Often, I have been surprised at the many requests I have had to write a book. But, I always just laugh, and say, “if I ever write a book it will be about adoption.” I may never write a book of my own, but I have decided to start writing out my adoption stories. I am hoping it will encourage others. Understanding adoption, has a way of helping me understand God (my Heavenly Father, my daddy up above). There are many passages of scripture that make it clear that God adopted each of us into His family. A few of my favorites included 1 John 3, Galatians 3, and Ephesians 3. These are some of my favorites because they say that through Christ I am brought into the family of God, and they also tell me how to behave in God’s family.
Life as a family should involve knowledge of the family rules and expectations. When we belong in a family we know our role, and we are loved for who we are, uniquely in the family.
My story begins when I was a little girl. No I was not adopted. I was born into a loving family. I have a mom and dad that are committed to God and to their marriage, and when I was born I had an older sister. My older sister is 2 and a half years my senior, and then two and a half years after I was born my parents had another daughter. So, it was the five of us.
But, that isn’t actually true, it was rarely ever just the five of us. For as long as I can remember, my parents had other children in our home. Over the years my parents fostered hundreds of children. We always had someone else living in our home. My parents loved the children as if they were their own, caring for them and providing for them for as long as it was necessary. Then when I was a teenager, my parents took in a baby that would never be able to return to his birth parents, had no capable relatives to care for him, and no one was interested in adopting him. My parents had this baby since he came home from the hospital at three days old. They decided to adopted this, now one year old, and his brother who was expected to be born any day. My sisters and I were excited to have my parents adopt these two baby boys, and we were again excited when in a couple years, they would again adopt a child that was unwanted by others.
We loved all three boys, and we never once thought of them as adopted versus biological. Mom and dad continued to foster and adopt over the next few years. My sisters and I got married, and all three of us, decided to be foster parents. All our families began to grow as God blessed us with healthy pregnancies and births. Eventually, we all ended up with a family of both adopted and biological children.
For Jeremy and I, we decided to foster to help build healthy families and reunite children with their parents. It truly never crossed our minds in those early years of marriage to adopt. God blessed us with two healthy little girls, and we felt blessed to be helping children be reunited with their parents, aunts, uncles, or grandparents.
Then one day it changed, I got a call for two children who needed a home. But, I only had an opening for one child. As the caseworker on the phone began to tell me about these two children, I heard the Lord say, “Make a lifetime commitment to these two children.” Now, to be honest, I don’t have God speak so directly and clearly to me often, but I knew this was Him. So, as the caseworker finished telling me everything, I made a suggestion that she place one child with me and one with my mother, until a variance could be made to place both children together in our home. I made the decision to take both these children in without talking it over with my husband, because I had no way of calling him (if was before cell phones). But, it turned out it fine, because God spoke to him for me. When Jeremy walked in from work that day, he immediately asked, “where are the children, God told me we would be getting children today, and to make a lifetime commitment to them. Later we realized that Jeremy heard from God at the exact same time I did. This was an unusual experience for both Jeremy and I, and we knew it was not a coincidence.
We have always been so grateful that God gave us this word from the beginning, because we had no idea how difficult this commitment would be. You see fostering and adopting children is not the same as giving birth. I know that may not be the politically correct thing to say, but it is the truth. Oh, I love my children all equally, that isn’t what I mean. The amount of love I have for my children isn’t different, but the way I love them, that is different. So, that is what this blog series is going to be all about. I hope to gently take you through some of the feeling and emotions of loving my children, adopted and biological.
So, I hope you will join me on this journey. My next post will be about the birth of my first born daughter, Tyler Ann and the feelings of being a mom for the first time. So, stay tuned…….
Often, I have been surprised at the many requests I have had to write a book. But, I always just laugh, and say, “if I ever write a book it will be about adoption.” I may never write a book of my own, but I have decided to start writing out my adoption stories. I am hoping it will encourage others. Understanding adoption, has a way of helping me understand God (my Heavenly Father, my daddy up above). There are many passages of scripture that make it clear that God adopted each of us into His family. A few of my favorites included 1 John 3, Galatians 3, and Ephesians 3. These are some of my favorites because they say that through Christ I am brought into the family of God, and they also tell me how to behave in God’s family.
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