Category: Adoption

walking with a limp

I am officially “old”. I know this because yesterday, when I was getting out of my van, I somehow pulled a muscle in (around? near?) my hip. Yes, really. I am now hurting-yourself-while-getting-out-of-a-vehicle years old. Insert eyeroll here.

So now, my hip is sore. And I’ve been walking with a slight limp for the past day and a half. My brain is still trying to catch up with what I may have done to cause this while doing a perfectly normal activity of daily living. It’s a bit mind-boggling to me. But, it is what it is, and I will just be limping until it heals or until I decide to go to the doctor.

But truthfully, this couldn’t have been a more perfect real-life illustration of something I heard later in the day yesterday. I love to listen to podcasts while I fold laundry. And since I often have buckets and buckets of laundry, I often am listening to podcasts. I’d love to share some of my favorites with you, but maybe that’s a topic for another post.

Yesterday, I was listening to this excellent episode of The Glass House with Ben and Lynley Mandrell, talking with some friends about adoption and special needs in “the glass house.” The Glass House is a term they use for living life in pastoral ministry. And this episode is one that I actually personally requested over a year ago. In the intro, they mention how it is an often requested topic, and I am SO glad they have finally delivered on this. I have been hoping and praying they would address this facet of life in the glass house, and it was so worth the wait. The episode truly knocks it out of the park, and I urge you to give it a listen. It is descriptive and insightful while being helpful, validating, and inspiring.

There were many, many sound bites I could quote from this episode. But a statement that guest Lange Patrick made about “walking with a limp” profoundly struck me. As an adoptive parent, he has had to make adjustments to his own life and ministry in ways that he maybe would not have had to adapt if he were not parenting special needs and adopted children. We know this from our own lives as adoptive parents. Life just looks different than we expected or imagined. But Lange’s summative statement about this was simply that, “I will just always walk with a limp.” And it clicked for me.

He did not make this statement about limping (or disability in general) being a bad thing. I believe it is just recognizing that things are different and living within that difference. Things can be good and hard all at the same time. And to this I say, “YES!” This is what I needed to hear yesterday. And today. And tomorrow.

I am not a stranger to disability. I have a hearing impairment that has left me deaf in one ear. It’s something I am used to now, and I just live life with one hearing ear. Sure, it has its disadvantages (masks, anyone?). But I have learned to adapt.

Still, I have not, until now, really embraced the thought that the trauma and special needs and mental illnesses and disabilities of my children are also my disabilities, and I will bear the marks of those in my own life for the rest of my life. I will walk through life, yes. But I will walk with a limp.

I know that embracing the truth of what is will allow me to cling to Jesus as I persevere. The hard things will be there. When I’m tempted to be discouraged that I can’t be used by God because my life looks different than other “more productive” disciples, I need to speak truth to myself. God can use the parts of me that I find discouraging. And he can still use me. He will uphold and empower me to accomplish His purposes.

I think of Derek Redmond’s 1992 Olympic finish in the 400-meter semi-final in Barcelona. Redmond sprains his ankle just shy of 200 meters, and limps to the finish line. But he doesn’t do it alone. While Redmond is clearly in pain, at about 300 meters, his father comes down from the stands and supports him as he all but collapses in agony onto his father’s shoulder. They walk together, Redmond still limping, to finish the race. You can watch this emotional moment in less than three minutes here. You won’t regret it.

This is how life goes sometimes, is it not? At times, the suffering may be so profound that we feel in our core that there is no way we can finish the race without the Father holding us up. We need Him to bear us up on wings like eagles. To run and not be weary. To walk and not faint. But not only emotionally and spiritually. We need our community who comes around us to be His hands and feet in these times. Our people who walk beside us in the trenches, who come out of the spectator’s stands and get in the game with us. Church, we desperately need you! We need each other.

Second, I think of the New Heavens and New Earth where Revelation 21 promises us that we will be healed both spiritually and physically. There will be no more pain. There will be no more limp in my step. My children who trust in Jesus will be with me in the presence of the King, healed and happy. They will have no more trauma, no more special needs, no more mental illness, no more disability. We will together rejoice fully in God’s resplendent glory and power, and will be whole. Forever.

