had transpired in her short 3-day life. Tragedy, abuse and brokenness brought her to our front door. Hope, love and healing welcomed her in. While we celebrated the opportunity to care for her, we also ached over the reality that someone had put her in a position of needing to be protected in the first place. Two years later, it’s now our joy to call her our daughter and to hear her call us her Momma and Dadda; it’s also our heartache that any of this ever had to happen in the first place.

EQUAL PARTS GOOD AND BAD

Everything…everything about foster care is equal parts good and bad, joy and sorrow, beauty and brokenness. It’s a good day when a child is placed in your home. It represents safety, security and an opportunity for a child to be loved and cared for in a way they likely would not have had available to them otherwise. It’s indeed a good day when a child is placed in your home – it’s also a really bad day. It’s a day marked by hurt and brokenness, that while so much gain has been made available to a child, it’s ultimately loss that has led them to that point. Generational cycles of brokenness within families have perpetuated themselves now into the lives of the next generation – abuse, neglect and abandonment have become a part of their stories. They didn’t ask for this, it was unjustly handed to them by those who were most responsible to protect them from the very things they’ve now been harmed by.

While the opportunity to love these kids is good, no doubt the circumstances that brought them to us are probably very, very bad. This is where the call to foster care begins, what it exposes us to and the perspective it demands we keep in order to rightly and lovingly care for vulnerable kids.

THEIR TRAGEDY OVER OUR EAGERNESS

As excited as we may be about fostering kids, they certainly aren’t excited about being foster kids. Our personal sense of excitement does not drive our efforts. Their personal tragedy does. Heartache does. A desire to see good come out of bad does. A willingness to embrace what is broken and do whatever it takes to bring healing does.

Celebrate the opportunity to open your homes to kids in need, knowing that if it be for just a few days or an entire lifetime, you’ve been given the unique opportunity to offer them something special – love. Yet at the same time, never let your excitement about being involved in foster care be separated from the heartache you feel over the tragic reality that something like foster care even has to exist in the first place.

_____________________________

Jason Johnson is the husband to Emily, a dad to four girls (youngest adopted in 2013), a pastor for 13 years, a former church planter and now the Church Engagement Officer and creator of the ALL IN Orphan Care Church & Ministry Campaign with the Arrow Foundation—an organization committed to equipping, resourcing, and mobilizing the Church to help kids and strengthen families around the country. You can follow his ministry at Jasonjohnsonblog.com and find this post originally published on that blog here.

April 23, 2014April 23, 2014

The Blessings of Adoption

As adoptive parents, we partake in so many blessings along the adoption journey. There are also many times of trial, heartache, and grief, but wouldn’t you say that the blessings out weigh all this. Over the past few days, God reminded me again of the many blessings that enter our life through His amazing plan of adoption.

At our Good Friday service, I witnessed our precious son, who last year was struggling to understand English, our love for him and his place in our family, lift his hand in praise to the Lord. We were singing “Amazing love” and I looked over at him to discover this sweet boy singing his heart out to God. His little hand went up in praise even though no one else had their hands up. He then told me later that that was the first church service where he had really focused on God. AMAZING! HIS AMAZING LOVE!

Then, on this very afternoon that I am typing these words, my son, after giving me a big hug, proclaimed, “I like this family. I am so glad you are my family, my new family!” That’s right, precious boy, we are your Forever Family!

My heart is filled with immeasurable gratefulness and love for our Father who brought my boy from China into our family and held him tightly until he began to understand the depth of His love for us.

One little hand
One little hand raised in praise
One little hand where there were none
One little hand signifying love
Love for the Savior.

One little heart
One little heart filled with understanding
One little heart praising God
One little heart full of love
Love for the One who saved him.

______________________________________

After struggling with infertility for 5 years, God led Suzanne and her husband, Adam, to His Plan A for their lives—adoption! Their daughter, Grace Lihua, came into their lives May 2011 on Mother’s Day from Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, China. And, their son, Anthony Jianyou, joined their family in January 2013 from Shanghai. After a career in politics, Suzanne now works as a part time Pilates instructor while home schooling their children, writing and working as a part of the Sparrow Fund Blog leadership team. You can follow their adoption journey and life on her blog, Surpassing
Greatness.

February 19, 2014February 19, 2014

God’s Dreams for Us

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that one day I would adopt an eight year old boy China. In fact, if you had told me three years ago that I would now have a nine year old son, I probably would have laughed. Isn’t it beautiful how God works, changing and molding us into the vessel He intends us to be when we open our hearts to him.

When God first revealed to us His plan, I was honestly absolutely terrified at the thought initially, but God whispered in my heart, “Trust Me, dear one” and I settled under the secure wings of my Almighty Father and let Him lead. Adopting an older child is not an easy path, but God didn’t promise that the road would be easy, did He? But has it been rewarding and amazing? Absolutely!

