I was bloggin before bloggin was cool:)

Five years ago, my husband and I adopted a sibling group of four children. One boy and three girls that all shared the same birth mother. The oldest of the group was 10 and the youngest 3. We had never in a million years thought of adopting older children.....too much baggage! We'll God apparently thought we needed luggage because he arranged for these children to be an official part of our family in less than seven months from the time we first met them.


After they moved in, we began to try to unpack the bags and figure out the best way to help them adjust. We were told that none of them had attachment problems, that they were just normal children that needed lots of love. (cue the music, set out the tissue and hang the "be a foster parent" banner). But this is real life not a movie or a sappy TV commercial and that kind of love is HARD WORK.


Our newest members of the family liked us well enough, I guess and were happy to be in a home with other kids to play with; but they didn't really know us or trust us so..... how do you help them deal with the hard issues of the abuse they've suffered, the loss of birth family and foster family and friends?


Since I could find no how-to books on this at the library, I came up with my own idea......a book that my oldest adopted child and I could write back and forth in. I bought a simple notebook and a special pen and began to write to my new child from my heart.....a blog so to speak.

"This notebook is going to be like a silent conversation

between you and your parents.

This is a chance for you to communicate

to us some of the hurts and frustrations

you feel trying to fit into this family

and remembering your birth family.

Sometimes it's easier to write those

memories and hurts down than to

face someone and tell them.

So far it seems that you are trying to forget everything

that's happened to you in the past and kind of shut it out.

But that hasn't worked very well

because those feelings eventually

surface as anger towards us.

So, let's try sharing in this way to see if it helps."

That was Jan. 12, 2004......my first entry. It proved to be a very good tool. I did the majority of the writing but this child was allowed to keep the book in his room at special times to just read it and be comforted by the words of his parents. We haven't done this in a few years due to other treatments but I still have it and like to get it out and read it. It surprises me sometimes the words that God gave me at the time that this child needed comfort. It also encourages me to know how far we've already come in this journey.

From the beginning we have talked about forgiveness and love with these children. They have a lot to forgive and much forgiveness to receive but don't understand how to get there. Later that January I wrote .....

One thing that will help us get through

problems is forgiveness.

Now, forgiving someone doesn't mean that

you think what they did was OK.

Forgiveness is a change in our

attitude towards them.

The Bible says to "love your enemies,

bless those who curse you ,

do good to those who hate you,

and pray for those who

spitefully use you and persecute you." (Matt 5:44)

That's hard to do....I know.

Right now I'm having a hard time

forgiving your foster parents for

things that happened to you

and your sisters while you lived there.

You are my children

and it angers me when I see things

that could have been prevented

but weren't. It's east to get angry

then to let that anger turn

to bitterness and the bitterness

if left unchecked can lead to hatred.

I'm trying not to do that. I don't want that

bitterness and hatred inside me.

Those kinds of feelings and attitudes will only hurt me.

I heard someone say that unforgiveness is like

drinking poison and then expecting our enemy to die.

So, I am working on forgiveness.

We are all still working on forgiveness. Now here we are 4 years later with so much more to forgive and so much more for which to seek forgiveness. But we are making a constant effort to keep the poison of bitterness out of our lives