The Schumaker Family has a children's book series that we hold very dear to our hearts. It is what I call the "God Gave Us" series that is written by Lisa Tawn Bergren. God Gave Us You was our first book. We bought it for Zachary who was only 2 at the time and very excited to have Mommy carrying baby #2 in my belly! Well, Zachary went to all my doctor appointments with me and loved to listen to the baby's heartbeat every time. It was magical for him! The first time we read the book he was fascinated with a page that shows the mommy bear being at the doctor's office with the doctor using a stethescope to listen to the baby's heartbeat. At that moment, Zach decided this was his FAVORITE book EVER!!! We literally read it every single day for almost a full year (even after Landon was born) and often it was more than once a day!!! To this day it is still a top 10 choice for bedtime stories by both the boys and I just have to smile at the sort of crumpled and frayed condition of the book that tells an obvious story of being very well loved and cherished!
That book became such a springboard for wonderful conversations about faith, love, and tenderness. Every night before bed I always say "I'm so glad God gave me you" to both of my boys and when we pray together I thank Jesus out loud for giving me Zachary and Landon. They in turn always thank our Heavenly Father for giving them their mommy and daddy and each other.
Since then we have collected the entire series (God Gave Us You, God Gave Us Two, God Gave Us Heaven, God Gave Us Christmas, God Gave Us Love, and God Found Us You), but best of all.....Lisa wrote God Found Us You! Okay, my fellow adoption journiers (is that a word?)....you will LOVE THIS BOOK! It is such a sweet story about adoption.We were all soooooo excited and we bought it as soon as we could get our hands on it....and we loved it!! I just know that this story will be a huge blessing in Selah's life and our family's life, just as the first one was! I am so excited for the day that I can sit down in our rocking chair with her on my lap and read her that story and share with her the love that comes from our Heavenly Father and then begin to build her trust in our love. I dream of the day she truly knows that we are so thankful that God found her just for us and can hear me thank the Lord for letting me be her mommy! (If you could only see the tears in my eyes right now! :-)
Another neat part to this story is that one night I found myself on Lisa's website because she has writtent the latest sequel called God Gave Us Love. I felt drawn to finding out more about her and was pleasantly surprised to find out that she writes adult Christian fiction as well! I can't wait to read oneof those! But....I sent her an email late that night just because I wanted to share with her how thankful I was that she had allowed God to use her to bless our family and I am sure many other families as well. I actually never really expected to hear anything back and if I did I thought it would be some kind of automated response. But, early the next morning I had a very personal email from her that started a few emails back and forth! Can I just tell you that I just KNOW that she is one special lady and that her writing comes straight from a heart that loves the Lord and wants to share that Love with the world!!! Soooooo..........my conclusion is........
You GOTTA get the books!
Her website is www.lisatawnbergren.com/home.html and you can buy the books almost anywhere, but I am always shopping on www.amazon.com and www.cbd.com . AND if you do like the adoption story called God Found Us You, make sure to leave a review on the websites because publishers need to know that there is a good market for adoption themed children's books.
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