Kristin Hill Taylor

Seeking God as the Author of Every Story

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Red Letters Campaign: Anticipation

September 29, 2008 by Kristin Leave a Comment


To commit your heart or not? There is much debate in the adoption world about when you throw your heart into the mix … upon first sight of that referral picture? Or not until the court date? Homecoming Date? Share your thoughts and experience!

Interesting prompt.

For me, I was fully committed from the day in mid-January 2007 that we saw our baby girl on the ultrasound screen when we were at the birth mother’s 25-week appointment. It was the first day we met the birth mother and the day we all agreed to proceed after some previous initial phone conversations.

A couple people continually cautioned me that she may change her mind or something else could happen. Of course, that was reality. But my heart was trusting the birth mother and process so much that I proceeded with everything I had.

That’s how it had to be for me. Like in all of life’s moments, we couldn’t control the details, but we trusted God to continue taking us through the process to which he had obviously led us. There were many reassurances along the way that probably only spoke to my heart. I couldn’t really explain them to the people who were being cautious.

I knew Cate was supposed to be our baby. We named her on the way home from that first appointment/meeting with the birth mother. The birth mother referred to her as our baby.

I know international adoptions, and some domestic ones, have a whole host of uncertainty because there are so many more variables. But speaking from my experience, I had to commit to this baby girl (and the birth mother), and that meant throwing my heart in the mix early.

Cate was born 15 weeks after I threw my heart into the mix, and she’s been with us every since.

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Red Letters Campaign: Attachment

July 24, 2008 by Kristin Leave a Comment


How did attachment go during your first year? Describe what you did to prepare for attachment as well as the joys and challenges of attachment during your first year home.

A friend of mine who has adopted her two children domestically warned me that bonding with our baby might be a challenge. She encouraged me to let Cate sleep close to us, like in a bassinet beside our bed. Until that conversation with her a few weeks before Cate was born, I hadn’t even considered not bonding with my baby.

Sure, I wasn’t physically birthing this baby, but I had all the peace that the birth mother was carrying a baby for us. That’s even how she talked. It’s what I knew in my hard, even though a couple people tried to instill fear in me.

After Cate was born and the nurses took care of her immediate needs in the nursery, a sweet nurse brought her to me at 4 a.m. I fed her and held her for three straight hours. Greg was trying to sleep. But I was falling in love with the little person who was going to change our family in more good ways than I can ever begin to count.

I guess I should say: We bonded.

And we haven’t stopped bonding since.

We spent the first week of her life in a hotel in southern Indiana waiting for the green light for state governments to go home. That was a bonding experience in itself. Cate slept in a travel bassinet near our hotel bed. Then when we got home, she spent a night, maybe two, in the bassinet in our room. We decided we’d all probably sleep better if we had our own space. So she went to her crib, and that’s where she’s slept since. We’re just down the hall so we can hear her, but my baby likes her sleep as much as we do.

Cate is almost 15 months old, and bonding hasn’t been a challenge. Of course, she hasn’t known any other caregivers. We were there when she’s born and she’s been with us since.

How’s that for not really having an answer to the Blog Buzz question?!

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Red Letters Campaign: Money

July 13, 2008 by Kristin Leave a Comment


“How do I do this, moneywise? I want to adopt, but it seems so overwhelming. We don’t really have $20,000 in the bank, ya know!” Please blog about your experience, ideas, insight, fundraisers and other ideas that worked for you while raising your adoption money.

Um, we didn’t have $20,000 in the bank when we decided to adopt. In fact, we still don’t have $20,000 in the bank! 🙂 Seriously, though, I definitely understand concerns about money, but when God leads you somewhere, he doesn’t desert you. Even financially.

We decided to adopt after a couple years of trying to get pregnant and eventually getting answers about our infertility. For us, having a baby was about having a family. Not being pregnant. So, honestly, turning our attention to adoption was a relief for me, emotionally. I felt like God was showing us another way, and that was exciting to me. I just assumed pregnancy was the way to a family, but I learned otherwise. I learned God has more than one way to create families.

