FINDING THE REAL YOU by Guest Blogger, CHRISTINE LINDSAY

Today, Christine Lindsay shares an unforgettable message of hope and restoration within herself. Thanks for joining us.

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…” Isaiah 49:15, 16a

How many of us keep secrets from our nearest and dearest—secrets that could reveal the very core of our soul, the real us? How many of us go through life not knowing who we really are?

For 20 years my precious children had no idea they had a half-sister. In 1979, a year before I met my husband, I gave birth to a baby girl whom I named Sarah. Wanting to do the best for my child I relinquished her to adoption. For the next 20 years as God blessed me with a wonderful husband and our 3 kids, I prayed for the reunion with Sarah when she became an adult. But the reunion was not the joyful reunion that I had always envisioned. Our adoption reunion marked the beginning of my long emotional breakdown.

Here is an excerpt from Finding Sarah Finding Me that portrays the beginning of my search for myself.

~Just as I’ve done for the past eighteen years, I lift down the box from the back of my closet, feeling all the stealth of a Cold War spy. The box might as well be marked TOP SECRET. Few people know of the contents: my journals from my pregnancy with Sarah, the two hospital ID bracelets, mine and the tiny one that clasped around her baby ankle, and fragments of dried pink flower petals almost gray with the passage of time. Clues to that secret me, mother of a secret child.

~The reunion with my birth-daughter underscored that I had no idea who I really was. Was I wife to David, Mom to Lana, Kyle and Robert, but not to my firstborn whom I could never stop thinking of as my child? My heart cried out in this next excerpt from my book:

~Dear God, who am I? . . . Hagar dashing out to the desert? Naomi who whines in her alter ego of bitter Mara? Hannah who also gave up her baby and has been blessed with more children? Digging for myself in God’s Word isn’t a bad place to start as I unearth parallels to my own life in those ancient and messy biblical lives.

~*~

Then later in my emotional journey I learned: (Also from Finding Sarah Finding Me):

My love for my kids beats so strong at times I swear it will burst my heart. And I’ve been unable to cut my maternal ties for Sarah, though I tried for a short time. If I can’t forget Sarah, but actually pine for her still, how much less can God forget me? My besotted love for my kids is often marred by my own neediness and grief, but it remains by human standards a powerful, primal devotion that will never cease. Yet this very pulsing of my maternal heart is a smaller picture of God’s great love . . . . We find ourselves in the face of Christ.

Look for the true image of you in the palm of His hand. He keeps it safe there for you to discover.

Finding Sarah Finding Me:

Sometimes it is only through giving up our hearts that we learn to trust the Lord.


Adoption. It’s something that touches one in three people today, a word that will conjure different emotions in those people touched by it. A word that might represent the greatest hope…the greatest question…the greatest sacrifice. But most of all, it’s a word that represents God’s immense love for his people.

Join birth mother Christine Lindsay as she shares the heartaches, hopes, and epiphanies of her journey to reunion with the daughter she gave up...and to understanding her true identity in Christ along the way.

Through her story and glimpses into the lives of other families in the adoption triad, readers will see the beauty of our broken families, broken hearts, and broken dreams when we entrust them to our loving God.

Click HERE to read Chapter One of Finding Sarah Finding Me

Irish-born Christine Lindsay is author of multi-award-winning Christian fiction. Christine’s ancestry inspires her writing, but it was her experience in relinquishing her baby girl to adoption that inspires all Christine writes and speaks on.

http://christinelindsay.org/

Author’s Website for New Non-Fiction Release Finding Sarah Finding Me