by Lucy | Jun 14, 2016 | biblical counseling, relationships |
Adoption. . .my story of how God made my family. If adoption has touched you — perhaps you’re a birth mom, an adoptive mom, of a woman who was adopted — I pray my story helps you understand how God makes some families.
You won’t find “three quick steps to a successful adoption” here. Just a story of pain and beauty and God everywhere. If you’re touched by adoption, why not send me a short message? I’d love to encourage you.
Adoption: Not Second Best
Some say adoption is second best, an afterthought, the backup plan. May I say, It’s not “second best”?
Yes, my husband and I tried the usual way. When it didn’t happen — the it of morning sickness and ultrasounds, prenatal vitamins and expanding waistlines — we adopted a baby then another and another. Two girls and a boy. Now they’re grown up: one married, one in college, one in high school.
Yes, I asked God, “Women strung out on drugs are getting pregnant and having babies, so why infertility for us?” No booming voice from a burning bush in Charlton Heston’s Ten Commandments. I found comfort in the Bible that God is love and he loves orphans and had a child for us (James 1:27).
I concluded that my family isn’t second best because God designed it. Isn’t God’s design the best design? Didn’t he know before my birth and my husband’s — and the births of our great-great-great grandparents — that we’d make a family by adoption? Of course he did. The all-knowing God knew.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:16, NIV
Hello, Doctor
Infertility is usually the woman’s problem, right? Ah, no. According to WebMD, statistics suggest that 35 to 40 percent of the problems are caused by male problems, another 35 to 40 percent by female problems, and the last 20 to 30 percent a combination of the two, plus a small percentage of unknown causes.
When I didn’t get pregnant after trying for a year, I figured my doctor would prescribe me Clomid, and I’d soon be painting the nursery with a baby bump. Instead she followed protocol and wrote orders for my husband to have a test first. We thought, “Whatever. No problem.”
A bunch of tests and three months later, another doctor sat us down and gave us the news. No baby. Ever.
I felt numb, sad, even relieved because the findings were fast and crystal. I did not want to walk the infertility treadmill I had heard about. Awful, just awful. In you’re on this treadmill, my heart aches for you, sister. Know God is with you in your hurt.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you. Psalm 139:17-18
Baby in Arms
Steve and I jumped into adoption, eyes wide open, knowing it may take a long time before we’d hold the little one God had planned for us.
Typically when a couple decides to adopt a child, the labor of paper work lasts many years. Laura came along nine months later. Poetic justice, yes?
Our next two adoptions averaged 18 months each. We adoptive couples have love-hate relationships with social workers employed by adoptions agencies, which is the route we chose. (Some couples prefer adopting children by arrangement through attorneys.) Steve and I answered the social workers’ invasive questions. We jumped through their hoops.
With our last adoption, even the cat needed a physical!
Click & Tweet!
I felt like I had to impress them, these gatekeepers. They opened and closed our chances to adding to our little family, didn’t they?
Then I’d remember that God is in control. He designs my family–and yours. I didn’t have to worry or be a people-pleaser. I just had to be me. . .
because God is God, right?
If you have experienced infertility or adoption (as an adoptive mom or a birth mother who placed her child for adoption), I’d love to here from you.
Sharing Hope with Your Heart,
by Lucy | Jun 4, 2013 | emotions
Cyber bullies lurk on your kid’s phone, name-calling, shaming, rejecting. My generation played “Ghost in the Graveyard” and “Ring and Run” ourside and watched TV or phone friends … on the phone attached to a wall. Today’s kids are often online playing games. The more your kids are online, the greater likelihood your son or daughter will run into a cyber bully.
And that’s scary.
As the mother of three children (two teens and an adult daughter), cyber UNsafety gives me nightmares. My son too.
While he played Minecraft with his Christian school friends on XBox 360 Live, a person who identified himself as a teen boy who crashed their game threatened my 13-year-old. The cyber-gaming-bully said, “I’m going to hack your account.” This unsettled my son.
Then much worse.
The mean boy snarled: “I’m gonna rape you.”
CyberBullies, Gaming, and Safety
My son told my husband and me about the threats. We asked, “Did you share your gaming password with this person or anyone else?”
“No.”
“Did you tell him your address or your name?”
“No.”
My husband and I reassured our son that as long as he’s telling the truth, then the would-be hacker/rapist could not mess with his XBox account or find out where you live and attack you.