So while I may be (quite literally today) walking with a limp, I am still on this journey set before me. With God’s strength and the aid of His people the Church, I will persevere even when it is painful. And we will all press on to our heavenly healing with hope.

yesterday’s faithfulness; tomorrow’s promises

I’m trying to get more exercise. My body and my mind need it. But my body and my mind also really love to sleep. And I have a new soft, warm, fluffy comforter. It’s magical. The struggle is real.

This morning, I finally succeeded at prying myself out of bed at an hour early enough to allow time for me to drink my coffee, spend time in the Word (and read my current devotional book), and plod downstairs to the treadmill.

The treadmill had cobwebs on it.

Yikes. It’s been a while. Kind of like my blog.

Well, this morning, I swept the cobwebs off the treadmill, and got going. And now I will wipe the cobwebs off my blog and get going. Often, it’s easier for me to think about writing, and even get excited about my intentions to write. But I hit the proverbial “snooze” button instead. Just like with excercise, I just need to take the first step. I need to pry myself from the comfort of my thoughts and let my feet hit the floor.

Or let my fingers hit the keys. I think you get it.

Well, when I exercise, I like to listen to either a podcast or an audiobook. I like to engage my mind while I engage my body. Sometimes I like fluffy stuff with little concentration required. Other times I like heavy stuff where I really need to work at it. Today I chose a podcast including a message from a Gospel Coalition message on corporate prayer. It was a good mix of funny, (fluffy) and thoughtful (heavy).

I was struck by the reminder, about one-third of the way through John Owunchekwa’s message, that “because God doesn’t change, His past faithfulness is really a future promise.” God has been faithful. God is faithful. God will be faithful.

This immediately drew me to recall some Scripture that I meditate on often. I know I’ve even talked about it on my blog before. You can probably tell it’s a pillar in my mind and heart. I will risk beating the same drum again. Lamentations 3:

Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”

Lamentations 3:19-24

We remember what God has brought us through. We remember His character. And we can see His faithfulness to provide His portion for us in the future. Praise God!

Prayer helps us in thinking through this. It allows us to recall God’s faithfulness. And when we ask in faith, we can trust His promises to be faithful in answering. We can hope in Him.

This year has been doozy. For kids with trauma–specifically in our context, adoption trauma–2020 has brought with it added layers. But just as for us, God has been faithful to our children. He cares for our children. We can have hope in His steadfast love and His faithfulness.

God’s provision and gentle faithfulness to our precious kids in their yesterdays stands as a promise for His faithfulness to them in their tomorrows. Weary parent, as you shepherd your little flock of hurting and anxious sheep, hope in Him! Great is His faithfulness!

If you would like to interact a bit, I would be edified to hear in the comments some ways in which God has been faithful to you in this season of all that “2020” encompasses to you. Praying for you all, friends.

Chasing Rainbows

I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. Being a parent is a wonderful and beautiful gift. And being a parent is hard. It is a blessing. But it can be a hard blessing. Parenting a child from a hard place can sometimes be HARD (with all caps). But I think that just means it has the potential to be equally a BLESSING (with all caps). We are challenged and we grow through those challenges. We become more compassionate, softer, gentler. God uses these hard things to produce His fruit in us. What a privilege.

I know we all want the best for our kids. We want them to thrive! We want to give them everything they need, and then some. We would give them the moon if we could! We want to meet their physical and emotional needs, but we also long to shepherd them spiritually, leading them to the Savior.

 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. (3 John 4)

Well, lately, I have been feeling particularly discouraged with my ability to meet the needs of my kids. Discerning needs and knowing how to adequately shepherd a child can be so daunting sometimes. Sometimes it is easy (hallelujah!). When a child is hungry, feed him. That’s an easy one.

But when a child is having a meltdown tantrum, things can get dicey. The task of figuring out what they need and how to help them can be so. stinking. hard. Is it just because he is not getting what he wants? Is she struggling to process emotions and this is how it is all coming out? Do I discipline or do I nurture through this? Where is the instruction book?! Add in layers of trauma, loss, and a less than ideal prenatal and/or postnatal environment for our adopted kiddos, and you can add more layers of confusion and “what if’s” and “what now’s.”

This is where I am convicted. In conversations with friends, I have said that I don’t want to be just chasing rainbows, looking for the “next best thing” to help solve this or that problem. Yes, we have sleep issues in our house. Yes, we have sensory disorders. Yes, we have emotional delays. Yes, we have dysregulated emotions. Yes, we likely have a handful of diagnoses that have been overlooked. These are all things that can be addressed. And I long to meet the needs that I am able to, in my imperfect, human abilities. But there is no cure-all apart from Christ.

