Tag Archives: Kisses from Katie

“Adoption is wonderful and beautiful and the greatest blessing I have ever experienced.  Adoption is also difficult and painful.  Adoption is a beautiful picture of redemption.  It is the Gospel in my living room.  And sometimes, it’s just hard.

As a parent, it’s hard not to know when your daughter took her first steps or what her first word was or what she looked like in kindergarten.  It’s hard not to know where she slept and whose shoulder she cried on and what the scar on her eyebrow is from.  It’s hard to know that for ten years yours was not the shoulder she cried on and you were not the mommy she hugged.

As a child, it’s hard to remember your biological parents’ death, no matter how much you love your new mom.  It’s hard to have your mom be a different color than you because inevitably people are going to ask why.  It’s hard that your mom wasn’t there for all the times you had no dinner and all the times you were sick and all the times you needed help with your homework.  It’s hard when you have to make up a birthday.  It’s hard when you can’t understand the concept of being a family forever yet, because your first family wasn’t forever.

Adoption is a redemptive response to tragedy that happens in this broken world.  And every single day, it is worth it, because adoption is God’s heart.” (72)

Kisses from Katie, by Katie Davis (emphasis mine)

 

P.S. I would recommend this Thanksgiving post one of my fellow bloggers posted recently, it is beautiful.

Love at First Sight

“I felt that God made it clear to me that I was to raise them and this intensified my love into a fierce, protective, sacrificial love, but it didn’t change the fact that it takes some time to make strangers into family.”

Katie Davis

I didn’t expect to be able to relate to a Mother’s Day post for at least ten years, but having siblings that are six or eleven years younger than you puts you on a whole different set of charts.  Katie Davis’ post to mothers (linked to above) was one of the most encouraging things I think I’ve ever read.

“And for us, this is the miracle: not that we experienced love at first sight but that God has given me a love for these once-strangers that is just as strong as if they had grown in my own womb.”

Yes.  Yes, yes, yes.

Things will get better.  There is hope.

And it’s still a miracle.

It’s still beautiful.  It’s not worthless, and it’s not hopeless.

“Mommy.”  She said it and I knew.  She was mine.  I was captivated.  Because Mommy is forever.  It’s such a powerful name.  Mommy means “I trust you.”  Mommy means “You will protect me.”  Mommy is for shouting when you need someone dependable and for laughing with when you are excited; Mommy is for crying on and cuddling with when you are sad or giggling and hiding behind when you are embarrassed.  Mommy is the fixer of boo-boos and the mender of broken hearts.  Mommy is a comfort place, a safe place.  Mommy means you are mine and I am yours and we are family. (57)

Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis

 

P.S. I decided to use the name “Brian” for the boy in my next science story.  I just need to figure out how to end it, and I can post it!

Blessings and Stories: “Going on an Adventure!”

Exciting title, huh?  🙂 Things have been crazy around here with China coming up in two days!  (I can’t believe it!)  But there is still a serious lack of packing going on over here.  We are last minute packers for sure!  This post is an entry I made in my notebook this May.  (By the way- all posts that start with “Blessings and Stories” are going to be from that notebook.)

Recently, in our series about the book “Live Ten” by Terry A. Smith, our pastor talked about adventure (I’m not sure if that was his name for it or not).

In “Live Ten”, Mr. Smith said he once knew a pastor who lad a very quiet life, and once actually told Mr. Smith that he had asked God for this peaceful lifestyle: simply saying he wanted to live a quiet life and not suffer too much–and God had given him just that.  Think of what he could have missed!

Pastor Matthew (our pastor) used a story from “The Hobbit”: Bilbo Baggins is sitting outside.  Earlier in the book, you get this description of Bilbo’s family:

“The Bagginses have lived in the neighborhood of the Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him.” (11)

Bilbo was sitting outside, when Gandalf comes by and they strike up a conversation.  Gandalf at last explains that he is looking for someone to take on an adventure and is having trouble finding anybody.  Bilbo’s answer is simple:

“I should think so–in these parts!  We are plain quiet folk and have no need for adventures.  Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things!  Make you late for dinner!  I can’t think what anybody sees in in them.” (14)

After some more conversing, Gandalf right out announces that he is bringing Bilbo.  Bilbo makes it quite clear that he’s not interested and “scuttles” (15) inside.

“Gandalf in the meantime was standing outside the door, and laughing long but quietly.  After a while he stepped up, and with the spike on his staff scratched a queer sign on [Bilbo’s]… beautiful green front-door.  Then he strode away, just away, just about the time when Bilbo was… beginning to think he had escaped adventures very well.” (15)

But anyone who is familiar with the story will already know he had not at all.  And, as Pastor Matthew put it, “We’re glad he went, because it makes a good story.” (Paraphrased)  I mean, think about it: that would be a pretty boring story!

But it’s not easy!  (Though adventures generally aren’t!)  But not one place in the book did I ever find Bilbo say after he got home, “I wish I hadn’t gone.”

The Christian life is hard, but it’s worth it–SO worth it!

Katie Davis, a missionary to Uganda, said in her book “Kisses from Katie”: “I view nothing as a sacrifice in light of eternity with Christ.”

I too, find myself hoping that I can go on living peacefully in the suburbs of Nebraska, and have nothing horrific or tragic happen to me.

BUT–when I really  think about it, I don’t want to be the one in heaven standing next to martyrs and saying:

“I lived a nice quiet life, in a nice quiet neighborhood, and sometimes told my neighbors ‘Jesus loves you’ and only left my country once for a vacation.”

Jesus, I want to give you my ALL!  Take me on an ADVENTURE!!!

“But what was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.   I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”  -Philippians 3:7,8

Post #2

And no, I’m not just going to number off my posts!  That’s cheating. 🙂  I’ll start thinking of interesting names soon!

“Why is adoption so expensive?  I feel like we’re BUYING children!”  I said a while back while we were talking about adoption.

“We’re not buying them,” Spencer said, “We’re ransoming them.”

“Adoption is redemption.  It is costly, exhausting, expensive andoutrageous.  Buying back lives costs so much. When God set out to redeem us, it killed him.”  –Derek Loux

I know adoption is expensive, I know it’s exhausting.  I know it’s costly: it is wearing on us–emotionally, financially, physically.

But it’s worth it!  SO worth it.

Michael has been worth it.  Worth every penny–worth WAY more than that!  And I know Lucy will be too.  She already has!

“Adoption is the gospel in my living room.” -Katie Davis