Every family considering special needs adoption comes to that point.
The point of decision.
The proverbial fork in the road.
The one that leads to two totally different lives.
Read moreLoving with Abandon: How Loving a Child with Down Syndrome Revealed My Own Disability
As I walked into the building I know and love — the one where the two sons we birthed and the one we brought home from China and the two sweet Chinese superheroes we’ve since hosted met JESUS in the worship and the faces of some of our favorite people in the world — I knew it was going to be a hard day.
Joy’s chaperone had called on Friday night to inform her that she would be returning to China in a week, and although she took the news well on the phone, from the time she hung up, she fell into a funk.
All of us did.
So over the weekend, as we tried to soak in every waking second with this sweet girl, all of us felt the heaviness.
Of the impending goodbye.
Of the hole this ball of personality would soon leave in our home.
Of Joy’s questionable future.
Read moreA New Year, a New Story
This first week of the New Year, many of us will wake up to the invigorating freshness that a new year inevitably brings.
Renewed commitments.
Fresh starts.
New beginnings.
We’ll get clean slates to change the stories we didn’t write as well as we wanted in 2016, and we’ll get more chances to rewrite those spiritual and physical and relational story endings that concluded in less than ideal terms in 2016.
But today, as those around her celebrate new beginnings, Joy will wake up to the same old story.
The orphan story.
Read moreAbandoned is Not Her Name
She was abandoned.
This precious girl who stole our hearts in 5.2 seconds in our home — she was abandoned.
At an orphanage.
At 4 years old.
Read moreUp Syndrome: Nothing Down About It
Our sweet host child has been in our home for one week tomorrow, and there’s an elephant in the room that we still haven’t addressed.
The elephant of Down syndrome.
Joy has Down syndrome.
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