In Honor of Adoption Month: How We Got Here {The Hardings}
Jennifer James
When Kyle & I's life got turned upside some 7 1/2 years ago in a way we never imagined and we we welcomed 17 year old Dawn into our family, Aric & Glenna were there every crazy step of the way. And fittingly, we have had the privilege to walk their adoption journey with them. These guys are our best friends, so, naturally this story and what God has done in their family is especially dear to us. It's a good one! Love the bottom line that Aric says:
"We had no idea what God really had in store for us."
I think that probably stands to be true for all of us! Here is the Hardings' "How We Got Here" adoption story in the words of Aric:
Glenna and I were that couple that always said, “We believe God is going to bring a situation along that we will know we need to get involved” when it came to adoption. I think in the back of my mind I never thought that would happen.
We had just had our fourth child and found ourselves in the NICU of Texas Children’s Hospital watching him on an IV for about 10 days as they treated him for a kidney infection. Each morning would begin with the doctors making their rounds and each morning my wife Glenna and I would hear about this other little boy in the pod next to Jasper.
“There’s no mother…”
“CPS has been notified…”
“Premature by three months”
God began to stir something in Glenna and I separately and we both came to this place where we knew that God was calling us to get involved.
It was a little scary at first, but once we took that first step we were off and running. We slammed the licensing that should take months into weeks. We met some of the most amazing people in our pursuit of getting this little boy.
It seemed like one step forward and two steps back for a long time. The whole time we are praying that God would open the door for us to bring him home.
We had no idea what God really had in-store for us.
About Christmas time we finally found out that CPS had placed the little boy with some extended family, but God had used that little guy to push us off the ledge and get involved in orphan care.
Two weeks later on a Wednesday, we got a call about an emergency placement for a little one month old girl, named Aliza. We thought she’d be bunking with us for a few days, but those few days turned into the first year of her life. We absolutely fell in love with her.
That doesn’t end our story though. God had a harder but necessary road to take us down to paint the family portrait that he had in store for us.
We would end up losing her in a difficult court battle to some family on the other side of the country. We took the next 9 months to lick our wounds a bit, and then we (Glenna at first and then me) felt God calling us back into orphan care.
A year and three months after we had lost our little girl we received two little boys into our home, named Monroe and Judah. They were a blast. They were a breath of fresh air. They were our kids.
We headed down the road to getting them adopted which in the state of Texas is typically 6 months. We were able to adopt within 5 months and the week that we finalized our adoption on the boys we got a call from CPS that Aliza, our little girl, needed was being brought back to Texas and more importantly back to us.
We are only weeks away from finalizing our adoption with her.
When we first were sitting there in the NICU we could have never imagined the plan that God had for our family. So thankful we took that first step.
photo by: Stephanie Nyo
Aric is the worship pastor at Clear Creek Community Church, West campus and Glenna is a photographer and homeschool mom. If you are interested in learning more on the Hardings journey, you can check out these websites:
www.aricharding.wordpress.com
www.glennahardingphotography.com