I want to introduce you to Christine Lindsay and her new book Finding Sarah Finding Me. Her story about giving up her daughter for adoption and wanting to be reconnected touches that place in us where we’ve not understood God’s ways. Now here is Christine.
At times, I’ve curled my fist and shook it under the very nose of my creator, and accused Him of stealing my child.
As an unmarried, pregnant, 20-year-old, I gave up my baby to a closed adoption. At least the Christian agency assured me that this childless couple would raise my child to love the Lord Jesus Christ.
For the next 20 years, while I married a sweet man and we had 3 children of our own, I prayed for the day Sarah would become an adult, and she and I would have our Reunion. Though I was happily married and adored my kids, the hunger to see my birth-daughter overtook all my thinking, day and night.
My dream spun in front of me like a glass ornament. Sarah and her parents, and my family, would hug, and laugh, and cry. Of course the reunion would include Sarah’s parents. I’d prayed for them since the moment I chose them from that anonymous portfolio. It was only a matter of time for us all to meet. It wasn’t that I wanted to be Sarah’s mom. Her adoptive mom was her real mom. I wanted something else; a birth-mother relationship with Sarah—whatever that was.
I was so sure that because Sarah’s adoptive parents and I were Christians that our reunion would be easy. But people are made up of such different emotional stuff. We are fragile, complex.
Excerpt from Finding Sarah Finding Me, (After the reunion).
All these years, have I truly understood the magnitude of my loss, understood what I did in giving up my child?
My kids hear me sobbing, the three of them stay in the living room out of the maelstrom of my unleashed emotions. David pulls me into the kitchen and holds me close. I’ve kept a lock on my disappointment all day, having hoped for so much more closeness than Sarah has been able to offer. Now it unleashes, a wounded tiger uncaged.
“I’ve prayed for twenty years,” I yell at David as I pull away, “prayed for twenty years that God would prepare their hearts so that no one would feel hurt. And this is the best he could do! This… this is the biggest disappointment of my life!” I cry out, “and God knows I’ve had enough of them.”
David takes hold of me again. I resist, but he holds tight while my mind fights to sift through the avalanche of my emotions. I want to get to know my beautiful birth daughter, but my dream lies at my feet like shattered glass. She is my daughter, but not my daughter. I’m not a part of her family, nor have Sarah or her parents ever considered such a thing.
Her mom and dad don’t even want to meet me.
Poor Sarah’s parents were devastated that I wanted a relationship with their daughter. Poor me was crushed by their rejection, after I’d given them my baby. And poor Sarah tried to keep everyone happy.
I began to believe that God had hoodwinked me into giving up my baby to someone more worthy than me. And if I wasn’t good enough to raise Sarah, then God help the poor children in my care. That was the beginning of my emotional breakdown.
In searching for my birth-daughter, I lost myself for a while, but gradually I surrendered my heartache to God. After some years, Sarah and I developed a warm relationship. The Lord used those years though, to repaint the pale picture I had of Him. He used the picture of myself, a crushed and bruised birth-mother who could never let go of the love she had for her firstborn, even if her firstborn could never love her.
God is not cruel. He used my dark journey to make me into a mother, that these days, brings joy to all her children, including her birth-daughter, and nowadays, Sarah’s children too.
BOOK DESCRIPTION for Finding Sarah Finding Me:
Sometimes it is only through giving up our hearts that we learn to trust the Lord.
Adoption. It’s something that touches one in three people today, a word that will conjure different emotions in those people touched by it. A word that might represent the greatest hope…the greatest question…the greatest sacrifice. But most of all, it’s a word that represents God’s immense love for his people.
Join birth mother Christine Lindsay as she shares the heartaches, hopes, and epiphanies of her journey to reunion with the daughter she gave up…and to understanding her true identity in Christ along the way.
Through her story and glimpses into the lives of other families in the adoption triad, readers will see the beauty of our broken families, broken hearts, and broken dreams when we entrust them to our loving God.
Read for FREE Chapter One of Finding Sarah Finding Me by clicking HERE
PURCHASE LINKS FOR FINDING SARAH FINDING ME:
Amazon link for (Paperback and Ebook)
ABOUT CHRISTINE LINDSAY
Christine Lindsay is the author of multi-award-winning Christian fiction, and now non-fiction. Readers describe Christine’s fiction as gritty yet tender, realistic yet larger than life, with detail that collides into the heart of psychological and relationship drama. A busy writer and speaker, Christine and her husband live on the west coast of Canada.
www.ChristineLindsay.org, Twitter, Facebook
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* You can help a hero on the home front with Buy One, Gift One until January 10th.
Linking with: #Teaching What Is Good,
I have read this book and it is amazing. Thank you for sharing information about the book and about Christine.
Melissa, thanks for letting us know. I look forward to reading it.
Dear Melissa, thank you so much for those kind words about Finding Sarah Finding Me. At the moment I’m on my way out the door to a speaking engagement to share that story. Hugs and blessings to you. It is my prayer this story will draw people towards the Father.
That is such a powerful and deeply emotional story. Beautifully shared and as a mom and one who lost 2 babies (one ectopic pregnancy and one miscarriage) I can to some degree relate.
Ann, I’m sure you can. Thank you, my friend. Loss touches something very deep in us.
Dear Ann, we can lose babies in so many different ways. My heart goes out to you. I love the fact that in Finding Sarah Finding Me that my birth-daughter’s adoptive mom shares her heartache of infertility, and so does my birth-daughter Sarah who suffered 8 miscarriages. I hope that you may get to read the book at some time, and be encouraged. God sure holds our broken hearts close to His in the loss of our children. Blessings and hugs.
Thank you Debbie for having me as a guest. It’s a real joy to make new friends. Blessings and hugs.
Thank you, Christine for sharing your journey through loss to joy with us.
Hey Debbie, thanks so much for sharing Christine’s story here with us. Thanks also to Christine for sharing her story! I can relate in some ways to many types of relationships–hoping that they would be effortless and fulfilling because I’ve prayed for them or acted in kind and friendly ways. We so often want the love we’ve invested and given to be well-received. But it seems as if Christine’s efforts bore out in time with her biological daughter. That too is a lesson–to persevere in all of our relationships, no matter how hard that may be.
I’d love to have you link this up at the From Messes to Messages linkup, Debbie!
Beth, It is so good to hear from you. I’ve been out of town and unable to connect the last few days. I’ll add it tonight.