Chronic: The Race Set Before Us
I am coming to terms with it. This is not passing. It’s not over after a surgery, or two. Or after a therapy session, or three. The first year is behind us, but there are more miles in this...
View ArticleMedical Needs and Marriage: Ten Tips
You adopted a child with medical needs and the game changed. The Coach altered the playbook. The new little life in your family has your whole team scrambling to reorient themselves. You survived the...
View ArticleYes.
We say yes. We say yes to adoption. Not because we are ready, gutsy, extra loving, secure, or financially capable. We say yes to adopting children with special needs. Not because we are strong,...
View ArticleLet Tomorrow Be Tomorrow
The surgeon walked out in his blue scrubs, mask still hanging around his neck, and found us awaiting word that the surgery was over. The stitching, repairing, and testing was complete, and he offered...
View ArticleGod is (Still) Good
Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Psalm 34:8 Sometimes I don’t like what God does. Sometimes I can’t taste the sweetness, because of the hint of...
View ArticleGod of My Children
Ever learn something, quickly forget it, and need to be reminded again? During our daughter’s extensive surgery last November, God tapped into my medical momma’s fearful heart, comforting me with the...
View ArticleBeyond Ourselves
It’s the pinnacle of the adoption journey. We build a beautiful image of what gotcha day will be, and hold hard to that as we wait. Much preparation goes into readiness for caring for the child we’ve...
View ArticleGoing to China: the Long Flight Home
The China trip looms large in our adoptive parent hearts and minds. We daydream about Gotcha Day, pray for the moment we can snuggle in the hotel with our little love, hope for that once in a lifetime...
View ArticleA Letter From Us
When newly home two years ago with three year old, Eli, and one year old, Evelyn, life felt turned upside down for such a very long time. A few months in, I found myself focusing more heavily on the...
View ArticleComing Home: Tips for Medical Needs Parents
You are a newly home medical needs parent, and life might be feeling like triage. Your child needs to be catheterized, tube fed, dilated and medicated. They need therapy, glasses, wheelchairs, oxygen,...
View ArticleBe the Village
“Let me know what I can do.” We make the offer to newly home adoptive families and families facing medical challenges or hospital stays. We all say it, and mean it, but we know they won’t take us up...
View ArticleDear Birthparents, Our Missing Villagers,
The village it’s taken to build our family is a wide circle. It took a village of family, friends, adoption agencies, social workers, US and Chinese government agencies, donors, an adoption support...
View ArticleA Prayer for National Adoption Month
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts…? – Psalm 13 Adoption awareness and orphan care have become a life’s work for us, a calling bigger than adding children to our family. It’s seeped into our...
View ArticleFor the Children Who Wait at Christmas
Silent night, holy night, shepherds quake at the sight, Glories stream from heaven afar, heavenly hosts sing Alleluia. Christ the Saviour is born, Christ the Saviour is born. – Silent Night I don’t...
View ArticleI Could Never Do That
I could never do that. I could never adopt. I could never foster. I could never have more than two kids. I could never adopt multiple children. I could never afford adoption. I could never say yes to a...
View ArticleParenting Birth Children in a Transracial Family
“It’s kind of weird being the only kid born in the USA.” She stopped me in my tracks. I was a trained adoptive parent. I read the books, took our agency’s assigned courses on transracial families, and...
View ArticleMore Beautiful For Having Been Broken
Dear Daughter, As I stood watching you, little one, tears rolled down my cheeks. You stood before my mirror all dolled up in your pink plastic dress-up shoes, hot pink, sparkly tutu, mismatched head...
View ArticleI See Love By Choice
Sometimes I can’t bear CNN. I can’t stomach Facebook. My heart can’t hold another story of gut-wrenching loss, more video of violence, another photo of a child swollen from hunger, yet more stories of...
View ArticleDear Younger Me, You Were Wrong
Dear Younger Me, You were wrong about many things, and I am oh so very glad you were. /// You got married and designed a life plan. It was a dreamy projection, and you believed you had control of how...
View ArticleMeet the Contributors: Rebecca
Continuing today with our series in which we share a short Q and A with one of our contributors to give y’all, our faithful readers, a little more behind-the-scenes insight into the amazing group of...
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