OK, so, back to money. You hear about adoptions being so costly, and while that’s true, it’s not like we wrote a $12,400 check and that was it. There were lots of smaller checks throughout the process. During the process both Greg and I worked, so we earned money as we needed it and, thankfully, we had some money saved.

Adopting domestically can definitely be cheaper than adopting internationally because there’s less paperwork and more minimal travel expenses. But we still had to pay two agencies (one in Kentucky and one in Indiana, where Cate was born), two attorneys (although our Kentucky attorney is a friend so that knocked down what would normally be a greater expense), travel expenses to go to doctor’s appointments with the birth mother (who was 4 1/2 hours away), smaller costs of getting background checks and copies of important documents, and medical bills (again, thankfully, she was still on her parents’ health insurance).

Finding a birth mother through family also helped make our process less costly. We didn’t have to pay an agency or attorney to find us a birth mother. My sister put us in touch with someone she already knew who was looking for adoptive parents for the baby she was carrying.

I don’t know that I have any wise financial advice. But you can’t think about it as one huge check. It’s smaller investments along the way. And if it’s what you’re supposed to be doing, God will provide you the resources because he certainly has a heart for children.

Oh, and it’s also helpful to remember that once you can come up with the money along the way, you get it back, penny for penny, up to a certain amount, on your taxes, thanks to federal tax credits. Be sure to talk to your accountant about that.

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About Me

Telling stories is my therapy and I love sharing them with friends on my porch.

The main characters in my stories are my entrepreneur husband, our high school girl who never forgets, our middle school boy who has no fear, and our joy-filled first-grade girl. As we live out our stories, we seek God as the author of them all.

Learn more about my story here.

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The world feels heavy & broken because it is. Pare The world feels heavy & broken because it is. Parenting has me at my max emotional capacity because it takes much soul and mental work. Spring soccer season started in the cold tonight. 

Even so, God is good and wants us to live abundantly here on earth while we wait for heaven. This week that looks like church league basketball games, dinner with friends, apologies, sideline encouragement, prayers, middle school humor, theological conversations with friends, tears, and laughter. 

Now it’s time to rest and do it again tomorrow. These are the rhythms of grace and goodness, heaven and earth, sorrow and joy. 

#livingfaithfully #choosingJOY #soccermom #thirdchild #momlife #reallife #faithlife #PorchStories
I sat on my porch beneath a blanket and finished t I sat on my porch beneath a blanket and finished this book today. Yes, I’m fully invested in this Cuba saga involving the Perez family. “The Last Train to Key West” by @chanelcleeton is the third in the series. I have the fourth on hold at the library for pickup on Monday. 

I wasn’t sure I was going to love this one as much as I did Cleeton’s first two, but it was a slow-building story that turned stormy. I loved how the three women were in Key West for their own reasons, developed meaningful relationships as they navigated their lives, and managed to survive the storms of their lives and an actual hurricane. 

The historical fiction story offers hope:

“It’s strange how your life can change so quickly, how one moment you can barely eke by, desperation filling your days, and suddenly, out of the unimaginably horrific, a glimmer of something beautiful can appear like a bud pushing through the hard-formed earth. There’s so much broken around us; maybe all we can do is try to fix each other, do what we can to preserve these precious moments in a world where there is so much sadness and loss. … Maybe some would say my dreams are too small. Perhaps they would dream of railroads that go over the sea, great, wonderful things. Maybe others want riches and jewels, a chance to travel the globe. For me, this is enough: A corner of paradise in this wretched world that I am able to call my own.” — Helen in “The Last Train to Key West” by Chanel Cleeton

#KHTreads #bookstagram #booklover #librarybooks #historicalfiction #weekending #favoritethings #choosingJOY #bookquotes #bookreview
This morning there are three “holes” in Wright This morning there are three “holes” in Wright Road after the creek flooded it overnight. The Calloway County road department responded quickly and is working to pack in various kinds of gravel so it will passable again soon. I’m thankful for their work, but these Band-Aids aren’t an actual solution. 

