a letter to the birth mom of my son

Dear J’s birth mom,

I hope you are doing well. I hope you are making it ok, though I know you are grieving the loss of your child. It’s only been a few months since your decision was made. I know things must be hard, and probably will be for a long time to come. Though I do not understand what you are going through or what emotions you must be feeling, I think of you and pray for you often. Even though we haven’t even met yet, you are a dear woman to me.

As this Mother’s Day has been approaching, I have often thought of you. I don’t know what this day will be like for you this year. Will it be different than it was the year before? Will it be harder, or will it help you to grieve? I don’t know if I, the adoptive mom of your son, can have anything comforting to say to you. I do pray that you will be comforted. I pray over and over again that the Holy Spirit will bring you peace and comfort. I pray that God will bless you and keep you. I pray that if you don’t already, that you will know Christ and walk in his ways. I pray this because I know that when you place you faith in Christ, you will know an unfathomable peace, the kind that cannot come from anywhere else.

I wonder what you think about adoption now that you have played a role in it. I wonder if it is different than you imagined it to be. I know it sure is for me. I know first hand that adoption is hard. It is messy. There are not clear answers or solutions, only more questions. But there is love. There is mercy and acceptance. There is brokenness, and there is healing. There is family.

I want you to know that I love you. I care for you. I hold you in the highest regard, and I respect you. As adoptive parents, we didn’t save J out of a terrible situation. Through God’s plan, we were able to help you, a loving mom, to care for and love J through adoption. I want you to know that you and your family are dear in our hearts. I want you to know that we will continually tell J about you and the love that you have for him. The decision you have made for J was not an easy one ,but it was made with love and sacrifice. I want you to know that we love J immensely, and that will never change. And we know that you and your family are an important part of who J is. We care about you so much because of how important you are to him.

I wish I could tell you all of these things that I have written here today. I wish I could give you this letter and hug your neck. I wish you could know my heart for adoption, my heart for J and for you. I wish I could know you. And maybe someday I will. Until then, I will continue to love J with all my heart and continue to pray that the peace of Christ will be with you. I trust in God to accomplish these things as we are reminded in Scripture:

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God,who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:31-39

We have a son!

We have sone exciting news to share with you all! On Monday afternoon, we will become the adoptive parents of a three-month-old boy! We got to meet him on Sunday. Here’s a picture of our Judah Tylan Sparks. More posts coming soon!

 

in case you haven’t heard…

…we have put together a cookbook! Along with the Litschers and Putts, two families from our church who are also adopting, we have made this cookbook to raise money to help pay for each of our adoption expenses. The cookbooks have been ordered, and we should receive them towards the end of the month, in plenty of time to get them to you before the holidays. These will make great Christmas gifts for your family and friends! Each cookbook cost $15 plus $5 if you need us to ship them to you.

In case you are not yet convinced to order at least one cookbook for yourself and several others to give away as gifts, let me persuade you a little bit more. The cookbooks are filled with almost 300 recipes and are divided into eight different categories (appetizers & beverages, vegetables & sides, main dishes, breads & rolls, desserts, cookies & candies, this & that).

There are so many mouth watering recipes that you will want to try such as: Sarah Belcher’s Sweet Potato Jalapeno Soup (a Sparks family favorite). You will also definitely want Susan Hunt’s recipe for Salsa Fresca, Jewel Evans’ recipe for Avocado Grilled Corn Salad with Cilantro Vinaigrette, Liz Vailes’ Cold Sesame Noodle recipe, Angela Mast’s Italian great-grandmother Millie’s Famous Meatballs, Hannah Svebakken’s Cinnamon Rolls, Haley O’Day’s Sopapilla Cheesecake, Alice Nettles’ Sharpei Cookies, and Ashton Lee’s Rosemary Marinade… just to name a few.

Are you convinced yet? Not only do you get a great cookbook, but you are helping us pay for adoption expenses to bring our children home. We are so thankful for your support, and we hope you enjoy your cookbooks!

Lately, Life…God provides.

Lately, life has been…  full, and good. And God has been good. He has been and continues to be so faithful to provide for our needs through our adoption and all other things.  We had a yard sale at our house a few weeks back to raise money for our adoption as well as the Litschers and Putts. It was phenomenal! We made around $2,350 overall ($780 for each family)! We were all so encouraged by all who helped and showed their love for us that weekend by making yummy baked goods to sell, working shifts at the yard sale, helping us set up and take stuff down, donating stuff to sell, and buying things.  God does provide indeed.

