Life: Imagine the Potential!

Abby's Day

Abby was legally ours for five years back in September, and we usually celebrate that day every year with each child. However, all our weekends involved baseball this year, and we couldn't think of anything special to do with Abby so we postponed it. Finally last weekend, we made it up to her!


Daddy took her fishing for the first half of the day. They took the canoe to Vernonia Lake and spent several hours enjoying the time together. They didn't catch too many fish, but they had a great time being together enjoying the scenery.


After they got home, Abby was rushed through a shower, dressed up, and she and I went out to dinner together, just the girls. Then we drove across town to see the Christian Youth Theatre perform Anne of Green Gables! We got there a little early, so we browsed some of the booths that were there. I bought Abby a cute Anne of Green Gables "paper" doll set, which actually had reusable stickers instead of paper clothes. We also bought a couple of the cutest cookies I've ever seen!


Abby sat for half an hour before the show playing with her sticker doll, and once the play began, she was riveted to the stage. It was a musical, and she loved every minute of it! It turned out to be much longer than I expected (two and half hours), and she fell asleep with a couple of minutes being on the road.

Heartache

My thoughts and prayers have been with Steven Curtis Chapman and his family today. They suffered a breathtakingly tragic loss yesterday. Their youngest daughter, five-year-old Maria, was struck by a vehicle and died of her injuries. Though he is probably best known as a Christian musician, he has also been a champion for adoption in many ways, setting up Shaohannah's Hope and themselves adopting three little girls from China. They have set up a blog to remember her, for people to share their condolances, and where you can view a cute video of Maria if you so desire.

I know I will give my five-year-old (and six-year-old) an extra hug tonight.

Foster Care & Adoption

Since this is National Foster Care Month, I wanted to get another plug in for the kids who are waiting in the system for someone to open their hearts to them. The adoption agency we used, Bethany Christian Services, has a new program called Project Open Arms which is aimed at the children in foster care in Michigan:

Bethany is reaching out to thousands of children in Michigan who are in foster care and waiting for adoptive families. Bethany has received more than $1 million in private funding for Project Open Arms, an initiative to find loving, permanent families for foster children by recruiting families through churches in Michigan. Project Open Arms' bold goal is that Michigan will be a state where no children are waiting for adoption. With more than 12,000 churches in Michigan and 6,000 children waiting for adoption, Bethany needs to find a family in just 1 out of 2 churches to adopt 1 child. In the future, Bethany hopes to expand this program into other states to find adoptive families for the more than 100,000 children waiting across the country.

Can you imagine how incredible it would be to have all of those children in Christian homes? I can't think of a better way to glorify Christ and to live out His commission to make disciples! I will be praying for this project and for God's leading as to what else He is calling our family to do.

National Foster Care Month

May is National Foster Care Month, and to highlight it I thought I'd make yet another movie recommendation. Have you seen Martian Child? It is a story that is loosely based on true events about a single man who adopts a boy from the foster care system who thinks he is from Mars. It is a heartwarming story that I think you will enjoy. Who knows, maybe it will cause you to consider fostering or even adopting one of the thousands of kids that are waiting for a home. Could God be calling you to take a little "Martian Child" into your heart?

Adoption Credit and the Stimulus Check

I just wanted to clear up something that had me confused for the last several weeks, just in case anyone else might be confused too.

If you filed your taxes and claimed an adoption credit, you may not get what you expected to get in your stimulus payment. I know we didn't, and it took some digging to find out why. The bottom line is if your adoption credit brought your tax liability down to zero, then you will only get $300 per person instead of the $600 you might have been expecting.

So our new fence will probably not be completed this month as we had hoped since we are $600 short of what we were hoping for, but at least we'll get it started and pray for the money to finish is sometime this year!

National Adoption Month

November is National Adoption Month, and several ministries are highlighting adoption during the month. Focus on the Family, Family Life, and Shaohannah's Hope are joining together to launch a long term, nationwide campaign called Voice of the Orphan. This campaign seeks to raise awareness of the orphan crisis and spur fellow Christians to action. This week their radio broadcasts will focus on orphans and adoption.

For obvious reasons, I have a special place in my heart for adoption. Not only has it given me two precious children, it has given me new perspective on the world around us, it has burdened me with the enormous need for adoptive families, and it has unbelievably given me a place in God's Kingdom!

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." Ephesians 1:3-6 (See also Romans 8:15, 23, 9:4; Galatians 4:5)

Just as I sought out my children, the Lord--my Creator, my God, my King--sought me out. He chose me before the foundation of the world. He made me an heir with Christ, His only begotten. If you are a believer, you too have been adopted into God's family. What an incredible gift and privilege! If you are not a believer but you know God is seeking you out, don't wait!

