Julie Holmquist - A Call to Love: Preparing Your Heart and Soul for Adoption

Julie has beautifully captured the spiritual and emotional ups and downs of the adoption journey. I encourage all prospective adoptive parents, and those in the midst of their journey of parenting kids from hard places, to read this book. Youll be encouraged and refreshed as you press on in your calling.

KELLY ROSATI

Vice President of Community Outreach, Focus on the Family

Julies book is a great guide for future adoptive parents as well as a guide for parents who are questioning their motivations for adopting. The book makes us aware that adoptive families are the true heroes for orphaned and vulnerable children.

BILL BLACQUIERE

President and CEO, Bethany Christian Services

I loved A Call to Love: Its the book I always planned to write one day! Its biblical, educational, practical, and comprehensive. There is so much in here that captures my own experiences as the parent of a child adopted from foster careand what so many of my former clients experienced when I was a social workeras well as what I know remains true today as I engage in domestic and international advocacy for children.

CHUCK JOHNSON

President and CEO, National Council For Adoption

A Call to Love: Preparing Your Heart and Soul for Adoption

2018 by Julie Holmquist. All rights reserved.

A Focus on the Family book published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188

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ISBN 978-1-68428-048-3 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-68428-049-0 (Kindle); ISBN 978-1-68428-047-6 (Apple)

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To my children Anna, Ben, and Masha

Im so glad God gave me the privilege of being your mother!

Being part of your lives is a precious gift, and I cant imagine life without you.

And in honor of my son Daniel Timothy Holmquist

(Born Anatoliy Kozhevnikov in Novozybkov, Bryansk, Russia)

No two adoptions are quite alike, each with all the distinctive curves and contours of a fingerprint. But almost every adoptive parent I know shares similar words about the journey: Some of the hardest things Ive experienced. The most meaningful, too. Isnt that true of nearly all the best things this side of heaven?

The truth is, if weve never uttered words like that, we probably wont have much to look back on in the end. But when theyre threaded deep into the cloth of our days and years, those words yield a life well worth living.

So adoption has everything to do with what we desire most.

If things like comfort, convenience, and smooth sailing top our wish lists, well likely want to steer clear of adoption (and perhaps of just about any worthwhile endeavor).

But if we value other things even morethings like the rough-and-tumble of life in a family... the way parenthood can double the capacity of our hearts and then double it again... the chance to be menders in a torn world... moments in which our lives humbly reflect the way God first loved usthen adopting may very well be one of the best and most significant decisions we ever make.

I remember vividly the days when I first began to ponder that choice. My wife was ready for the adventure, already a couple of steps ahead. But in my head, all the excitement and hesitations were having a massive tug-of-war.

It made for quite a ruckus inside. And amidst it all came the weight of countless questions starting with How: How do we even begin weighing all the options and counting the costs? How can we prepare for a journey that is certain to stretch us in every way, from our finances to our marriage? How do we answer questions we dont even know to ask?

Thats where this book comes in. A Call to Love is the kind of guide I wish Id had when we started grappling with these questions and many others. I trust I wouldnt have decided differently, but it all would have been with a much fuller sense of what I was embracing... and how to do so wisely and well.

Yes, Im one of the many whove said these words, at times with knitted brow and set jaw, more often with a grin and laughter in my eyes: Some of the hardest things Ive experienced. The most meaningful, too.

I hope these realities will prove true for you as well, because they almost always come together. And when you really think about itespecially in moments when you ponder what kind of life you want to look back on from the endisnt that what you want too?

Jedd Medefind

PRESIDENT, CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE FOR ORPHANS