As I was picking up the kids from school today another kid from the back of the line piped up and said to me, “you adopted these kids?”.  For me these conversations are much easier with kids than adults, and so without even skipping a beat, I looked up and told him that yes in fact I had adopted them.

As we were putting on backpacks, he still stared us down as if he was still not sure about my answer and needed to know more information.  I love kids because they just need to know, and they will ask.  They don't know that they shouldn't ask.  They just ask.  He looked at me and then said, “but which ones are you real kids?” and once again, without skipping a beat I said, “they are all my real kids.”  I smiled at him and then looked at my kids and said “let's go home real kids”.

Later on that night I was tucking in Deacon and decided that I should bring this conversation up.  Deacon is always willing to talk about adoption stuff, but there are some times, when he might not know what to say, and I need to help him ask questions.  We went through the whole scenario from after school and I asked him if it bothered him.  He shook his head no.  I think asked if anyone ever asks about his adoption and he shook his head yes.

It was then that the questions started coming.  He asked me a hundred questions and I finally figured out that he was asking if he could ever be given back to his first mom.  I went over the way that adoption works and that he's an Ivey forever, and a judge said that and there is nothing else that can happen.

I also told him that our God is so big and amazing that he always knew that he would be in our family.  Deacon asked why his birth mom would have a baby if she wasn't ready to be a mom.  I told him that there are many things in our lives that happen and we may not have planned them, but they never surprise God.  God was never surprised that she was pregnant with him, because God always knew he would be born and we would be his parents.

God has big plans for Deacon and I'm beyond blessed that he chose me to be his mommy. What an honor and a joy it is for me.  If you have children via adoption and they aren't asking questions, they just might need the nudge from you.  Crawl up in their bed with them when you are tucking them in and start talking.  Assure them that they were never an accident or a mistake.   That God is way bigger than people's mistakes and that he planned for them to be born when they were born, created them in their mother's wombs, and knew about them before the foundations of the earth.

Photo by Whitney Runyon

{right now #7in7 is going on.  aaron started this a while back for songwriters to challenge themselves to write 7 new songs in 7 days.  one a day.  start from finish.  it might be good.  it might suck.  but it's done and it's a discipline.  fabs decided that she was going to challenge writers to this, so here's my day one for you.}