Dec 30, 2024 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
Twas the day after Christmas, and the tree which had recently looked so regal now stood barren. Ornaments removed, the Christmas tree was as bare as the trees that had shed their leaves outside of our house. It was time to haul the tree away to the recyclers....
Nov 29, 2024 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
This year has been the season for hurricanes. With little warning or time for preparation, they arrive on land with fierce winds and rain. The voracious force of these storms consumes everything in their path. This can be like our adopted children, especially when...
Oct 30, 2024 | God's Adoption of His Children
Recently the project to replace streets in our housing subdivision got underway on our street. The first step was the demolition of the old street and the removal of the debris. Breaking up concrete is a noisy and dirty process, with no picture of what our future...
Sep 27, 2024 | Challenges In Adoption, God's Adoption of His Children, Parenting
We might call it “getting even,” but siblings have a form of rivalry where one child feels the right to extract something from the others when they feel violated. It may start with sharing of toys, but rapidly progresses to other forms of payback (such as getting a...
Aug 30, 2024 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
In spring and summer weeds pop up all over our yard. It is a never-ending battle with nature to keep these pesky plants from taking root in our flowerbeds. Each rain we get causes more of them to appear in areas we have just cleared. As a Christian, I can point to the...
Jul 31, 2024 | Children's Adaptation, Parenting
The start of fifth grade was a milestone for our two sons. They started attending a new school, adjusting to new friends and a new teacher. The teacher had taught fifth grade for many years, and mastered the art of getting to know each pupil and motivating them to...
Jun 30, 2024 | Challenges In Adoption, Children's Adaptation, God's Adoption of His Children
It was a normal Saturday morning, and time to do the laundry again, especially since there were stains on some of the clothing. Into the washer the dirty clothes went! Afterwards, I was happy to see what water and a little soap could do! We struggled in the early...
May 30, 2024 | Challenges In Adoption, God's Adoption of His Children, Parenting
It was dark and turning cooler. Then lightning and thunder started. Later, fierce wind and rolling thunder woke us up from deep sleep, as we listened to the storm unleash its fury. The darkness of midnight made the storm feel stronger. A lot of moments in adoption...
Apr 29, 2024 | God's Adoption of His Children, Parenting
In elementary school, one of the rituals of going to the playground was allowing boys named captains to choose who would be on their team. I was scrawny and slow growing, so I never got chosen until last. Needless to say, I lived up to their expectations. When it came...
Mar 30, 2024 | Challenges In Adoption, Children's Adaptation, Parenting
Ever have one of those times when you walked into a store and got more than you bargained for? It happened again yesterday, where we bought some gifts in a local shop, and they threw in some extras—lagniappe, as the folks from Louisiana would say. It’s an expression...
Feb 28, 2024 | Children's Adaptation, Parenting
There are a few times in life when words cannot express the feelings and thoughts in our minds. It is as if there is a broken power line between our spirits and hearts and our minds. These moments came for us as we interacted with our sons during their adoption. While...
Jan 30, 2024 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
“Courage isn’t having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don’t have strength,” said Napolean Bonaparte. His willingness to lay everything on the line was admirable, even if the cause for which he fought was flawed. There are many illustrations...
Dec 30, 2023 | Challenges In Adoption, Children's Adaptation
Have you ever witnessed a game where two teams were evenly matched? You keep cheering for your team, hoping they will overcome the odds to win. We went through this many times with our sons playing soccer. The tying or winning goal determined their emotional outlook...
Nov 30, 2023 | Children's Adaptation, Parenting
Our house, like many in our part of the country, has a basement. This is a room below the main house that gives more floor space to the house. We do not live in the basement, but use it for other purposes (storage mainly). Exploring this subterranean space leads to a...
Oct 31, 2023 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
Cactus and scrub trees everywhere. One hundred ten degrees (43°C). Sudden thirst. These were the first things we sensed when we arrived in the Arizona desert. However, we noticed that people carried on normal activities despite heat and most insulated themselves with...
Sep 30, 2023 | Children's Adaptation, God's Adoption of His Children, Parenting
There is something about water—refreshing, cleansing, hydrating. Our bodies need it because most of our body weight is composed of water, both inside and outside of our cells. A spring rain clears the air, a shower cleanses our bodies and our minds, and a drink on a...
Aug 31, 2023 | Challenges In Adoption, Children's Adaptation, Parenting
We wanted an outlet for our sons, so we decided to enroll them in a YMCA spring soccer league. They were playing with boys their age, so most of the games were evenly matched in terms of skills and abilities. The coach rotated the players throughout the game, so every...