I have felt how these thoughts and concerns (dare I say anxieties?) can consume me in ways that take focus off of God’s Lordship and Power and Sufficiency, and putting it smack onto myself and my own (in)abilities. My sinful flesh deludes me into thinking that I can solve these “issues” in my own strength. What a lie that is!

This is where I need to check myself. We need to check ourselves. Are we seeking the Lord about what to address and when to address it? Or are we just chasing rainbows, trying to solve all of our world’s problems in one fell swoop?

The past several weeks, I have often found myself asking God for wisdom. I want to help. I want to “fix” her world so that she doesn’t have to face these challenges! These challenges that are not even her fault, but are part of her story.  And part of my story, because she is mine.

But is what I am seeing a result of the challenges? Or a result of her (and my!) fallen, sinful nature? I can go around and around all day long and chase my proverbial tail trying to “figure it all out” in my own strength. For all the asking I do for God’s wisdom, I sometimes feel like I’m missing the mark. I know in Whom I have hope, and I know that He will give wisdom when I ask. It says in James 1:5, …

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach.

Clinging to this promise, I have asked many times, “Why do I still feel wisdom-less? Why can I not find the ‘answer’ to help solve this problem?!” This is such a discouraging place to be.

But, God.

A few weeks ago, a guest preacher spoke at our church. He came all the way from New Jersey to bring a message on 1 Kings 19. Guys, guess what 1 Kings 19 is about. It is about Elijah laying under a shade tree in his discouragement, and God sending an angel to sustain him in his weakness.

1 Kings 19: 5-8
But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O LORD …” … And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the LORD came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

It is about Elijah being discouraged and hearing God answer not in a strong wind, not in an earthquake, not in a fire, but in a whisper.

And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.

I felt like this message was God’s whisper to me. I had been pleading for wisdom and answers and solutions, and “hearing” none. I was looking for the obvious earthquake of an answer. But in this whisper, through the encouragement God gave to Elijah in his valley of discouragement, it was as though God was asking me to rest in Him. This is the journey He has for me. He will provide what I need for the journey. As I rest, He will bring the cakes.

What if it doesn’t ever get any easier? God never promises that He will give us solutions to our problems tied up all neatly with a bow. What if this is exactly where God wants me? What if this is what God has for me? For us? For you? What if our kids will always have these needs and we will always be tempted to chase after rainbows for them? Of course we want what is best for them and we want to help them when we can. But are we trying to force God’s hand to give answers on our timeline? Or are we willing to rest, waiting on God to provide the right answers at the right time? Are we willing to be faithful to patiently, gently, mercifully love our kids through their hardships while listening for the whisper when it comes?

I was challenged in a conversation I had with a good friend recently. We were talking through this scenario, of struggling through this asking and waiting and the hard days that sometimes come in the meantime. And she encouraged me to “suffer well.” If God has ordained this road for me to walk (and if I believe what the Bible says, then I believe He HAS ordained each of my days!), then how can we suffer well?

Is God still good if it never gets easier? Does God still get the glory even in our difficult days? Of course He is and of course He does. How can I follow the instruction of 1 Corinthians 10:31?

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

When we acknowledge our kids’ hard needs, and that we truly cannot meet those needs apart from Christ’s saving work on the cross, we can rest in the sovereign and sustaining hand of God, knowing that He will provide strength and wisdom for the journey. He will equip us by His hand. And He will get the glory in our weakness. We must not delude ourselves into thinking that we are the answer. That our challenges are somehow beyond the scope of God’s sovereign hand. He is able! He is holy and loving and good. He cares for us!

Let us follow the advice of Hebrews 12:1-2. Put off our sinful rainbow-chasing, and fix our eyes on Jesus who alone is able. May our thoughts be consumed by thoughts of Him rather than thoughts of ourselves. He will empower us for this race that he has set before us!

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

For further reading surrounding these topics, here are A couple great resources by David Powlison from “Resources for Changing Lives”:
…on Worry.
…on Stress.
{amazon affiliate links}

Why Adoption? – part three

Hi again! This is the third and final part of a little mini-series I am doing.
You can read part one here.
You can read part two here.

