Our Happily Ever Aftermath

https://authory.com/ChristinaGochnauer/If-I-Could-Start-Over-With-Adoption-af0551a6aefe04cc68b9966db511c6141

I'm not sure if you've noticed it. In the past few years, there is a surge of women between the ages of 30 and 40 walking away from Christianity. Seemingly legions of religious leaders are suddenly struck down from their pedestals and outed as rapists, molesters, abusers, and liars. Now people are finding the very foundations on which they rested their faith crumbling to dust.  After decades of being admonished to not build our faiths on the sand, but on solid rock, we are collectively looking around in disbelief. Horrified we are just now realizing the rock we chose was fragile soapstone. The second a crack developed the whole thing fell into a pile of debris.  Now, traumatized, horrified, and in disbelief, we are having to, as an entire generation, sift through the mess and find the pieces that remain intact.  Some of us are finding that nothing at all is left worth saving. They are using heavy equipment to move away the detritus of their past. Now the place their faith resid

                              Today marks 5 years since our first 3 kids were adopted. A teeny baby girl and two older but small boys became officially ours. Since then we added two more little girls to our family. Adoption days are complicated anyway without our added family trauma. In the past, we have had a special meal or gotten ice cream.  This time last year our oldest wasn't with us. He had been in residential treatment for a while by then but I was still so deep in my grief over what he had done, and the fallout from it, the adoption anniversary didn't feel worse than all of the other days. Now that we all have truly begun to heal in earnest, today feels like a punch in the stomach. I find myself reliving the moment I found out my oldest son had broken our family. Facebook shows memories of 5 years ago, our beautiful, happy, smiling family.  Instead of being thankful I have children I love living under my roof, I'm distracted.  The one child that is not, and never a

I'm writing a book. Or more accurately I have written a book and am trying to get it published. I have learned through some training I'm doing that a big part of becoming a published non-fiction author is having a following on my platform.  I didn't even know I needed a platform when I started writing so I'm a bit behind.  I am asking that if you have any interest at all in our journey that you do four things for me , pretty please.  1. Subscribe to my email list to receive weekly email updates and funny stories not shared on social media  sign up here 2. Share the link with friends in your circle.  3. Add me on Twitter and Instagram and encourage your friends to do so as well.  https://twitter.com/Go123Mommy Insta: Mommygo123  4. Pray for me as I pursue a literary agent and  publisher  Thank you for your encouragement and participation in our lives.  ❤ Chrissy 

If  there was a song dedicated the end of myself reliance, to its being lit on a funeral pyre as it floated out to sea, it would  start with a low whispered sticato of no no no no no no. The  crescendo would lift into a loud,  long high pitched wail and fade eventually into soft gutteral sobs of acceptance.  I have always been a pull yourself up by your bootstraps person. Not so much out of choice but of necessity.  I would encourage anyone who listened to get the help they needed while silently, slowly bleeding to death. All of that started to change when we first became foster parents. Being an island just wasn't an option.  Too many people routinely in and out of our lives to do it on my own.  The day, however that I finally broke, that my stubborn will and stubborn heart finally shattered was the day I found out my worst fears had been made real.  My worst case scenario was one of my children being molested. Not only had that happened but the perpetrator was a son I

I get it. It's a weird, kind of long name, and also apparently the name of an episode of a TV show I don't watch. Regardless,  it fits. The aftermath is the part after the storm.  Where you survey the damage and assess what to do next. You are joyful to have survived and frightened about what you may find.  In 2008 Tim and I spent a few months in Mississippi doing post-hurricane Katrina clean up. I remember hearing a story about a house that got absolutely destroyed by the storm surge and hurricane winds. When people were cleaning up they found one perfect China teacup that looked like it had been gently picked up and deposited on  a pile of rubbish. They continued to find odd things. Pictures undamaged in one place but utterly ruined in another. It was all the same storm but it affected every home and every person in different ways.  Adoption is a lot like that. A family had to be broken for my children to be mine.  Their lives were turmoil and pain intersp