Adoption Reflections

My husband and I had the privilege of sharing our adoption story during our church's recent Orphan Sunday luncheon. I've shared about adoption on the blog before, but I'm excited to write these words along with my husband!! 

Orphan Sunday Testimony

My Husband's Testimony

We want to thank you for the opportunity to share with the group a little about our experience. 

We have been married now for almost 15 years, and we have four children.  B who is 10 years old, O is 7.5 are both biological, while Lil B is 4 and M is 2.5 who are both adopted. 

We were naïve, and thankfully so, (especially for someone who is logical almost to a fault) because that’s what it takes often times to step off the ledge in obedience.  You can’t overthink it, because that just allows doubt to eat away at your faith.

So, our journey began in 2011, after our oldest daughter old was 1.5 years old. Dorothy started talking about it a little here and there.  And, let’s face it, you can’t attend this church and not be confronted with adoption. I was slower to warm to the idea, but, after some lengthy discussions I agreed, but I made the unequivocal statement that if we have to give a child back, I will not, under any circumstances, do it again. Well… God must have been smiling when he heard me say that.

So, we attended an informational session, went through the PRIDE classes, and were given our first placement in August of 2013.  In fact, it happened so fast we were completely caught off guard.  Thinking it would be a while, it was my bright idea that we should go get a Labrador puppy in July.  And then Nathan was handed to us a month later.  That was challenging to say the least, but Dorothy will share in a moment about her challenges during that time.

We entered into that relationship, knowing the mother was still involved, but not sure how much.  By December, we were realizing that he may very well go back to live with his mother.  It was painful and confusing, and frustrating and I’ll be the first to admit we didn’t always handle our frustrations the right way.  I did have the benefit of an hour commute at that time where I was able to really think and pray.  I’ll never forget one morning that December, when I heard God speak to me in my mind and tell me, “If I give you this joy (meaning Nathan), I know you’ll step out of the game, and I won’t be able to give you these other joys I have planned for you.”  It was at that point (#1 I was happy for the hour commute so I had time for my eyes to dry) that I knew, we would give Nathan back, and we would be back into the jump back into the fostering/adoption process before too long. I also realized that God has the best for all parties involved, not just me.  I might believe I have the better home for this child, but He has a master plan.  That’s what God does with the adoption process- he makes lemonade from lemons.  He takes the brokenness of humanity and he makes something beautiful.   He was giving a glimpse of our path forward.

My Testimony

"As I was thinking about what to share today I was curious to know what our children would want to share. So, I asked them “what would you share about our adoption journey if you had the chance?” The response I received was “my brother and sisters are annoying.” And there’s a dose of reality in our house for you. Honestly, it was hard decided what to share this morning. There were so many lessons learned, mistakes made and challenges faced. So, I picked out some pieces of our story to share with you and if you want to know more, let’s set up a time for coffee. 

One of the hardest experiences I had with our initial foster placement was taking him to visits to see his birth mom. Our initial intent was for adoption NOT fostering. I felt like Jonah as I took those drives several times a week for visits. There was a huge internal struggle to walk away and stop. How could we move forward knowing this was most likely going to end in goodbye? It was during this time when I truly understood that our children are not our own (whether foster, biological or adopted). Ultimately, these little hands and feet belong to the Lord. As reunification with birth mom moved forward, it was harder and harder to keep both our hands and hearts open to the Lord’s plan for this little guy and our family.  Like Gabe said, we did say our goodbyes in May 2014 because the Lord had bigger plans for us. And he has since brought healing and a deeper understanding of His love for us. 

Fast forward to that fall of 2014 and our biological kids were ready to jump into fostering again. As the parents, we were thinking of all the “what ifs” while our children were ready to move forward in faith. Our own children can teach us so much, right? Now, looking back, I’m so glad we didn’t base our decisions off of fear or “what ifs.” So, jumping forward in faith, in December 2014 we welcomed our 2^nd foster son into our home and a short four weeks later we received a phone call for his new born sister. Here we had the double blessings the Lord spoke into my Husband's heart during his commute many months prior. And less than a year later we were given the beautiful gift to adopt both our foster son and his little sister. These were blessings being handed and of course there was so much joy but it didn’t mean it was easy. During this transition, from a family of four to six in less than 4 weeks, it was hard to stay afloat. Laughter was lacking in our home, there was extra fighting and bonding was hard. As a result I started choosing to feel guilty that we didn’t have this all-encompassing beautiful experience. And when I started feeling this way, the Lord revealed to me that my own adoption through Christ was both beautiful and ugly.

Look what God did for us! He put HIS ONLY PERFECT SON ON THE CROSS. It was ugly because it was our sin that put Him there. He was accused, beaten, stretched out for us as a perfect sacrifice. THEN He did the beautiful when he adopted us through His Son!!!! Ephesians 1:5 says "God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure." There is so much ugly sin alongside so much beauty as we were chosen by Him. So, why would our earthly experience in our adoption journey be any different? The Lord was and is doing great things in our family through both the ugly stuff and the beautiful stuff. There can be no guilt there. These adoptions aren’t about us and what we did but about Christ and what He ultimately did for us. So, we’ll continue working on our family relationships, making time for laughter and being ok with using paper plates every night for dinner.

We are so grateful of each part of our story because it’s given us the opportunity to come along side others walking a similar road. What a unique opportunity we have in our church and community to come along side so many foster and adoptive families. We are grateful to be a part of it. Thank you for letting us share parts of our story today.

Sharing the joys of Childhood to inspire the fun in parenting.

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