So last time I shared some of what Scripture says about adoption and how God loves adoption! He created it! Of course, I am talking about God’s adoption of us as His children. That is a completely different kind of adoption than the human kind of adoption. Human adoption is limited to human things. But we can draw parallels and use Biblical adoption as a way of informing our perspective on human adoption and caring for the orphan. The Bible does talk about that, too! And that’s what I’m going to talk about in this post.

While I was preparing my message for the Moms’ group that I mentioned in my first post, Ryan shared with me a phrase that he did not come up with, but neither of us can find its original source. So I’m just going to say that this is really good, and if you know who said it, let me know so I can give credit where credit is due! Anyhow, the phrase is: “orthodoxy empowers orthopraxy.” What this means is that, “right thought, or right doctrine, empowers right action.” I love this. It makes so much sense. When we think rightly about something, it drives us to act on that truth in a “right” way.

By God’s nature of loving adoption, God cares for orphans (orphans being those who are in need of adoption). So if God loves us orphans of wrath enough to save us and adopt us as His own, what does that mean for us?? If our orthodoxy is to love adoption, what is our “orthopraxy?”

Scripture has an answer for us!

James 1:27
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

James 1:27 says that our “religion”, which is another way to say our “action” or “what we do“ because we have been adopted, loved, saved—is to “care for orphans and widows in their affliction.” We must care because He has first cared for us. For those of us who are Christians, that should be our answer to the overarching question I have asked. Why adoption? Because God loves adoption.

God loves the orphan, therefore I love the orphan.

Ok, so if God calls His adopted children to love adoption and care for orphans, how can we do this? Glad you asked. I am a practical kind of girl. Give me ideas. I need ideas! So here are some ideas for all of us …

  • ADOPT A CHILD. You can adopt a child domestically (from the United States); you can adopt Internationally (from a different country); you can adopt from foster care (also from the United States, but is different than straight-up adoption). Does this mean that everyone has to adopt? NO!!! Obviously you have to be sure that that God is leading you in this. It will literally change your life forever. That’s what having children does, right? This is the most obvious way to care for orphans, but it is not the only way.
  • BECOME A FOSTER PARENT. Care for a child whose parents are unable to give them the care they need, either for a time while the family is rehabilitated, or forever if reunification is not possible. No matter where you live in the US, there are thousands of children in every state that need a loving home either temporarily or permanently.
  • SERVE FOSTER AND ADOPTIVE FAMILIES. The ideas here are endless. You can serve these families …

… financially. Give to an adoption. Adoption is expensive. There are lots of reasons for this, and they are valid reasons, so I am not going to debate adoption costs here. But the truth is just that it is expensive. Like a lot expensive.
Give gift cards to families with kids in foster care. Caring for kids who have unforseen needs is expensive, too! Having a child or a sibling group of children show up at your door one day adds a whole host of expenses to the monthly budget. Yes, as foster parents we need to be prepared for that increase in expense. But the little things add up. It is a service to families like this when their community blesses them with gift cards. It says, “I care about you and your children.”
I would also lump supporting overseas missionaries and orphan-care ministries into this camp. Giving financial support to help care for orphans can happen many ways, whether in your neighborhood, your church, or half-way around the world. These are all good things. But I don’t want us to look overseas to the detriment of the orphans in our own communities. So that’s why I am focusing more on the “at home” aspect of things.

… by giving things. Clothes? Beds? What do they need? It’s nice to ask what things may be needed.

… with encouragement. Emotional support is key! Encourage families in the truth. Share God’s Word with them to uplift their souls. Send a note. Be a cheerleader!

… with respite care. Take the kids for a bit. It can be tiring to care for a high-need child! Many of you know this! Adoptive families need a strong support system to thrive. Be part of that support system for a family.

… by feeding them.  Bring dinner! We bring food for families who have babies. Why should adding a foster or adopted child be any different? Bringing a child into your home disrupts the flow of family life. It is inconvenient But it is necessary, and some people are called to do that. You can ease the short-term burden for them even a tiny bit by taking care of a meal. Love those kids and families by loving their tummies!

… by praying for them! Of course this is the most valuable, most important way to serve adoptive families, foster families, and the orphan. The Bible is full of testimonies to the power of prayer. God answers prayer! I know for me personally, I find such comfort in knowing that we have friends and family that are praying for our family and our children.

If you are not called to adopt a child yourself, then love the orphan by loving those who choose to parent them. Support the family in any way you can.