"for He says, 'AT THE ACCEPTABLE TIME I LISTENED TO YOU, AND ON THE DAY OF SALVATION I HELPED YOU'; behold, now is 'THE ACCEPTABLE TIME,' behold, now is 'THE DAY OF SALVATION'" 2 Corinthians 6:2

Just Thinking

I've been pondering a couple things the last couple of days. The first is very near and dear to my heart...adoption. A friend of mine just found out they will be adopting a 21-month-old little girl, and they will be getting her this weekend! It's been interesting to watch the process as an outsider this time instead of as the participant. The emotions and fears are often so intense, then, strangely, the next moment there's ambivilence, giving rise to the sensation of being on a roller coaster ride of unknown duration.

But the amazing and precious thing to me is how I heard the change in her voice the day she told me they were chosen to be her parents. Gone was the ambivalence, gone were the fears (for the moment, anyway), and all I heard in her voice was excitement and love for this new daughter whom they have never even met! How can people not believe in God when you see that kind of capacity for love? Surely, only the Lord is able to make love flow from hearts of mere men in such a powerful way.

I am so grateful to have been adopted into God's family and to have been blessed to adopt two beautiful children. I know my friend and her family will have their ups and downs with this little girl, but what a blessing she is to them...and them to her!

The second thing that's been rolling around in my thoughts lately is marriage. I've watched marriages come and go, I've witnessed couples pull their marriages back together after devastating actions by one or both spouses, and I've seen others who have frittered away their marriage giving it less thought than they give to their wardrobe.

What's the key to a successful marriage? I don't mean successful in the sense that a couple manages to tolerate each other enough to stay married, but successful in the sense that both husband and wife are growing and love each other's company and work through conflicts instead of ignoring them.

After over 12 years of marriage, I certainly know there's no formula, but I am becoming more and more convinced that next to an unwavering committment on the part of both spouses, selflessness is paramount to a healthy marriage. Duh. I'm as selfish as the next person, but starting today, my goal for this year is to learn to be as selfless as possible, particularly in regard to my hubby. I am grateful that I have a Lord who can enable me to do this as I trust Him to change me and mold me into His image! I love you, Eddie!

Adoption Legislation

Would you really like to promote adoption and support adoptive families? Here's your chance! This year some adoption legislation was introduced that would make it financially easier to adopt. If you have adopted, are thinking of adopting, or are an adoption advocate, please write your representatives to urge them to vote for these bills! It's really easy. Just click on this link, locate your congressmen and senators (it's all automated and very easy), and then write your own letter or copy and paste the sample letter provided. The link also has a description of the legislation.

The current Adoption Tax Credit provides a tax credit (not a deduction!) to adoptive families of up $10,000 (actually it goes up slightly every year, but it's still less than $11,000) and allows you to carryover any unused portion for an additional five years. Our family has benefitted from the current tax credit, but only a little. As the law reads now, only adoptive families with a yearly tax liability of $1,667 or more will reap all the benefits from the credit. If your income is lower, hence your liability is lower, the carryover expires before you use up all the credit (seems counterintuitive to me), though every little bit helps. This new bill would not change anything for higher income earners, but would extend the same relief (maybe more) to those who need it most.

In our case we adopted two years in a row, so we in fact lose four years of our carryover since the five years run concurrently and not consecutively (we get six years instead of ten). We currently have $17,000+ of adoption tax credit to carryover for the next four tax years. I think our tax liability last year was less than $900, so unless my husband receives a substantial pay increase, there is no way we will even use up Ryan's tax credit and Abby's will remain wholly unused. If this new legislation is passed, we would be allowed to carryforward our tax credit until it is used up!

Also, they are proposing making it a refundable credit for people with lower incomes (I don't know if we would qualify or not), and that is the best possible fiscal news I can think of for people who are adopting! That means that at tax time adopting families would get an actual refund of up to $10,000 ($15,000 if the new bill is passed) of their adoption expenses instead of a credit against tax liability. Really fantastic!

One last note, this legislation is being proposed by Congressman Harold Ford Jr. of Tennessee. We lived in Memphis for six years, and he came into office while we were there (I didn't vote for him). I was frequently sending him emails to encourage him to vote pro-life only to be disappointed. I am so pleased to see he's doing something positive and pro-life! (For those of you who know my famous "Jesse Jackson Story," he was the congressman up on stage with Jesse who was running for his father's congress seat!)