Wright Road needs a permanent solution for when Wildcat Creek rises. A bridge seems to be the best idea, so the creek can rise and flow beneath the road rather than flowing across it and washing out the gravel on top of the culverts. 

I know it’s an expensive fix and would take local government working with state government, but I wonder how many times the road has to break before it can be truly repaired.

#callowaycounty #kyweather #kentuckyweather #countyroads #countryliving #reallife #murrayky
In a week filled with all the parenting emotions, In a week filled with all the parenting emotions, God has provided conversation with friends who understand, new mercies, a few walks and talks with a friend, and cinnamon rolls on a rainy Friday afternoon. I’ve been reminded when we are vulnerable and share our real lives, friends bring truth and goodness — often in ways we don’t expect but bless us anyway. 

#bettertogether #createdforcommunion #reallife #momlife #weekending #parenthood #choosingJOY #favoritethings #livingfaithfully
People ask when I have time to write. The truth is People ask when I have time to write. The truth is I like to make time to write, but sometimes it happens in the cracks of my days — at Panera, in the Notes app on my phone, at the library before I pickup my kids, or while I’m waiting on kids at activities. This week I edited my manuscript while Rachel practiced soccer. 

#momlife #writerlife #selfpublished #bloggerlife #authorlife #soccermom #thirdchild #createdforcommunion #bettertogether #favoritethings
I needed this weekend. The UK Wildcats didn’t I needed this weekend. 

The UK Wildcats didn’t win this afternoon like I had hoped. But following our house full of people on Friday night, I’ve spent a lot of time on my couch, under a soft blanket, with a book, while I watch #MarchMadness. 

Yesterday I pulled “When We Left Cuba” by @chanelcleeton from my to-be-read stack and then realized it was the second in a series about the Perez family. Thanks to @libby.app, I was able to get “Next Year in Havana” immediately. 

I finished it today during commercials and timeouts. And now I’m going to start “When We Left Cuba” as another basketball game also gets going. 

#KHTreads #basketballseason #weekending #bookstagram #reallife #booklover #librarybooks #KindleOasis #Kindlebooks #favoritethings
What a fun night! Basketball is best with friends What a fun night! Basketball is best with friends and food. So thankful for all these provisions and others in my life. Oh and a Cats win is icing on the cake. 

#MarchMadness #weekending #basketballseason #bettertogether #choosingJOY #BigBlueNation
You know it’s #MarchMadness when Greg Taylor pos You know it’s #MarchMadness when Greg Taylor posts on Facebook — and a picture at that! — and puts his radio/TV degree to work figuring out how to improve the viewing setup. 

#reallife #basketballseason #wifelife #choosingJOY
I had no idea just how deeply I would be affected I had no idea just how deeply I would be affected while studying Genesis 1-2. Going back to the beginning and seeing how God created, ordered, and filled the earth has been exactly what I didn’t know I needed, especially as a mom. 

For quite a while now, I feel like I’ve been living a day at a time. I used to be able to see my life in larger chunks of time and anticipate and prepare accordingly. Now, I slap things on the calendar and then deal with them as they come. Navigating life with two teenagers and a first-grader is the best and hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Honestly, this moment-to-moment living has been good for me and helped me rely on the God who created the stars and rivers that still exist in our world. Focusing on where I am helps me take slower steps, trust God to provide, and remember I’m not in control. I’ve felt an internal shift with my relationships — with my husband, kids, and friends. I’ve felt behind on laundry and dishes and piles of papers. But I’ve also felt a refreshed nearness to God. 

I’m going to rest here while believing God created life and light when there was only darkness and continues to order my days. 

#livingfaithfully #choosingJOY #momlife #faithlife #preceptstudy #genesisstudy #genesis #beginnings #reallife #PorchStories
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