Jul 30, 2023 | God's Adoption of His Children
One of the most touching things I have ever done is witness the birth of a child. Nothing compares with this miracle. The beginning of a new life, with all of its potential, is awesome, as is the love of the mother for the infant. The first cries of the baby, in fact,...
Jun 29, 2023 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
It was the day for washing clothes, and I was looking forward to clean clothes, especially without the food stains I had spilled on myself. I put the clothes in the washing machine, added the soap, and (presto!) started the machine. The machine started to fill with...
May 30, 2023 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
When I was growing up, nothing seemed to come easy to me. I struggled to learn how to ride a bicycle, falling many times and getting many scrapes and cuts. I was not gifted athletically, and so I didn’t fit into many of the sports boys my age were playing. My father...
Apr 30, 2023 | God's Adoption of His Children
One of the mysteries I do not understand is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Clearly, this miracle demonstrated Jesus Christ’s power over death. However, I cannot grasp how that happened to a dead man. Meditating on the fact I was adopted by the Heavenly Father as...
Mar 31, 2023 | God's Adoption of His Children
Adoption (huiothesia, υἱοθεσία) is an important Pauline metaphor describing our connection with God the Father (as well as with the Son and the Holy Spirit) (Ephesians 1:5; Romans 8:23). Adoption shows the honor which has been bestowed by the Heavenly Father on those...
Feb 28, 2023 | Challenges In Adoption, God's Adoption of His Children, Parenting
I look outside. The sun is shining off the snow blanket that covers the ground. Not being a big fan of winter or cold weather, the picture does not seem idyllic to me. However, I realize that snow does do one thing well—it hides what lies beneath it. This is a...
Jan 31, 2023 | God's Adoption of His Children, Parenting
Adoption is a fictive way of creating family. We may want children as a hedge against our insecurity of our legacy and the later years of our life. But we also want children in our own image, partly because we think that we will understand them better as being...
Dec 31, 2022 | God's Adoption of His Children
Ephesians 1:5 says that the Father has chosen to adopt us. This is a great promise and encouragement. We are able to rejoice in the knowledge that we are truly His children. In adopting us, He bestows His honor upon us. In the Roman world, honor was a prized virtue....
Nov 30, 2022 | Parenting
It was a touching moment. Our last son decided to tie the knot. His fiancée is a fine woman, and we are happy to have her as an addition to our family, but it is a sign that both our sons and we are moving on. We thank the Lord for this evidence of maturity in their...
Oct 31, 2022 | Children's Adaptation, Parenting
“No!” both of our sons said emphatically, when we asked if they had taken the car keys and tried to move the car. We had settled down for Sunday afternoon nap, only to wake up and find that the car had been rammed into the neighbor’s fence and knocked down their gate....
Sep 30, 2022 | Challenges In Adoption, Children's Adaptation
I stood by a father who had lost his eight-year-old daughter to multiple burns, and we cried together. We also wept at the miscarriage of our grandchild. Perhaps the most difficult experience of any parent is the loss of a child. We all experience multiple losses in...
Aug 31, 2022 | Challenges In Adoption, Children's Adaptation
As I have traveled to different cultures, I have learned that people have different concepts of time. In the United States, time is very “by-the clock,” and we anticipate activities will have a a...
Jul 31, 2022 | Challenges In Adoption, Children's Adaptation, Parenting
We studied adoption prior to receiving our sons, and thought we were prepared for whatever was going to happen next. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Just when we thought we had figured them out, we discovered one more thing about their past that made...
Jun 30, 2022 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
We were cheering our favorite team as we all watched intently on television. Everyone wants to win the game or to have their favorite team win. Especially when it comes to the end of the game and the score is close. The sting of losing is more painful when you know...
May 31, 2022 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
It was a Saturday evening when I fell off the ladder and onto our concrete floor. My right foot was swollen like a balloon, and the pain was significant. My wife whisked me off to the emergency room,...
Apr 30, 2022 | Challenges In Adoption, Children's Adaptation
Volcanoes have been in the news recently, with more and more eruptions. We are tempted to ask why people choose to live so close to volcanoes, knowing of the possibility of having everything they own obliterated by an eruption (and possibly endangering or losing their...
Mar 31, 2022 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
Those in the northern part of the country are accustomed to getting plenty of snow in the winter. The snow, as it comes down, is pure and white. It appears as though it could not get any whiter. Then, as it mixes with salt and dirt, it first becomes dingy, and then...