No matter which way you choose to care for the orphan, it will be hard. When you care about adoption and enter in to the orphan’s affliction, it will get messy. It cost God His son to redeem us and bring us into His family. But this is a job that we are called to by God in Scripture. It’s really not optional. God loves the orphan, therefore we are to love the orphan.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and any other ways to effectively care for the orphan!

Why Adoption? – part two

This is part two of a little mini-series I am doing. You can read part one here.

Just a quick re-cap. Last time I talked about why adoption should matter to all of us. In short, it is because adoption matters to God! And the Bible talks about why adoption matters to God. I promised I would try my best to expand on that a little bit. for your encouragement and my own.

So. I’ve said that we can know that adoption matters to God because God, in His word, speaks to us about adoption. He is the loving heavenly Father who has adopted His children unto Himself! This is a foundational theological truth.

I am not talking about human adoption here. I am talking about God’s adoption of those who are saved. We know that those whom God has saved have been adopted as His children. He has called them, chosen them, made them His children, by no work or merit of their own. This language of being adopted as God’s children comes from Ephesians 1.

Ephesians 1:3-6
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

God purposed, through his grace, to adopt us! This is amazing. He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons (and daughters). This is a really mind-blowing thing to think about; that the God of the universe calls us His children!

And in Romans 8…

Romans 8:14-17
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Are you one who is led by the Spirit? Are you a Christian–one who is predestined, called, justified, and (will be) glorified (as in Romans 8:30)?? Then guess what?? You are an heir! With Christ! Sons and daughters of the King! And the Spirit bears witness to this fact. That means that no one can argue with it. It is truly amazing.

God’s heart for adoption shows his love for us.

1 John 3:1
See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

God calls us His children! This is adoption! Furthermore, …

Psalm 68:5
Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in His holy habitation.

This is how God is. He is the Father of the fatherless. And “the fatherless” was how we all were prior to salvation, right? When God saves us, we become Children of God! We become Children of Truth and Goodness and Love! That is adoption.

In my next post, I hope to touch on some of the applications for us that come out of this love for adoption. I’d love to know your thoughts on God’s adoption of us as His children!

Why Adoption? – part one

Last November, I was asked to speak at a Moms’ group in my city on the topic of “adoption.” This was very appropriate, because the month of November is Adoption Awareness Month. We didn’t plan for my talk and Adoption Awareness Month to coincide, but I know God planned it that way 😉 It was a privilege and honor for me to share my heart for adoption with my peers and friends.

Ryan and I are approached quite often about the topic of adoption. We have what one of our fellow-adoptive-family-friends calls a “conspicuous family.” People notice us. We look different than the average family. And it’s pretty obvious that we are raising at least one child that was not born of our flesh. But sometimes my thoughts can be jumbled.

So, when I was asked to speak at the Moms’ group, it was really nice for me to have the opportunity to sit down and mull over some of my thoughts on adoption. I’ve taken some of what I said and re-formatted it for a blog post, because I thought it might be encouraging or helpful to some of you who may not have been there that day. However, my little “talk” was longer than a typical blog post would be, and I have had to split it up for this platform. I don’t want any of you to fall asleep on me! So this will be in three parts. It will be my very own mini-series that I plan to start and finish this week.

*Here is a little plug for my email list — if you are not currently a subscriber, but would like to be, feel free to scroll down to the bottom of the page, and enter your email address. That way you won’t miss the second and third parts of this series! But after you scroll down to subscribe, be sure to scroll back up so you can read the rest of the post!! You can do that now. I’ll wait!*

So, I assume that most of you who are reading this know me in “real life.” But because this is my blog and I can do what I want, and I love my family, I’m going to talk about them for a minute. So there are five of us. My husband Ryan,   me, and our three children. Our son is our biological child. If you know us, this is not a surprise because he looks just like a mini-Ryan. He was born in 2009. We have two daughters, both of whom we adopted. Our middle little (born in 2013), came to us at the age of 3 months as a foster child. We adopted her in 2015 just two weeks after her second birthday. Our youngest was born in 2016. We adopted her at birth through a domestic infant agency adoption. So we have three very different children with three very different stories. All three are wonderful, beautiful miracles, and we love to talk about them because they are awesome.

