Before You Were Mine

By Susan TeBos and Carissa Woodwyk

My new book arrived in the mail today!  The Subtitle is “Discovering Your Adopted Child’s Lifestory.”  So far I have only skimmed it and read the Foreword and Introduction, but I have already cried!  Oh, dear! Here is a little selection from what I have read so far:

All adopted children, whether they are adopted domestically or internationally, have some sense of connection with their birth families…  Why is a child’s birth story so important?  Many adoptees have questions and feel like something is missing:  “Information is proof that I am a real person who was born at a real time and in a real place.”  The bottom line, however, is that adoptees need to know their lives are not a mistake… This book is unique because it gently weaves a biblical foundation throughout the center of every adopted child’s story and emphasizes a child’s life before he or she was adopted – a part of the story that is so often forgotten.  It reaches the spirit and heals the hearts of adoptive parents and children… Consider this… What if adoption was an opportunity that God created to reveal himself through each adopted child’s story?  What if in the very act of receiving a child into our arms was an image of God receiving us into his arms?  No judgement, no criticism, just pure love and acceptance.  What if the very fragmented and broken pieces of our children’s lives were put back together again and again?  … Could it be that God would use the very thing that was so difficult for our child’s birthmother and our child for good?  Is that possible?  We say, “Yes!”  If God is a God who is about restoring all things, he must be passionate about restoring our child’s missing pieces and his or her heart.

I look forward to reading more and am hopeful that this book by TeBos and Woodwyk will help us to piece together our children’s stories … the part that came before us.

Make visible what, without you, might never have been seen.

Robert Bresson

page 148

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