"Drinking from a Fire Hydrant"

Brad and I had the privilege of attending an adoption seminar put on my Empowered to Connect (ETC) in Nashville this last weekend. It was wonderful, scary, inspiring, and truly enriching. ETC was started by Dr. Karyn Purvis and she is absolutely wonderful at working with at-risk children...she calls them "children from the hard places"....wow and does she know how to love. Her number one goal is to make sure children know that they are each precious. Her patience and talent is truly inspiring. Her knowledge is beyond understanding... her calling from God is clear. We learned about nutrition, play therapy, brain development....and so much more. We heard inspiring stories of families getting through deep challenges, and we heard heart wrenching stories of children that had an adoption disruption - but now are placed in the right environment and there is hope. Behind all the challenges....and there will be challenges... there is always hope. Most of all, we learned the importance of reaching out to others early in the process to seek help when struggles come up. We are SOOOO thankful for the insightfulness and dedication of our adoption agency, that actually required a VERY extensive service plan that required us to already seek these type of resources (therapists, doctors, etc)…so we have all that lined up and we are already building relationships with those folks…because it is so important to know them well, and for them to fully know our kids when they come for an appointment. (When I say, know our kids…what I mean is know the plight of a child from an orphanage, know the possibilities of deficiencies, understand sensory issues, etc.) . One of our therapists was at the conference…and a big support group that we are involved with had lunch with her.

I must confess… on the drive home from the conference…I had a raging headache…but I think it was the release of stress and tension… I mean, these two days were INTENSE! But we were both so very thankful. Plus we also found two new friends that live near us… had an opportunity to have dinner with them…and they shared their story. Now really, how often are people in this day and age emotionally able to have dinner with two strangers and bare their soul on their adoption story … which was a heart-breaker. But God is good…and he has performed miracles in their lives…just as he has ours… so their story ended good. Get this…in a huge auditorium… I can’t even imagine the number of people that attended…but clearly in the 1000’s …maybe about 1/4 of a typical Wildcat game …. And guess who sits right next to Brad…but this couple..and they remembered us from a very brief parenting meeting we attended…and said, “aren’t you guys from Lexington”…we were like… “yes!”… from there on…fast friends. This was truly a divine appointment to find this couple. I pray we give to these relationships as they have so richly given to us… and we have a life shared in adoption.

Above all, I’m continuing to learn to set aside expectations, trust in God more and more, and grow in determination that we can handle (with God) anything that Lauren throws our way. Per the Queen of Bubblegum (Purvis), kids will test us, just to be sure that we can handle them. The key is handling them always with the mind-set that they are precious children… not bad behavior, just natural God-given instincts of survival….and at the end of the day, even the most challenged child wants to be loved, and wants relationship… after all – relationship is part of God’s divine creation. BTW: drinking from the fire hydrant was Purvis' phrase at the end of the two days, she asked, "so now that you feel like you've been drinking from a fire hydrant...what questions do we have!!"... :) Really, now where do we begin... LOL...
We are ready for you Miss Lauren….no matter what.
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