From Us to Them: How God Used a Trip to China to Change Our Focus and Our Hearts

November 3, 2016 Michelle Cuthrell

At first, it was all about us.

Adoption became a conversation in our home in 2011 not because of the 132 million orphans around the world in need of forever families, but because of the two people living in Kentucky at the time who wanted to grow their family.

Who wanted more superheroes.

Who loved life with two boys and couldn’t wait for life with three.

As we began talking about and considering and praying about adoption as a means to grow our family (because we had decided long ago that if we wanted more than two superheroes, we wanted to adopt them), we pictured the adorable faces of beautiful, healthy children — children who needed families, but honestly, who didn’t need much else.

Sure, God, we thought, we’ll be part of this whole orphan crisis solution. As long as we’re holding healthy children we get to bring home at young ages who won’t experience Reattachment Disorder and who play, think and act like our other children.

Here we are, Lord. Send us. Just don’t send us any of those children who will have medical needs, emotional needs or take forever to bring home. Because really, God, we’re doing YOU a favor here. I mean, we’re being YOUR hands and feet! The least you could do is hook us up.

And then one Facebook post from a dear friend changed our entire perspective.

When Night Becomes Like Noonday

September 29, 2016 Michelle Cuthrell

In our family’s adventures at eight mailing addresses in 12 years, we’ve had the privilege and blessing of meeting a lot of truly incredible people.

People who live wholeheartedly, love sacrificially and SERVE THEIR HEARTS out for our country and for the people and things that matter most to them.

But every once in awhile, we’ve run into those kind of incredible people. Incredible people who pour themselves out protecting and defending our freedoms by day … and pour their LIVES out protecting and defending the lost, the least, the abandoned, the forgotten by night.

People who should be completely EXHAUSTED from dedicating their time and their sleep and their energy and their service to military and adoption and orphan advocacy life … and yet GLOW. Shine. Illuminate dark rooms. Sparkle in a sometimes dull, light-sucking world.

People like my friend Leia.

People like my friend Erin.

People like my new friend Jenny LaBahn and her family.

Telling Their Story: How One Group of Volunteers Makes a Difference, One Orphan Narrative at a Time

May 18, 2016 Michelle Cuthrell

I love stories.

Professionally, I work for a publishing company that tells the true, inspirational life stories of real people with real problems who’ve fought for change and discovered transformation in the truth.

Personally, I thrive on telling the tales of my failures, my superheroes, my life and my God.

There’s something so remarkable about sharing life experiences in real, raw and vulnerable ways. It connects us. It empowers us. It inspires us. It encourages us. And as I’ve learned to do it better in both a professional and a personal setting, I’ve seen firsthand the POWER of the story.

Sharing our story, our whole story (not just the one we put on Facebook), openly frees us from the shackles that trying to keep it hidden in the dark puts on. Guilt, shame and failure can’t call our names in the shadows when we’re proclaiming courageous truth in the light.

It lets other know that they’re not alone. That someone else has been there, too. And that there is life and even laughter after the trials and tragedies we sometimes face in this world.

And it encourages others that, if God can do it for us, He can also do it for them. It builds our faith. It builds our confidence. It builds our trust in a God who moves mountains.

Running the Good Race: How One Family Serves Superheroes-in-Waiting, Even After Losing Their Own

May 17, 2016 Michelle Cuthrell

We share an anniversary this weekend and birthdays one day apart and were actually IN CHINA bringing home our superheroes the very same week. But we didn’t become friends (and THEN meet, because that’s how we roll) until months after we had brought home and fallen in love with the superheroes who completely rocked our worlds.

Erin was a friend of some friends, and from the moment our third-party friend sent me a link to her blog, I knew I needed more of her family in my life.

Erin had a beautiful way with words. She shared in real and raw ways about adoption, homeschooling, kid-raising and camping (I’m still stealing her firepit recipes), and the light of Jesus just emanated from the pages of her blog.

I followed her story as she documented the adventures of HER 2-year-old Chinese orphan-no-more, Bekah, who loved watermelon, named her doll “Adverb” and learned English faster than any of my American-born children ever did.

I read about Bekah’s integration with the four other superheroes the Leininger family already had in their home, and how she, who had barely been introduced to a car seat, jumped right into the hiking/camping/adventure-seeking mix with reckless abandon, even despite congenital heart conditions that should have theoretically slowed her down.

I fell in love with this little superhero who this family told repeatedly was their girl “forever and ever and ever.”

And I sobbed as I followed Erin’s journey through Bekah’s complicated heart surgery that, three weeks later, ended in a farewell here on Earth and a homecoming up in Heaven.

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