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As a family who has been shaped by a journey through infertility, foster care, and adoption, we found it difficult to find just one resource that fully encompassed the message that we wanted to share with our children. With that goal in mind, the initial concept and inspiration for this book was born and then grew through our desire to simply understand, as parents, how to initiate conversations with our children about our family’s story, while helping them to make sense of the circumstances that contribute to the dynamic of our family. Additionally, we wanted to help our children recognize that, although different from some families, OUR family, like any family, is an intentional blessing from God, and OUR family is equally as special and important to God and His kingdom as the next family. To help us fill those needs for our own family, God sowed in our hearts the concept of the Family Shrub and the “shrub not a tree” philosophy to help us not only embrace the growth and intentional blessing of OUR family, but to also help us achieve His purpose for planting OUR family. In doing so, it ultimately helped us make deeper connections with one another as a family and provided us with a sense of identity, belonging, and understanding.

 

Our hope for sharing our concept of the Family Shrub and the “shrub not a tree” philosophy, while being open and honest about our own imperfect and ever-evolving journey, is multidimensional.

  • As the “nontraditional” family that we’ve grown to be, our hope is to use our story to now inspire and encourage all families, especially families like ours, to embrace the growth and intentional blessing of THEIR family, while also trying to achieve God’s purpose for planting THEIR family; whether it be as a SHRUB or as a TREE. By doing so, we hope to help them make deeper connections with one another as a family, while providing them with that sense of identity, belonging, and understanding for which they too may be searching.

 

  • As parents to our four adopted children who came to us through foster care, we were not provided with a “rule book” as to how to navigate this journey. Every circumstance, every family, and every relationship will be different and will change over time. As their parents, we’re simply doing our best to navigate this journey in a way that we believe is healthy and appropriate for everyone involved. By sharing a glimpse into our approach to navigating the seasons of this ever-evolving journey, our hope is to inspire and encourage other parents to initiate open, honest, age-appropriate, faith-filled conversations with their children about their life and their circumstances; whatever those circumstances may be. By being open and honest with children now, we can help alleviate confusion and self-doubt in the future; we can help empower them to embrace their story and to leverage their circumstances and their God-given abilities and opportunities in ways that will allow THEM to make a positive difference in their life and in the lives of others; we can be an example for them and teach them how to trust and lean fully on the Lord in every circumstance throughout life, and to recognize THEIR true identity in Him and in Him alone.

 

  • As parents who did not contribute to the biological birth of our four adopted children, we encounter situations, challenges, and emotions every day that many other parents do not; including when and how to foster relationships with members of our children’s different families. By sharing a glimpse into our approach to fostering multi-dimensional relationships with other family members, our hope is to inspire and encourage other parents to open their minds and their hearts to the possibility of ever-evolving relationships between them, their children, and members of their different families; as long as those relationships are, and remain, healthy, appropriate, safe, and beneficial to both the short-term and long-term growth and development of their children. Although we have every right to be protective of our children, our own fears and insecurities about other family members can, at times, get in the way of doing what may be best for them. We know this because we have also had those feelings at some point in our journey. By being real and transparent about those feelings, our hope is to also inspire and encourage others with similar circumstances to turn any of their own “unproductive” feelings over to the Lord and to remember that all children, including our own, are God’s children. He entrusted us with the privilege and the responsibility to love and serve them by nurturing them, protecting them, guiding them, and helping them become the people God created THEM to be, which may require US to work thru our own feelings in order to foster relationships with members of their different families; if and when appropriate.

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  • As hopeful parents who had their own “ideas” and “plans” as to how our family was going to grow, we were initially discouraged when those ideas and plans didn’t come to fruition as WE thought they should. However, through our journey, we were reminded to “let go, let God” and to loosen the grip of control that we had on our lives in order to fully surrender to Him in EVERY circumstance. By sharing a glimpse into our approach to surrendering our lives to the Lord, our final hope is to inspire and encourage other hopeful parents like us to do the same and to consider growing their own Family Shrub by opening their minds, their hearts, and their homes to the children in foster care and/or to those in need of a stable and nurturing family unit through adoption.

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