Before You Were Mine: Discovering Your Adopted Child’s Lifestory

By Susan TeBos, Carissa Woodwyk and Sherrie Eldridge

Written by an adoptive mother and an adoptee daughter, Before You Were Mine offers a unique Christian perspective on creating a Lifebook that commemorates your child’s birth story. Complete with worksheets and advice from adoptive families, you’ll find that remembering and celebrating your child’s history can be fun, rewarding, and even redemptive.You’ll discover how to ucover and organize details of their birth story, make the story both truthful and positive, and use the Lifebook to trace God’s faithfulness.This powerful concept takes the guesswork out of how and when you’ll talk about your adopted child’s beginnings—and offers him or her a lasting memento that helps them overcome uncertainty and fear to rest in Christ’s unconditional love.How will you embrace your child’s birth story as part of God’s plan?Before You Were Mine will help you relax and rejoice in the beautiful story God is writing for your child.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Release date: Oct 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9780310416494

Susan TeBos

Susan TeBos (M.A., Western Michigan University) is the mother of three adopted children from Siberia. She has led many workshops for adoptive organizations and for adoptive ministries in churches. She and her husband, Michael, and their children live in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Book preview

PART I

The Difference Adoptive Parents Need to Know

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.

—SØREN KIERKEGAARD

CHAPTER 1

What a Lifebook Is and Is Not

You will often find me at my headquarters, seated at a small red plastic Playschool picnic table, strategically located in the middle of our kitchen. This is prime real estate that I share with our preschooler’s Play-doh and paint supplies and where I keep in touch with our on-the-go kids. It is rarely quiet at our house. With piano practice, wrestling matches, glamorous makeovers, or our three-year-old daughter helping our husky six-year-old son get in touch with his feminine side — we are a busy family. Our three kids are just like many kids. They are happy, growing, and learning about who they are.

Because all three of our children are adopted, we have a strong desire to help them learn more about who they are. It is through the stories in their Lifebooks that they get a glimpse of where they were born, what their lives were all about before they joined ours, and where we get a window into how they are feeling about what they are learning. If one of our children wants to look at his Lifebook, all other siblings show up, too—with big ears, big eyes, and often big questions. Since all of our children were adopted at different times, their stories are all different. But they have one big thing in common. They know they are our children and God’s children, too. What a great beginning, but there is so much more.

Chosen by God and precious.

—1 PETER 2:4

Family photo albums and scrapbooks

How many of you have prepared photo albums or scrapbooks that hold cherished stories of your family? They are collections of memories that tell us where we have been as a family, how we spend our time together, and what we hold dear. They honor past generations, highlight celebrations, such as a new baby’s arrival, and showcase accomplishments with mementoes such as report cards and sports awards.

In our family, our scrapbooks send our children excitedly down memory lane full of joy as they reminisce about family trips to Florida, student-of-the-month awards, class field trips, our cousin’s annual pool party, or camping at Sand Lake. Their memories fill them with happiness, a sense of family, and love. In contrast, how many family scrapbooks are filled with, well, not-so-good memories? Oh, I have been tempted to include stories of the potty training blues, sibling rivalry, stitches, broken bones, broken hearts, poor eating habits, painful car rides—need I say