God is also providing for us in ways we didn’t even know we needed. Even in things like winter clothes for Betsie. We have just been so caught up in other things, I hadn’t even thought about winter clothes, or the fact that Betsie didn’t have any. Then the summer began to turn to fall, a very wonderful thing indeed, and I realized that Betsie will need some long sleeve shirts and close-toed shoes, etc. Yesterday I went through some clothes that a friend had given us, and went through the bins at the bottom of Betsie’s closet and found clothes that two others had given me  awhile back that I had forgotten about. Low and behold, Betsie has more than enough clothes for fall and winter! She even has 12 pairs of shoes…(oh dear)! This may not be blog-worthy at all, but I am praising God for providing for our needs even in this way, even so much so that we have enough to give away!

Home Study Approval!

Joanna here.

So the last blog post said that we could be approved in just a few weeks. A little over a month later, here we are, with an APPROVED home study!! But it happened at just the right time. God’s timing is indeed perfect. Yesterday morning I opened up my email and saw a message from our agency with the subject line, “Home Study Approval!” I just immediately started crying, even before opening up the message. I was so overwhelmed and excited and relieved and full of disbelief. I can’t believe we’re approved! And, since this is a domestic adoption, we could get a phone call anytime…days, weeks, months, or longer. We don’t know what the future holds, but we’re glad it’s in the Lord’s hands. Now we just wait and pray as our profile is shown to expectant parents. The Lord is faithful and gracious towards us, providing everything we needed. We are so thankful and excited to be a part of this work that God is doing. May his name be praised!

Someday is now not so far away.

Joanna here.

Yesterday morning, we had our home visit for the adoption process. The person we’ve been working with at our adoption agency came to our home to make sure it’s safe for a baby, which it is since we have a one and a half year old who gets into everything. In our meeting we talked about the next steps in the process, and she answered some more of our questions.  In the next few weeks our home study will be written up, and then, hopefully, we will be approved! In just a few weeks!!! Once we are approved, we will be a waiting family, and our profile book will be shown to expectant parents who are making adoption plans. She talked to us about what it would be like to meet an expectant woman who considering us to be the parents of her child.

I cannot believe we are to this point already. It truly is surreal that we are actually doing this. Much of the time it is hard to remember that we are actually adopting.  Don’t get me wrong, this adoption is very much apart of our lives. We think about it all the time, but we only know in part what it will be like. It is similar to how we thought about marriage when we were engaged or how we thought about being parents before Betsie was born. We read books about it and talked about it, but really we had no idea what it would actually be like. Part of me wondered whether or  not it would ever actually happen. I know how silly this sounds, but even when I was in labour with Betsie, I thought “This is never going to end. I’ll just be pregnant for the rest of my life and never actually have a baby.” So with this adoption, I’m in the “We’re not really adopting, are we?!?” phase. So when the person from our agency  told us that we could be approved in just a few short weeks, I was so excited to be reminded that this actually is happening.

Since before we were married, Bob and I have been talking about adoption and hoping to adopt someday. After we were in the car wreck and found out I had cancer (see here and here), we looked into adopting, but it turned out not to be the right timing. It remained something we would do someday. This past spring, we started thinking about our family and how fun it would be to have a second child. We started to think and pray and read about adoption again. We sought wisdom from the Lord, and we were so excited that it seemed like this was the direction He was leading us to go.

Some of you, maybe all of you, may have wondered why we are adopting and may be interested to know how we got to this place. Really, we are just walking in obedience to the Lord because we believe this is how He is choosing to grow our family. We see this as walking in faith. Basically, this is a way that we can meet the need of woman who is pregnant and yet cannot, for whatever reason, raise her child. This is also us meeting the need of the child, whose biological parents do not see themselves able to raise him or her. Yet there is so much more to adoption than that. Adoption is about redemption, grace, love, hospitality, and so much more. It reminds us of the gospel, that those who place their faith in Christ are adopted as God’s own children and made heirs to all that is His. Adoption is a result of the sacrificial love that both the biological parents and adoptive parent(s) have for their child. In adopting, we are not making a political statement or a spiritual statement or anything like that. We are just excited to have another child and are excited that this child is being given to us through adoption.

We have learned and grown SO MUCH through this process so far, even though it has only been a few short months. The Lord has given us a love and a passion  for adoption. We are being taught and humbled, and our faith is being strengthened.  We are looking forward towards what is to come and are excited to be an adoptive family.

In case you would like to donate…

Thanks so much to everyone who has purchased coffee or a tote bag or helped out with our yard sales. If you want, you can still help out in any of those ways. Some of you have also asked if you could donate money for our adoption. Of course you can, and we would love that! So to make that simple, we’ve just added a donation button to our blog. You can click on the yellow donation button on the right to donate money for our adoption through PayPal. All donations we receive will be strictly used to defer the cost of our adoption.