We are half way through Ornaments for Adoption and I am pleased to announce that $186 has been raised for the Brock's adoption! We are far from being finished, though. There is still plenty of time for you to order your own ornament. I hope that after you read Kristen's story you will visit the Ornaments for Adoption page to learn more.
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Kristen is a member of the church where Lee and I attend and where Lee is the youth pastor. I hope that her story will bless you as much as it blessed me.
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Hello, my name is Kristen. I am proud to say that adoption is very
near and dear to my heart! I have had the pleasure of experiencing all
of the sides of adoption. Most people don't realize how much adoption is
truly a gift from God for all that are involved.
My adoption story started when I was 16 months old. After being
placed for adoption at around the age of 12 months, I lived with a
foster family temporarily, and then later I shortly lived in an
orphanage. I was blessed by God to have an amazing Christian family to
adopt me. They had already adopted a son 2 years previous to myself, so I
immediately adored my BIG brother. To his annoyance, I followed him
everywhere that he went! At the time, I had no idea how blessed I really
was to have the gift from God to have such a loving family. I was
taught to know God and to always rely on God and His will for our lives.
My mother was a stay at home Mom until it was time for me to go to
school and at that time she went back to work as a teacher. Of course,
it wasn't much longer she worked her way to be able to teach at the
elementary school that I attended. For a couple of years she was even my
Extension Center teacher. The years went by and I lived a pretty simple
yet loving life. I was blessed with not only an amazing set of parents
and big brother, but with one of the most caring and fun extended
families. I don't think there was ever a weekend that I didn't either
have a cousin staying with me, or either I stayed with a cousin. Now
that I am older I now realize how truly blessed I was and still am to
have such a close family. And to top it all off, they were all God's
children and very involved in church.
I have to say that I was a pretty good kid...until I hit the
teenage years. I soon started to rebel against my parents and of course
EVERYTHING that they said was wrong. I then went off to East Carolina
University and only made it through a semester and a half after
partaking in too many "extra curricular" activities. I cannot say that
this is anything that I am proud of, but it is what has made me who I am
today, and what has given me the testimony that I have.
Soon after leaving college and returning back to my hometown, I
became pregnant at the age of 19 years old. I have to say that I was
scared to death to tell my parents but I knew from the beginning the
plans that God had for this child that I was carrying....He wanted me to
place the child for adoption. As I said, there are not many people that
truly understand the gift of adoption, but I was one that did, and I knew
that there was a family somewhere out there that would be able to
provide this child with a much better life than I would be able to. Yes I
could have done it with my parents help of course....but, that wasn't
God's plan...and I knew it! Not one time did I doubt God's plan for this
child. The birth father also agreed with this plan, so we
met with some counselors at Bethany Christian Services in Raleigh. I at
least knew that if I was going to place my child for adoption, I wanted
to be guaranteed that the child would be placed with a Christian family.
After several counseling sessions, our case worker had the birth father and I view some profile booklets of families that were wanting to adopt. They placed us in separate
rooms and had us go through hundreds and hundreds of profiles, and
they asked us to write down our top 3 picks in order from 1st through
the 3rd, and we would go through those 6 and discuss the pros and cons
together. This was when we got the 1st bit of confirmation from God that
it was indeed his plan for this child. When we came together with our
list, amazingly out of the hundreds of profiles that we had been
through....both of our 1st picks were the exact same family. Talking
about a "WOW" moment with chill bumps...that was definitely one! Obviously
there was no discussion that was needed of the additional picks that we
had because it was obvious that God was in that room and had His
gracious hand on it all!
