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I’ve stated here many times that our adoption story was utterly a “God thing.” It’s so clear how God was working in our lives: from the fact that the social worker, five states away, assigned to our kids’ case, went to college with my first cousin; to being able to find a 4-bedroom home in one of the most densely compacted areas of the country; to seeing pictures of the kids for the first time, and seeing how uncanny the resemblance was to my biological son, as well as my husband and I; to meeting total strangers on our airplane trip to meet them for the first time, who knew not only the foster parents, but the kids, too! So many other little “quirks” to let us know God had it handled.
My children love to hear stories of all the things we did in preparation for their arrival. Often, they love to join in the telling with the little details they remember. For example, just the other day, my daughter mentioned that on one of our very first phone calls to their foster family the first song she ever sang for us was, “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” and that she asked me to sing, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
Whenever we go out to a Mexican restaurant, my youngest always orders quesadillas, a food I introduced him to when we went to meet him for the first time. He loves to giggle and say, “Remember how I didn’t used to like quesadillas?”
My husband occasionally preaches for a sister congregation to the one we attend. He always peppers his stories with personal anecdotes. One sermon was on the parallels between the adoption process and being adopted by God. My kids listened with rapt attention because they got to hear “their” adoption story.
I sat here at the computer tonight, awash in memories, as I looked back over all the e-mail correspondence with the kid’s social worker and lawyer. It was a much longer and more arduous process than any of us imagined at the beginning. But we endured it because of the great love for these kids that God placed in our hearts, and the process guided by His own hands, and the kids love hearing that.
Hopefully, you, too recount your personal adoption story. Whether you look at a Life Book together, or tell the tale of how your child came to your family, it’s a story children want to hear again and again.