For Anthony’s one year anniversary as our son, we purchased a Bible with his name imprinted on it. I had been waiting for the right time to start showing him how God speaks to us through the Bible and provides us with everything we need to follow Him. I didn’t want to rush things but Holy Spirit has been working in his heart one from the very day he entered our lives.

As we were setting down for our evening routine of a devotional reading, he said, “My heart believes in God, but my sometimes my brain doesn’t understand.” I could feel the prompting of the Holy Spirit to seize this very moment!

I said, “Yes, our brains try to understand, but we will never understand everything about God because He is God and our brain is too small in comparison to Him. Let’s look at verse in Isaiah that talks about this very thing. We can look it up in your new bible!”

So I picked up his new Bible and turned to Is. 55:8-9:

“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your
ways my ways,’

declares the Lord.

‘As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways
higher than your ways

and my thoughts
than your thoughts.'” (NIV)

As Anthony read the verse aloud to me, his eyes grew big and he looked at me and exclaimed rather loudly,

“That is exactly what I was thinking! The Bible is amazing!! I am so happy! I love God with all my heart! My heart is different now.”

Heart pounding . . . tears of joy welling up . . . silent praise to God. This boy, one year ago, had not even heard the name of God!

“Anthony, I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that you understand how God speaks to us from His word. He also tells us that we are new creations because of Christ and have a new heart.”

“Are there verses that tell us that?”

“Oh, yes! Let me show you!”

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor. 5:17, NIV)

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ez. 36:26, NIV)

God is working in the heart of my boy who only just heard about God one year ago. Just think, if we hadn’t listened to God’s call, we would have missed out on the amazing work God is doing in his life.

______________________________________

February 12, 2014February 12, 2014

Losing the Streets

The slum streets were her childhood playground.

Her lungs took their first swallow of earth’s air in the poor African’s version of a waiting room, while her mama held her place in line for a “free-clinic” bed — one that she never saw. Hope was welcomed by this world into the dirt, and it would indoctrinate her first five years of life.

And from what I can tell, she did street life well.

The skill set required to scavenge for food and beg (simply to get by) is quite different, even, than the one needed to slide into the masses of an orphanage food line. To move from streets to shanty-like slums and back again, over and over, makes one resourceful. Vigilant. Prudent.

And … nervous. Afraid.

Nearly six years there, in that life, and now just over six months home, Hope shows the wear-and-tear a child her age is much too young to have received. No government aid could touch the heart-wounds which come from a child fending and fearing during the years she was meant to be furrowing.

My sweet little girl has a heart that longs to live childlike-free, but which is trapped behind years of inertia. At times, she moves like a freight-train — unstopping, always racing, never able to rest. She didn’t stop then, so why now? Rest was danger; how could it, overnight, turn into safety? She barrels through life and, at times, people.

It’s what she has always done. It was her survival.

But tucked away behind 10 of her missteps is one move in the right direction, one sprig of beauty.

And I’m the mama He’s called to search it out.

One of the greatest dangers of adoption is believing for your child what your child already believes about themselves. It’s subtle. And easy, when the sum total of all their behaviors in a given day seems to point in one direction.

But we weren’t called to be the thermometer in the life of a child who has years of seeing themselves in only one light. We are here to tell them who they really are and, in light of who He is, that they are royalty.

They just don’t know it yet. They haven’t been told.

She scooted over on the couch: “Eden can sit here!”

She seemed to be offering her sister an olive branch, by way of the hotly-coveted seat next to Lily for read-aloud time. But, as Eden began to move, Hope’s intentions became clear to me (but not to the others). Instead of forfeiting her own seat next to Lily, she was finagling a way to squeeze, now, two bottoms in one spot. She stepped forward for a moment to re-adjust, so I took the initiative for her.

“Hope! Look at that,” I said, as I surreptitiously scooted her body to the other side of the couch. “You gave your sister the seat you wanted most. Sweetheart, that was beautiful.”

Her face flashed remorse, for a second, before she tried on the new mantle I’d foisted on her. All of a sudden, her countenance changed. She adjusted her shoulders and her eyes sparkled. “Yes, Mommy, Eden can have it. I want her to have it.”

My little girl danced and pranced her way through the rest of that night, light-footed, light-hearted. It was as if she started to believe she might be something other than the tempestuous little girl she’s painted herself to be.

The next morning, I woke to find a different child in my home. She scampered downstairs to get waters for her siblings, without them knowing. She shared her colored pencils without being asked and snuggled closer and longer to all of us. “Mommy, I want to bless you,” she said, as I caught her carrying my running clothes from the floor where I’d left them to my hamper.

