Christine Rhyner Christine RhynerNo, I haven’t blogged in a couple of weeks. Right now I’m neck-deep in edits and re-writes for my book, “How Much Did You Pay for Her? How to Forgive Words that Hurt You and Your Adopted Kids,” soon to be published (well, within the year, I hope) by CLC Publications. I have about another week before the deadline to turn in a better, more comprehensive and lengthier manuscript.
It is exciting though right now one chapter in particular is giving me some trouble. Yet I soldier on because this is what I love to do. This is what “lights me up” as my husband says and because I am committed to seeing this project through.
It is for the love of my two internationally adopted children, to defend them, to share my testimony of a mighty God who provides for all of our needs and to potentially help others that I began this journey a couple of years ago.
It’s interesting to me that the idea for this book, which has remained largely what it originally took form as, just popped in my head on the drive home from a writer’s conference. Thank goodness my husband was doing the driving so that I could write down thoughts that were coming at a fast and furious pace.
It’s not that I didn’t struggle with sharing my stories of infertility and adoption for a long time before this book. I did, quite a bit. I thought of a memoir. “Nobody will read it,” I was told. “You aren’t a recognized person.” Someone suggested I write it as fiction. But it’s not fiction. My story is my own, personal, real life story. I didn’t want to water it down or fictionalize how my God actually worked in my life.
“How about a screenplay?” someone else offered. That just wasn’t my style. So eventually, in His timing God laid out the plan for a series of questions and comments posed to me or my children. And off we went.
At a time of year when we pause and consider just what it is we are thankful for, though it isn’t easy, I am thankful for the challenge, for the opportunity to see a book I’ve written in print, to share it with others who have had similar experiences.
I am thankful for an editor who is so helpful and willing to reach out with information and advice she can only have been appointed to me by God.
And I am most especially thankful for my family. For those of us who write, I think we have moments when we are overcome by how our husbands will pitch in while we type away, or how our kids mean so much to us while we type away--and we don’t get to spend enough time with any of them.
We are a bit more settled into our new home. Sure, there are still boxes lying around, but eventually they’ll get unpacked. I’ve been working a new job now for a couple of months. I am blessed.
I wish everyone who may take the time to read this a Happy Thanksgiving and I’ll be back to blogging soon…
"The Adopted Son Who Almost Wasn't" Excerpt Chapter 2, "Indignity"
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