Hi, friends! We've been busy around here finishing one month and beginning another. Here are a few snapshots from our week. Birthday Trip! January ended with our son's 12th birthday and a special overnight trip to the Great Wolf Lodge in LaGrange, Georgia to enjoy their indoor water park and slides! More on this adventure next week but here's a sneak peek. We all got complimentary wolf ears at the lodge which my son just had to torment the poor cat with. But I must say, it was pretty hilarious how long Floyd left those ears on Our cats put up with a lot! ***** Blogiversary Also at the end of January was my blog's 4th anniversary! You can read my very first post ... Read more
Creating a Family Identity
Good morning, friends! As a follow-up to my post on the importance of family identity in a child's life, I'd like to share some ideas for creating that identity. I am in no way a trained expert; these are just some ideas that Joel and I have found to work for our family. And although I have given this post a lot of thought, I haven't been able to give it much time in the writing, so it's by no means polished and tidy. I'll just be speaking from the heart as if we're sitting here together over coffee or tea. Back when we went through foster care training, in one of the classes the topic of family identity came up as an important element to carrying your current family through the ... Read more
The Importance of Family Identity in the Life of a Child
As part of my ongoing (yet slow) series on adoption, I'd like to share today some about the idea of FAMILY IDENTITY. And if your children aren’t adopted, this concept applies to your parenting as well! Most of this post is taken from a speech I've given at some events for our adoption agency, so for those of you who may have already heard me speak on this, my apologies. Often when people find out that our son is adopted, a common question my husband and I get asked is, "How long did your adoption take?", meaning the legal process. The paperwork. Well, to answer that question I suppose I would calculate the time from the first day we filed a petition to adopt our son to our day in court ... Read more
Our Family’s Path to Adoption: Part 3
Hello, friends! I'm continuing today with our adoption story. In Part 1 I explained a little about our family and why we decided to pursue adoption. Part 2 shared how that pursuit took a turn into foster and respite care and I left off with us thinking this was where God planned for us to stay. This is the point in our story where, out of consideration of my son's privacy as well as the privacy of others involved, my details will become less detailly so please forgive my vagueness in some of this area. Sometime during the year that we were providing respite care, we got involved with a group home for children. Our Bible study group had volunteered a couple of times with babysitting ... Read more
Our Family’s Path to Adoption: Part 2
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3 :5-6 I've always enjoyed walking through wooded trails and along interesting paths with twists and turns. The anticipation of "what's around the corner" is so exciting! As we walked our path to adoption, there were so many unexpected changes along the way, which isn't always as fu\n as a wooded path, but watching God's perfect plan unfold was an amazing experience and more than made up for the rough spots. I'm continuing today with our adoption story which much like the pictured path above, took many turns along the way. If you ... Read more
Our Family’s Path to Adoption: Part 1
Hello! Today I'd like to share a very informal account of our path to adoption and all the amazing and unexpected twists and turns God led us through. His hand was in every step! This will be relaxed and probably with some grammatical errors (ha!) as I'll have little time for editing this week, so just bear with me and let me speak as though we're sitting on my couch chatting. Details in some areas of the journey will be omitted for a couple of reasons. First of all, I want to maintain privacy and security for my son, and second of all, this is not just my story to tell but really more his. Therefore, I'll spare some details that will be his to share one day when he's grown, should he choose ... Read more
The Blessing of God’s Refusals
A couple of months ago I mentioned that I would begin posting every now and then on the topic of adoption and I have been late in getting those posts started. My apologies! I have so much I want to share but I figure you'd first like to know how our family ended up adopting in the first place. Later this week I'll post that story with all its twists and turns. As a lead-in to our story, I'm reposting this little post from summer 2020 on how God directed our paths to and through adoption. So, without further ado… A couple of weeks ago while I was walking in the early morning hours, I noticed this turtle in the grass, just about to crawl over the curb and into the street. Aware of the ... Read more