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    God, Are You Nice or Mean?: Trusting God … After the Orphanage
    God, Are You Nice or Mean?: Trusting God … After the Orphanage
    God, Are You Nice or Mean?: Trusting God … After the Orphanage
    Ebook96 pages2 hours

    God, Are You Nice or Mean?: Trusting God … After the Orphanage

    By Debra Delulio Jones, MEd

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    About this ebook

    Through a journey of joys, tears, struggle, and hopelessness, Debra Delulio Jones found herself shaking her fist in the air and screaming, God, are you nice or mean?

    Debra and her husband, Alan, believed they were following Gods will when they adopted Dane from an orphanage in Romania in 1991. Scars of communism left their mark on this infant, and Debra searched for many years for answers for her troubled son. She found some answers, but what she didnt expect to find was that her relationship with God was much like that of an orphaned child who didnt really trust her adopted heavenly father.

    Dane didnt know how to trust the love of his parents due to his early abandonment and attachment issues. In his confusion he would say, Mommy, are you nice or mean? As she learned ways to connect to her son, Debra realized a twenty year course in clinging to God paralleled her parenting journey. She came to understand that her doubts about God were rooted in fear and pain, just like her sons maladaptive behaviors.

    As an adoptive mother in the role of healing parent, she gained insight into knowing God as her healer through lessons she learned in her relationship with Dane. In her transparent and humorous way, Debra shares how she went from living as a spiritual orphan to a trusting daughter in her daily walk with God.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWestBow Press
    Release dateMay 18, 2012
    ISBN9781449748241
    God, Are You Nice or Mean?: Trusting God … After the Orphanage
    Author

    Debra Delulio Jones, MEd

    Debra Delulio Jones is a wife, mother, educator, writer, and speaker. Her work includes over twenty years of experience with special needs children. She has a Master of Education degree from Texas Womans University. For years, she felt overwhelmed and ill-equipped to manage the maladaptive and disruptive behavior of her son, Dane. Through a rich partnership with researchers at the TCU Institute of Child Development, Debra and her family have overcome tremendous obstacles. Visit her website at www.parentingadopteescantrust.com. Debra lives with her husband, Alan, in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. She enjoys traveling, reading, and spending time with her family.

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      Book preview

      God, Are You Nice or Mean? - Debra Delulio Jones, MEd

      Copyright © 2012 Debra Delulio Jones, M Ed

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New American Standard Bible. NASB. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation, a corporation not for profit, La Habra, California. All rights reserved. Used by permission of The Lockman Foundation.

      WestBow Press

      A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.westbowpress.com

      1 (866) 928-1240

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

      and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978−1−4497−4825−8 (sc)

      ISBN: 978−1−4497−4824−1 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2012906789

      WestBow Press rev. date: 3/24/2016

      Contents

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      Chapter 1 Another Baby

      Chapter 2 Headed to Romania

      Chapter 3 Welcome Home

      Chapter 4 A Block of Hope

      Chapter 5 Hope at Hope Connection

      Chapter 6 The Breaking Point

      Chapter 7 Intervention at Home

      Chapter 8 Hope, Sunshine, Rainbows

      Chapter 9 Brighter Days

      Chapter 10 Trusting My Abba Father

      Chapter 11 Today in Our Journey

      Resources

      To adoptive moms and dads,

      May your journeys with your

      forever families be blessed

      beyond measure.

      Acknowledgments

      T hank you to my husband, Alan, whose love and dedication are unending. I appreciate the many hours that you flew solo while I labored over the laptop. Many thanks as well for your faithful prayers for me.

      A huge thank you also goes to Megan and Dane for your willingness to share the painful moments of your personal journeys so that other families may be helped. You are both so courageous, and I am so glad you are mine.

      Thanks to Mom and Dad and my brother, Ronny, because you are proud of me no matter what I set out to do.

      Special thanks to my friends at The TCU Institute of Child Development. I shudder to think what this journey may have been like were it not for you and your dedication to serving adoptive and foster families. I am forever grateful that you were the lives God used to be our rescue team. Thank you for your continued hard work and commitment to kids from hard places.

      Finally, to my friends who prayed, brainstormed, and read manuscripts to keep me on track, I thank you. I am so blessed to have you in my life.

      Introduction

      "Truly I tell you, unless you are converted and become like children,

      you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3

      G od, are you nice or mean? Sounds like something a small child would say, doesn’t it? Well, that’s exactly how I felt ten years ago—like a small child—scared, inadequate, without hope, and wanting a parent to hold me in his arms. My earthly parents had comforted me plenty of times during our difficult parenting journey with our troubled son whom we adopted from Romania, but what I needed was divine intervention. I needed to know if the God I’d put my faith in was going to come through in my darkest hour. Like a child, I screamed at him asking if he was nice or mean, but I was really asking, God, can I trust you?

      In case you want to send me an email chastising me for being irreverent with this book title, please understand that I am well aware of the God−fearing verses. I know he is the God of the universe, and he could squish me like a bug if he chose to. He is holy, all−powerful, all−knowing, and is sovereign. My heart was not intentionally disrespectful or dishonoring toward God in any way, but desperate for understanding. The only way I could come to him was in complete honesty and baring my soul like a wounded child. He already knew what I was feeling, and I figured he was big enough to handle my being furious with him.

      I was surrounded by loving friends at church, many with words of encouragement and hope. I was grateful for them and wouldn’t have made it without them, but at my lowest low, I didn’t need trite answers from church−goers, I needed my heavenly daddy. I needed to hear from him. I cried out to him in childlike faith, begging him to answer, and he did.

      Perhaps you are a parent on a difficult journey, and you grabbed this book because you have adopted a child with a background of abandonment, neglect, abuse, or trauma. Maybe your painful adoption journey has caused you to question whether you misunderstood what you once believed was a call of God on your life to complete your family through the gift of adoption. Your hard times have possibly caused you to question the goodness of a God who would allow thousands of babies to be abandoned in deplorable conditions or who allows small children to become victims of horrendous sexual and physical abuse.

      I don’t pretend to have all the answers to the questions men and women have struggled with for centuries regarding human suffering and a loving God. I do know this, my God is faithful. My God hears when we cry out to him. And my God will work all things for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

      Whether you are a struggling parent or feel like a spiritual orphan because of your own painful life experiences that you cannot make sense of, I invite you to take a journey with me to a story of restoration. It is my story, but it is also my husband Alan’s story; my daughter Megan’s story; and my son Dane’s story. I ask that you handle it with care, for these are the dearest people in my life.

      Chapter 1

      Another Baby

      T he doctor’s words haunted me. And by the way, don’t plan on having any more children. I burst into tears as he nonchalantly turned to leave my hospital room.

      At that time I was a twenty−seven−year−old, high−

      energy mother who had recently resigned my special education position to be a full−time mommy. My baby girl, Megan, had just turned one year old, and I was thrilled to be home with her. I was working part−time in direct sales and had some ambitious personal goals in mind.

      Needless to say, those goals didn’t include double vision and complete paralysis on the right side of my body. I was so shocked that I was in the hospital at all, and even more shocked to learn I had multiple sclerosis. My husband, Alan, tried to be strong for both of us, but I knew he was devastated as well. Seeing his strong−willed, fun−loving, determined wife in such a weakened state was foreign to him. The final blow of being told that I wouldn’t be able to have more children

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