Feb 27, 2022 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
Now is the time for spring. Over the winter, we experienced lots of snowfall, and the wind and the snowplows contributed to ever-increasing piles of snow. At some points in the winter, the snowdrifts become so tall they seem to hide the snowmen in the front yard! Once...
Jan 30, 2022 | Challenges In Adoption
On a chilly afternoon, we visited the gravesite of a friend who had taken her own life four years prior. A group grieved together about the life of one who had ended her life too early. Suicide is on the rise, and opinions differ about why this is so. But taking one’s...
Dec 30, 2021 | Children's Adaptation, Parenting
Another year and another holiday season are behind us. We ponder a new year and wonder what it holds, but do not pay as much attention to what has happened as we should. What things happened the past year that made us especially thankful? That is why milestones are so...
Nov 30, 2021 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
I have trouble staying awake in art galleries. My wife has taken me to several well-known ones, but not being an art lover means that these works of art (or occasionally history) are lost on me. I also find that skimming the photos of others on their cell phones not...
Oct 30, 2021 | God's Adoption of His Children, Parenting
It was a starry night when I went camping with my sons. They looked into the sky in awe of what they saw, and one asked, “How big is the universe?” “We don’t know,” I said, “but God is bigger still.” “Cool,” was all he could say. There was a silence that enveloped us...
Sep 30, 2021 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
As we pulled out of our driveway one morning, our lights again caught the stray deer in our neighborhood. We have caught this creature foraging for fruit, flowers, and about anything else that might seem tasty. I am not an expert on deer. I do not hunt them. Any time...
Aug 31, 2021 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
Followers of Jesus Christ want to know and to do His will. We struggled with this both before and after our adoption. Were we really able to carry out the mission of rearing our adopted sons? Many times, we wrestle with knowing what to do next because we are not...
Aug 1, 2021 | God's Adoption of His Children
We were in awe when we first set our eyes on our new grandson. He was perfect in every way. I paused to think about how our parents may have reacted when they first met our adopted sons. Unlike us, God has no grandchildren. For those of us who were reared in Christian...
Jun 29, 2021 | Challenges In Adoption, Children's Adaptation, Parenting
Pictures came across my computer screen of an Icelandic volcano erupting with streams of lava. Similar photographs were seen during an eruption of a volcano on Hawaii. These videos give a sense of both raw power and fear at the same time, with fire, molten rock, and...
May 30, 2021 | Parenting
There it sits, outside my front window. On summer days, our bird bath refreshes a squirrel, butterflies, and up to fourteen sparrows at a time. An occasional robin tries to crowd out the other birds who want to drink or splash around. Watching the birds interact...
Apr 29, 2021 | Challenges In Adoption
We breathed a sigh of relief when the adoption court proceeding was over. We were finally adoptive parents! We had the impression that once our sons were part of our family, the hard part was over. Actually, we discovered that this was only the beginning. It was to be...
Mar 30, 2021 | Children's Adaptation, Parenting
It was something we heard frequently from our adopted sons during the first year of their adoption. Whenever we corrected or disciplined them, they would respond to us with a sense of autonomy, “Well, we will just go back to the orphanage!” Never mind that the...
Feb 27, 2021 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
There was fear in my wife’s voice as I talked with her on the phone. “Our son just fell on the ice in the pond, and it looks as though he has broken his arm!” she exclaimed. The neighborhood boys had a...
Jan 29, 2021 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
I recently stayed with a lovely family who had lost a young child. She had died as a result of burns to her body from yanking a pot of boiling water off the stove, splashing it onto herself. The family was rightfully grieving her death and wondering what, if anything,...
Dec 30, 2020 | Challenges In Adoption, Children's Adaptation, Parenting
I look outside and I see snow covering everything. It covers the yard, the sidewalks, the driveway, and the street. It is our reminder that winter has come. Snow had been described as both pure and beautiful, but I sometimes wish there wasn’t so much of it. Thing is,...
Nov 30, 2020 | Challenges In Adoption, Parenting
This time of year, leaves flutter everywhere. You rake and rake and rake. It is hard to believe that it wasn’t that long ago that you rejoiced to see the new growth on the trees ushering in spring. Now, sadly, the leaves have fallen. These leaves represent, in so many...
Marcellus George and his loving wife are the adoptive parents of (now adult) twin sons. He is the author of numerous articles and devotions, has a Ph.D. in theology... Read More