Treasure in the Brokenness

If you've been reading our blog for any length of time, you know the background story of how we discovered that our newest son didn't have Celiac Disease as listed on his profile, but instead had a host of other issues...foremost among them, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.  (I wrote about it a little in the post  "Home for Six Months" .) Before I begin to describe what life has been like learning how to parent a child with FASD, I want to be sure you know that we are in no way experts on this disorder.  There are so many amazing resources available with much more specific information:  books, websites, support groups, etc.  (Maybe the BEST resource is an adoptive parent of a child with FASD!)  But our hope is to shed more light on the day-to-day issues we face, dealing with Toby's disability and learning what it means to love him and give him the best support in the midst of it. My prayer is that someone who is considering the adoption of a child with FASD

Due to some feedback I received after my last post, stating that I would not be writing on this blog any longer, it seems that God has been using this simple blog and my transparent words and thoughts to reach out to other adoptive families...many of whom I never even knew were following our journey! So...I will continue to write.  It is true that within the adoptive community, when things are tough - most go silent.  The silence can be devastating for families who need encouragement and need to know they are not alone.  It is a fine balance to know how much to share. We are still very much in the trenches with our own adoption story.  As a family, we seem to take a few steps forward and then something will make us tumble several steps back down the path.  It is a hard process. So, I will prayerfully consider which topics to share in the hopes that they might be of encouragement to other families who are walking a similar journey...and to those who are considering adoption and ne

Toby turned 12 yesterday!! This is his second birthday surrounded by a family who loves him! We are so grateful for our boy and the chance to pour love into his life for all the birthdays and regular days to come.   It has been hard to keep up on blogging, though much is happening in Toby's life and in our hearts as parents.  While there are still very unique challenges in raising an adopted child, we've decided that Toby is incorporated enough into our family that we no longer need a separate blog to document his progress or our growth as a family.  Instead, we will continue to keep up with our main family blog: Meyer Family Updates Please feel free to follow along - and I will do my best to post more often!   Thank you for following along with us on the journey to adopt Toby and make him our son!  Please keep praying for us and keep in touch!

Today is Christmas - the day we celebrate Christ's birth! It will also forever be the day we celebrate Toby's homecoming to America. Toby has been home with his forever family for one year.  It has not been an easy year.  It has been a year full of transitions and adjusting and tears and questions.  But it has been a year in which God has shown Himself to us in even clearer ways.  It has been a year where we have all learned to rest and trust that His ways are higher than our ways. And we are grateful. We put together a video to commemorate his first year - and many of his first "firsts"....like riding a bike, eating a taco, climbing a tree, going bowling, swimming in a lake....and so much more. Thank you to all of you who have prayed so faithfully for our family over this last year and a half! Merry Christmas and God bless you!

Our family is praising the Lord on this first Sunday of Advent! We prayed about how we could best share about our Miracle of Adoption child - Joey.  We prayed about what we could do to raise money for his adoption grant.  We've been praying for a family to see him and choose him. We had planned to do a bake sale in front of our house this weekend when our town celebrated the kick off for the Christmas season and lots of people from out of town would be traveling through.  But our dear pastor heard about our plans and told us to bring it all to church on Sunday instead.  He had asked my husband and I to share our testimonies this Sunday as well.  Josh shared about how he came to the Lord 12 years ago when a rocket exploded just feet away from him in Iraq.  I was asked to share some of our adoption story. I didn't think I was ready.  I was nervous.  I wasn't sure how to share something that we are still so deep in the middle of.  This isn't a story that has reache

Toby has been in our lives for one year as of today!  He's come a long way in a year!