We are an adoptive family. And I love talking about adoption because I live in that sphere daily. But why does that matter to you? What’s the big deal about adoption? Why have a blog centered around it and the families it touches? Why have a month devoted to its awareness? Why do I love to talk about adoption and advocate for adoptive families? Why does adoption matter to me?? And why should it matter to you??

The world’s perspective of adoption, and what I thought at first glance, is that it is a special or unique way to build a family. Those who are unable to naturally conceive a child can grow their family through adoption! This is of course true. But it’s only part of the story. I think many people have the wrong perspective about adoption. Adoption is so much more than a way for people to become parents.

Adoption matters, and should matter, to all of us, because adoption matters to God.

We know that adoption matters to God because God, in His word, speaks to us about adoption. He is the loving heavenly Father who has adopted His children unto Himself! This is a foundational theological truth.

I’ll do my best to unpack just a little of what the Bible says about God and adoption in part two of this post. I look forward to “seeing” you here again soon, later this week!

My heart. The need. My aim. My plan.

It’s no secret that I love adoption. Orphan care is near and dear to me. I will champion the cause of adoption all the live long day.

But it’s also no secret (at least to those of us who live in adoption), that adoption is messy. And beautiful. And wonderful. And so hard. And so worth it.

I could speak here about the doctrine of adoption, God’s longsuffering with us, His Father-love for us as his children, grafted in by the blood of Jesus. But I think I will reserve that for another day and another post. It deserves its own spotlight, and has so much to teach us about our Good, Good Father.

But right now, I am talking about human adoption. Taking a child who was not born to you and bringing them into your family as though they were born to you. It is a miracle. The ability to do this is truly a work of God.

How I am able to love another woman’s child just as I love my own blood is a beautiful, messy miracle. And I do it with joy, not by my own will-power, but by the supernatural work of God’s strength and love in me.

For years now, I have felt a deep need for Biblical encouragement for moms like me. “Moms in the muddle.” In the trenches of adoption-life. This road has unique challenges that few can understand without being in it yourself. Our kids come from uniquely hard places. Which is why my heart is to encourage moms like me. Because I know I need it, too!!

The problem I’ve found, though, is that many of the resources geared toward parenting are either just not quite on the mark for parents of “kids from hard places” OR they are devoid of Biblical truth. I appreciate good strategies for parenting adopted kids. And I appreciate Biblically sound parenting books. I’ve read several great ones, and profited from many.

But why can’t we marry the two? We believe that the Bible is true. And 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says that, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” So why separate things? We need good, Biblical resources that help us to counsel our own hearts and parent our kids (specifically our adopted or foster kids) better.

There is something to be said for having someone who “gets it” speaking into your life with practical, Biblical truth. We all–and I am speaking to myself here!–need to be reminded daily of how the word of God informs our lives and parenting. How Christ is sufficient for our specific challenges and difficulties.

So my heart is for moms like me. And I guess I could say my aim is to speak to myself (and anyone else who will listen) with the truth of the Gospel and how it can practically inform our everyday struggles, especially as adoptive parents. God’s word can and will equip us as parents to, by God’s Grace, meet the unique needs of our unique children.

My mind and heart have been on this issue for years now. I’ve thought countless times about how I could approach this in a helpful way, and not seem like I’m floundering in a sea of not knowing how to say what I want to say. So I’ve continued to wait until the time was right and the plan was clear.

A few weeks ago, I asked Ryan, “Do you think I should start a blog?” Being the ever-encouraging husband that he is, without missing a beat he replied, “Absolutely, yes!” With such a loving vote of confidence, how could I refuse? 🙂 But I had no idea what to write about, and wanted a clear topic and plan. So my next question for him was, “What should I write about?” And because he knows my heart so well, he immediately suggested I write from this perspective that I have been parked in for years now. He has helped me to develop this plan to express my heart for moms like me with my aim of Biblical encouragement in mind. He is a very patient, very good man.

Well there. I got it out. That is my heart, my aim, my plan. If you are, like me, seeking refreshment from the Word for your weary mama-soul, while caring for children with needs that drive you to your knees out of love and desperation at the same time, then I hope you will come and see what God’s Word has for us. My perspective will be as a parent, and may often deal with issues that are specific to adoption and adoptive parenting. But no matter your circumstance, I pray that you may be encouraged; even if you are a parent of only biological children, a parent with adult children, or not a parent at all! The Gospel is good news to all of us at all times. Let’s rejoice in the truth of God’s word together!