Some unprocessed thoughts from the weekend

Craig and I spent this past weekend at Together For Adoption - a national adoption conference that was created to equip and encourage families who are invested in orphan care.  We're still VERY much processing the weekend.  I keep thinking I'm going to wait and blog about the weekend once I've had a chance to internalize and process everything.  But that doesn't seem very fair to you.  So I'm going to share the big points of the weekend with you.  You can expect more formal posts on some topics in the near future, but for now you can settle for my raw, emotional, unedited thoughts on the weekend.

• The biggest "wow factor" for Craig and I this weekend was to be totally and complete surrounded by like minded people.  Not once did we have to answer the question "why?" when we shared our little adoption story.  To stand in a crowd of 400+ people and worship with them, knowing that the tears on our faces were all related was a powerful moment.  
• We were pounded over the head with the theology of adoption.  When you truly understand how God adopted us as His children (in our most sinful, unlovable state), you then begin to realize the beauty of adoption.  The importance of adoption.  For some kids, their physical adoption is the ONE thing that helps them understand and accept salvation.  How big is that?!  
• We learned how to share Miah's adoption story with her from the time she comes home, and add to it throughout her life so that she is secure about her place in our family.  This will be an entire post in itself some day as her story will require us to go about this a little differently.
• We also learned how to talk to Nathan and Alex about adoption in general.  Friends.  Do everything you can to normalize foster care and adoption to your kids.  You don't want your kid to be the one who makes an adopted child feel uncomfortable about how different they look from their family.  And I don't want to be the one to explain adoption to your child.  That's your job.  This is also an amazing way to develop compassion and kindness in our kids.  And it's so easy!
• For the sake of transparency I will say I had some beef with this conference.  From what we could tell, there was ONE session about adopting special needs.  Maybe two (I wasn't sure from the title of one of them.)  Two sessions.  Out of over 100 sessions.  Friends.  Special needs adoption is hard.  Harder than adopting a healthy child.  Just like parenting a special needs child is a lot harder in some ways than parenting a healthy child.  Parents of adopted special needs children need more support than the average family.  I didn't feel like that support this weekend was as strong as it could be.  But I totally understand that.  The church is still very much unaware of special needs adoption.  It's our job to raise that awareness.  
• That said, the special needs session we sat in this weekend rejuvenated, encouraged, and motivated us to continue our adoption of Miah and to continue sharing her story with everyone.  Sharing that we are adopting a special needs child is hard.  You get weird looks.  You get weird comments.  But those looks and comments won't change unless people get used to the idea of special needs adoption.  And that can't happen unless we share.  I want to let you all know that I will do my best to be transparent with you throughout our adoption and parenting of Miah.  For those of you who might one day consider adopting special needs, you deserve the truth.  We will give that to you as best we can without sacrificing Miah's privacy.  
• We were also blessed with a surprise chance to catch up with some of our favorite people.  Josh and Crystal Frazier - we love you guys!  Thanks for sharing your afternoon with us.  :)