Title: Disrupting Grace: A Story of Relinquishment and Healing
Author: Kristen Richburg
Publisher: VMI Publishers
About the Book: Often we hear stories of adoption and happy endings, but what about the adoptions that don't work out? What are families to do when despite all efforts, their child isn't thriving, and the rest of the family is coming apart at the seams? Isolated families are running out of hope, battling pain, experiencing grief and the loss of a dream. Kristen Richburg sadly admits the inability to meet the needs of her adopted daughter and how five years later she relinquished her parental rights of a child she had so hoped to love, nurture and cherish for life. What now?
Disrupting Grace describes Richburg's journey through mothering and relinquishing an adopted child, and how through that experience, her shallow and small understanding of grace was enlarged and forever changed. It is in heartbreak, that she learned about love, in loss, that she experienced spiritual gain, and in brokenness, that she was made whole.
My thoughts: This was a very sad story that had started out with such hope. From a mother's perspective, I know how easy it would be to blame myself for a child not thriving who has been placed in my care. How hard it must have been for the entire family to love this little girl even as she continued to push them away and do everything in her power to undermine their actions. This says a lot for the grace of God in this family's life. I can't remember if it was a friend or a therapist that told Kristen this - but it just made me stop and go - Wow - "The people who failed Emma live in Thailand. You've done nothing but love her and help her to heal." It made me think back over the entire story and see it in a different light. After much prayer, Kristen and her family relinquished Emma over to another family who did not have other children. You could hear the pain in that decision, even though the 5 years they had Emma were so difficult. They did it in the hopes that Emma would be in a better environment to suit her needs and that she would be able to thrive.
~I received a copy of this book for review from Bring It On Communications.~
Disrupting Grace
Publisher/Publication Date: VMI Publishers, Feb 2010
ISBN: 978-1-935265-04-7
136 pages