And this is how it goes. This is how He is winning her back. The age-old strategy of delight is the Father’s best-kept secret. He kneels, toes pressed against the ground, staring into dirt, and His fingers so tenderly search for that one shoot that says life is here. He wades through years of lies calcified against my heart to find His own Truths buried within, and He calls them forth. I call myself “messy” and He says beauty in the making.

And when I learn from Him, I can do it with her.

Perspective is everything.

No child born of God is forever lost. No doctor’s diagnosis or psychologist’s analysis is the final verdict.

The Father looks on my daughter not with eyes of hopelessness and fear. He stares into her deep and calls forth Himself, planted in her from before the day she met the streets. What the enemy calls misfit, He reclaims as heiress.

And as her now-mother, my role is to carry this torch over her life. I live advocacy in my flesh and in my spirit. My prayers and my words form the bridge of partnership between His promises and her reality. I partner. She is being made new and it’s my job to speak it loud and to believe it in my quiet.

It’s His job to impart it.

And mine to receive.

With all that I am and all that I have, to receive. And this is motherhood.

The streets — or the diagnoses, the fears, the setbacks and mistakes — these do not have to stand. We get to stand in their place.

* Photos courtesy of Mandie Joy

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Sara is a wife to Nate and a mother of four (and one on the way) whose birth canal bridged the expanse between the United States and Africa. After almost a decade of Christian life she was introduced to pain and perplexity and, ultimately, intimacy with Jesus. God met her and moved her when life stopped working. And out of the overflow of this perplexity, came her writing.You can read more of her writing at Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet.

February 10, 2014

What Has God Done For You?

We try to be very intentional about our dinnertime conversations. David, especially, loves to challenge our children to think about and respond to sermons that we’ve listened to, things that we’re discussing at school and books that we’ve read. The kids have been learning to ask deep questions during our mealtimes, as well. Getting into the swing of things a few nights ago, Grace asked the question, “What has God done for you?”

I loved some of their answers (which were very elaborate and detailed, but I’ll just give you the main points).

He died for me.

He gave me a rock-n-rollin’ family.

He gave me a dad whose like an angel.

He let you adopt me.

He loved me so much.

It was amazing to me that the two things that our children said that they valued the most were the love of Jesus, who died for us, and becoming beloved sons and daughters, through adoption.

Even though our children often tell us that they love us (and some of them even tell us that we are the best parents in the whole world…hehehe…just wait until they discover the truth!), I was surprised at how strongly each one expressed his/her joy in being adopted. I certainly wouldn’t have expected this, anymore than I would have expected a birth child to express such gratitude for being born. But, I also know that when a person has experienced the sort of loss that our precious children have experienced, that person can either get angry, or he/she can choose to love, forgive and be grateful for what he/she does have. I’m so glad that each one of our children is learning to be the latter sort of person.

adoption

It’s a beautiful thing.

_______________________________

David and Sarah have been joyfully married for almost 18 years. They have been blessed with 6 wonderful children (one homegrown son, a daughter from Ukraine and four children from China) and are never sure if they’re “done yet”! They love Jesus and are grateful that He has recently led them to the urban core of Kansas City where they are learning to give their lives away as they build His church in the inner city. You can read more about what God is doing in their lives at http://davidandsarahb.blogspot.com.

February 5, 2014February 4, 2014

He was shy!

If there is one thing I love to celebrate,
it’s progress.

Especially with your children.

It always feels good to begin to see that the things you have been hoping for, praying for, trying your best to patiently teach, finally break through in your child.

That happened for us over the Christmas break.

It was a proud moment for me.

One that not everyone would understand jumping up and down to celebrate.

See, my child acted shy upon meeting his cousins, that live in Texas, for the first time.

Most people don’t jump up and down when their children act shyly.

As a matter of fact, most parents want their children to overcome it.

But for us, it was a major victory.

I really wanted to run around and say,
“My goodness!
Did you just see that?!
My son just hid behind my leg upon meeting new people!!
WHAT?!
YAAAAYY!!”

I mean, no one would really get that, right?
What is wrong with that lady???

But it was HUGE for us!
And for the first time in a while,
I felt the sweet satisfaction of thank-you-Lord progress.

Because it wasn’t even an attention-getting shyness,
which is his usual attempt at coping with new situations.

I was real, legitimate, I-don’t-know-about-this shyness.
And I was proud.

Crazy, huh?
But oh, so real.

But the good news is…progress is being made.
Our little boy is healing.
Spirit, soul and body.
And I am so blessed to be his mama.

______________________

Anna Lokey and her husband Shaun have four girls (one from China) and FINALLY a boy (also from China). She’s a normal mom, living a life for God, raising a family that does the same, homeschooling, and trying to keep up with everyone’s schedules. She says, “If I can get my kids to school and gymnastics on time and then fix a real meal for dinner, it’s been a good day!” You can read more about them and their anything but LoKEY life on her blog www.anythingbutlokey.com.