Despite our reassurance, he had trouble falling asleep. The next morning, he described a dream in which this cyber-gaming-bully hacked his account and destroyed his Minecraft world.
According to CovenantEyes.com, cyber-bullying is worse than you may realize. Eighty-eight percent of teens say they have seen someone be mean or cruel to another person on a social network, 24 percent say someone has written something about them on an Internet page that was “really mean,” and 16 percent report someone have put up embarrassing photos or videos of them on an Internet page without their permission.
Parenting the Internet generation is tough. You can help keep your kid safe. You can become informed and care enough to ask the tough questions. One day — may be not today, or tomorrow, or next month — your teen will thank you.
Safety Tips
When your kid plays video games on a home computer or console such as Wii, Xbox 360, or PlayStation 3, you need to become aware of the potential threats and what you can do.
THREAT: Many games have f-bombs and other cuss words, violence, and sexual content. Some games’ objectives involve a “crime” to win the game or to get more points. These virtual crimes include theft, stalking, and murder.
YOUR PART: Learn about the games your kid plays at home and friends’ homes. Read the ratings, even play the games to determine suitability.
THREAT: Most teens and preteens prefer online games, increasing the potential for harmful interactions with others–cyber bullies as well as predators who seem friendly or give a fake age.
YOUR PART: Encourage your kid to choose a screen name (called a gamertag) that doesn’t include his or her real name and isn’t violent/sexual/profane/hateful. Tell your your kid that he or she must not share ANY personal information including name of school or hometown. Ban the use of webcams unless you directly supervise.
For more complete tips, please go to CovenantEyes.com.
More Safety Tips
Chances are, you’re aware of the highly publicized cyber-bullying cases where bullied teens become so distraught and depressed over online bullying that they committed suicide. These cases are terribly tragic; they are not the norm.
More common are hurtful emails, instant messages, and texts. Slander and gossip spread like wildfire among teens, even younger children, creating emotional and social turmoil. Some kids put up embarrassing photos on Facebook and other online sites. Other kids open themselves up to cyberbullying by going to sites like Formspring.me and invite people to ask them personal questions that may be sexual and degrading.
THREAT: Cyberbullies have targeted your kid with slanderous or crude, hateful emails and texts.
YOUR PART: Look for emotional and behavioral warning signs. Is your teen seem increasingly withdrawn? Is she spending dramatically more or less time online or on her cell phone? Teach them to log off when a cyberbully tries to hurt them with words and emotions.
THREAT: Your teen is participating in cyber-bullying.
YOUR PART: When you suspect your teen is saying hurtful things about others, it’s time for a frank talk. Clearly state your expectations of what language and words are not okay — name-calling, sexual words, coarse jokes, and threats. As you deem necessary, take away electronic devices including cell phones, laptops, video games, and so on from your teen. Require that your teen give you his or her password so you can view texts and instant messages. Go on their Facebook wall. See what they’re posting.
Most Important
Be wise and don’t fret. Know God’s in control.
Do not be anxious about anything,but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
For more information on cyber-bullying, go to StopBullyingNow.
Counseling Hearts to Hope,
by Lucy | Dec 19, 2011 | biblical counseling |
Who inspires you? The woman who inspires me is stopping child trafficking. Just one small thing can help save a life of a child.
Have you met someone who inspired you to make a difference?
A life-or-death-oh-my-God-help-me-be-the-change kind of difference? I have. Her name is Diana Scimone, a Christian women and the heart of Born2Fly, a nonprofit dedicated to stopping child trafficking in the United States and around the world.
Child-trafficking. You’ve heard about it. It’s a crime forcing little kids to do things no child should. Like sew tiny beads to saris sold to tourists in the markets of Calcutta. All day every day. Even worse: child sex trafficking of girls and boys.
When Diana, a journalist, first discovered these crimes against children, she got mad — who wouldn’t! — and asked herself what she could do to stop it and save lives?
God gave her the answer: write!
SOLUTION 1
One part of the Born2Fly solution is a new, beautifully illustrated children’s ebook called Born to Fly. Born to Fly inspires children to pursue their dreams. Proceeds from book sales help fund a worldwide anti-trafficking prevention program.
“Each year more than 1 million kids get lured into trafficking including in the U.S.,” Diana says. “Some of them are just 5 years old. We’ve launched a program to reach kids before the traffickers do—and we’re hoping that sales of this new ebook will help fund it.”
