Guest Author - Brandii Lacey
Many adoption books on the market have several things in common. They provide information on different types of adoptions, home studies, paperwork, and follow up reports. Rarely do you find a book that shares the thoughts, feelings, and realities of confronting infertility and embracing adoption.
Finding Grace is a touching memoir written by Donna VanLiere. It’s about faith and life, and what happens when things don’t go according to your schedule or timeline. VanLiere really opens up about her search for grace throughout her life. Readers will be able to relate to VanLiere on many levels, such as being stuck in a job that you hate, to moving out of state for a job opportunity, all while trying to create family.
VanLiere talks about her struggles, her joys, and how her faith was always there, even when she still had many unanswered questions. She writes eloquently about many aspects of her life, and gives her honest thoughts at the time as well as her reflections looking back.
One part of her life that VanLiere wrote so candidly about was her struggle through infertility treatments. As with the rest of the book, she offers a truthful and candid view at what it was like, along with the less than helpful comments from people. Anyone who has been on the same journey will relate to struggling between infertility treatments and pursing adoption.
The more she copes with this struggle, the more you can see her contemplating adoption. You can almost see her faith growing by each turn of the page. Her words are so powerful, that you feel her excitement and joy when she writes, “From that instance on I never viewed adoption as our Plan B or a last ditch effort to have children. I never saw it as second rate or that I was somehow less of a woman because I couldn’t carry children. I saw it then as I see it today…as my destiny of grace.”
Donna VanLiere has done an extraordinary job of taking us on her personal journey to find grace. Her reflections on infertility and adoption are much needed, as not many books will cover both of these subjects so powerfully and passionately.
My only request is to see a follow up book on her experiences as a Mom, written with the same honesty, humor, and grace.
