Called to Love: An Adoption Podcast for Christian Parents
September 19, 2023
Reframing Your Mindset As A Christian Adoptive Parent: Establish Your Expectations
Today on the podcast we are continuing on with Reframing Your Mindset as a Christian Adoption parent…
Today’s topic is Establish Your Expectations. It is so easy to begin to craft our expectations for who our adopted child will be, how fast the process of completion will be and what family life will look like when your child comes home.
Without realizing it, many of the struggles adoptive parents face with their journey and with their child are the result of unrealized expectations that haven’t been met. So I want to speak into this today and offer perspective from both Scripture and personal experience. I have had a lot of “aha moments” since our daughter joined our family and one of the biggest aha moments I have experienced had everything to do with my expectations and my response to…well, how nothing happened as I planned.
It's not too late to grab free download I have created to walk you through this series. Use it to refer back to the scriptures mentioned as well as journal and prayer prompts shared at the end of today's episode.
Favorite Takeaways:
Adoption rarely turns out the way we expect.
The adoption journey is filled with messy circumstances, unpredictable timing, and constant detours. And once your child comes home, things rarely unfold the way you imagined.
The truth is, the expectations you set for your adoption journey will determine your mindset and how well you walk through it.
Expectations can be a slippery slope and cause well-intended parents to trip up and focus their time, effort and energy toward an ideal that is different from what God has planned.
Adoption is not about getting “a” child for your family, it is about walking a journey of obedience as God leads you to “the” child He has for your family.
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About Called to Love: An Adoption Podcast for Christian Parents
Whether you seek to add to your family through foster care, private domestic adoption or you are called to travel internationally, every adoption story is uniquely beautiful. Yet, each shares a common language of calling, loss, and hardship.
As Christian parents we have a deep desire to love and shepherd our children well, but it can be challenging to navigate loss, trauma and how to best love and guide our adopted children. One thing is for sure, adoption is more than a process, it is an invitation to go on a holy journey with the Lord and with your family. Like any journey, there will be valleys along with mountain tops and battles along with the beauty. The good news is, what the Lord calls you to, He will equip you for.
Wherever you are in your journey, Called to Love is here to bring you a weekly dose of encouragement from the practical, clinical, and Biblical perspective along with personal stories from adoptive parents, adult adoptees and advice from various experts to help your family thrive in your journey and continue to say “yes” to your own call to love.
About Somer Colbert
Somer Colbert is a writer, speaker and host of the Love Where You Are podcast. She is the Director of Adoption and Foster Care Ministry at Crosschurch and Connected Champion with the Arkansas Baptist Children and Family Ministries where she creates support, awareness and advocacy for families seeking to serve in the areas of adoption and foster care. She creates weekly podcast episodes and resources to equip and empower Christian families to identify their influence for the gospel in every season, live life on mission and share Jesus right where they are. Somer is passionate about equipping spiritually healthy families and seeing a movement of God's people step into confidence in their ability to change the world around them through the way they love!
She resides in Arkansas with her husband, three kids and three dogs. She's obsessed with British docudramas and cooking shows and can always be found with a cup of hot tea in hand. Her life has been forever changed by the love of Jesus, marriage to her favorite person, parenting her crazy crew and walking multiple adoption journeys.
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