Born to Fly features 43 illustrations in soft pastel by artist Leah Wiedemer. A companion website, www.borntoflybook.com, has games and activities for kids and a free reading guide/curriculum for schools. Born to Fly is published solely as an ebook and is available for iPad, Kindle, Nook, Sony, and other readers. Read more solutions at www.BasicsMatter.com, where I write on Mondays. Come on over and join the folks.
P.S. To get Diana’s beautifully illustrated children’s book in time for Christmas, click here.
Merry Christmas!
by Lucy | Mar 3, 2011 | biblical counseling, emotions |
If you had a difficult childhood, you may err on the side of loving your child too well. In other words, you may do things for your child that she can do for herself. I made this mistake with my first child. I wanted her to feel loved, cared for, cherished. So I did too much.
Sometimes I resented her.
Sometimes I hated me.
By the time my third child came along. . .and after 18 months of counseling. . .I had learned a thing or two.
So one day about a year ago, when I sing-songed, “Time to get dressed” to my able-bodied son, he groaned.
“Mom, can’t you help me?”
“Your pants are right there, John.”
“Help me put them on.”
“You’re 10 years old. Ten-year-old boys dress themselves.”
I left the room. Within a few minutes, he bounded down the steps and into the kitchen. Pants on. Shirt on. Socks on. And, I presume, boxers on too.
Had I helped him dress, my unspoken message would have shouted, “You incompetent, kid! You can’t even do something as simple as pull on pants.”
I would have crippled him.
Of course there is a place to help a loved one or a friend that goes beyond the norm. Consider the Good Samaritan.
While a man (very likely a Jew) traveled from Jerusalem to Jericho, robbers jumped him. They took his clothes and beat him, leaving him half-dead at the side of the road. A priest passed on by, then a Levite. Finally, a Samaritan, considered scum by Jews, saw him and stopped.
Here’s a list of what the Samaritan did:
bandaged his wounds
treated his wounds with the “medicine” of the day
lifted him onto him donkey and brought him to an inn
nursed him for a day
paid for the man’s extended stay at the inn
paid the innkeeper to watch over him
promised to pay extra expenses when he returned
Here is the one thing we know he chose not to do: Halt his own travel plans. He didn’t think, “Poor guy, I better stay with him or else he may never get better, so I must stop everything for him. . .even if that means neglecting my family and my work.”
The Good Samaritan helped the man but he didn’t put his own life on hold.
In today’s lingo, he had good boundaries.
What about you? Do you let people walk all over you? Do you run about like the proverbial chicken with her neck cut off, taking care of everybody and everything. . .but yourself.
Question: What is you definition of real love? Please share a comment. Sharing is caring. 🙂
You Are Loved!
by Lucy | Jul 10, 2010 | biblical counseling |
This is the first post of a two-part series on shepherding your child’s heart and living to tell about it. 🙂
Has you child ever. . .
crayoned your walls? CHECK.
bit another kid? CHECK.
bossed you around? CHECK.
Lied? CHECK. Cussed? CHECK. Got sent to the principal’s office? CHECK.
Those check-check-check’s are mine. All mine. Mothering ain’t for sissies. Do I hear an “Amen?” As I journey from Pampers to carpools to prom, I’m finally learning what matters most in parenting.
The child’s heart.
The Bible says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Pr. 4:23). How many times have I read this verse? How many times have I NOT applied it mothering?
The heart refers to the inner person, who your child really is. From the heart flows behavior. When you focus on the heart you affect behavior. Choose to:
— disciplines the child lovingly and consistently.
— holds the child accountable.
— expects the best.
Today more than ever your child need to know she can count on you because the world is scary. From bullies in the neighborhood to news of bombings in Afghanistan, your child needs your guidance.
You should read part two tomorrow. To make sure you get it, sign up to receive my blog. The signup is in the upper right corner. See it? Right there. Cool.
You Are Amazing!
SPECIAL OFFER: If you agree that mothering is tough, then you should order my 30-minute webinar “Do You Love Your Child TOO Well?” To order send me an email with the words “I want the mothering webinar”: Lucy@LucyAnnMoll. One person who sends me an email will get the webinar for free. The cost of the webinar is $3. If you don’t like it, I’ll refund your money, no questions asked.