After 37 hours of painful labor on October the 29th, 1998, God
brought the most precious baby girl into this world and placed her in my
arms. Oh what love I immediately felt for this child, and I was very
excited to be allowed to spend the next few days with her. But, oh how I
knew that her new family was going to be so excited to hear of her
arrival! While in the hospital we all took many pictures and held her
and allowed only close family and friends to come visit and have this
once in a lifetime opportunity to hold her in their arms. I sit here and
cry as I type this because it was such a blessed time of excitement for
us, for her, and for her adoptive family..God is good! While in the
hospital we even had a dedication service in the small chapel of the
hospital and again, only had immediate family of myself and the birth father
to attend, along with my pastor, his wife, and our caseworker from
Bethany Christian Services. This is when we yet again, got our 2nd bit
of confirmation from God that it was ALL part of HIS plan. You see, when
a child is born, they have to have a name at all times, so we were able
to name her, even though we knew that her adoptive family would also
have her name changed as soon as she was legally adopted into their
family. We had chose the name Keeley Grace. We chose the middle name
Grace because we truly knew that she was a gift from God. During the
dedication service our caseworker had gotten permission from the
adoptive family to share with us that, without them having any knowledge
of what we had named her, they also had given her the middle name
Grace. To me...that was God, God, God!!!
As
hard as this decision may have been, God never allowed me to doubt for 1
minute that He had His heavenly arms wrapped around me, and this all
was His plan. He knew that it would take these little bits of
confirmation for me to see His hand on it all! I won't say that this
story was all smiles and giggles, because there were many tears shed at
the hospital and afterward, but to me those were happy tears. Tears that
washed away all the fears that I had that she truly was with a family
that would be able to provide her with a life that I would never have
been able to give her.
Could I give her that lifestyle now...14 years later...absolutely I can..but that wasn't God's plan.
Since all of this has happened God has allowed my "tests" to become my
"testimony". He has brought many young pregnant girls into my life that
I was able to share with them my story of adoption, not to convince
them that it is what they should do, but to share with them my
experience and God has brought me through it. And I thank God daily for
these tests and trials that he has allowed me to live through and
experience, because, they are what made me who I am today.
After going through her adoption I soon because curious about the
circumstances of my own adoption, so I started searching. Soon after I
started seaching online, I was one of the lucky few to actually find my
birth parents. You see, my birth mother had also been looking for me.
Soon after talking to her on the phone a couple of times, we arranged to
meet face to face. When I arrived to meet her, she also surprised me by
having my birthfather to come and meet me also. I had a lot of
questions answered and I felt like a small bit of a void that I had felt
was filled. Unfortunately about a year after meeting my birthmother,
she passed away. You see, I believe that God allowed me to be 1 of the
fortunate few to find and be reunited with my birth parents because it
truly made me appreciate the lifestyle that I had been blessed with.
With no disrespect at all towards my birth parents, they both had lived a
life full of drugs. Even at this point 25 years later, they were still
doing drugs. My birth mother had been in and out of a host home that
helped to give her a place to stay and to stay sober, but she
occationally would leave and go on a binge for a week or so and then
come back and get clean again. Only a year after we were reunited when
she went on a binge she never was the same. She was beat up by what we
are assuming was some drug deal gone bad and was hit so hard she had a
concussion that caused her to have bleeding of the brain, and pretty
much she never woke up after she slipped into a coma. I thank God for
the 1 year that He blessed me with to have her to answer the many
questions that I had all of my life as for the circumstances of my
adoption. I still have some occational contact with my birth father, but
not very often because I do not approve of the lifestyle that he has
chosen to live. I do not care to expose myself to it, nor my family. I
knew after meeting them, that God also had His heavenly hands on my life
and knew that I was exactly where HE intended for me to be. I am proof
that adoption is a gift. I was given a gift of a life that I would never
have had, had it not been for adoption. I am also proof of God's grace!
I can now tell you, that I am now happily married with a beautiful 6
year old son. There has not been a day that I have not thought about
"Grace" but every time I think of her I take it as God's
"cue" to pray for her! There have many other times that God has given me
other bits of confirmation, but there are too many to list. I will once
again say that I would have never made it through these past 14 years
without God's strength and Grace, carrying me along the way. If anyone
has any questions or would like to talk with me sometime if you are
contemplating adoption, I am happy to talk with you or pray with you,
that you also would follow God's plan for your decision. I can always
be reached via email at kgb41178@yahoo.com
God Bless,
Kristen Bowes Horner
