Continuing on with last week, when we introduced you to photographer Molly Wantland, and her talent and desire to use her giftings to document adoptive families, we would like to introduce you to the Neff family of Nashville, Tennessee!
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“Like most, I wondered if we could really attach. While some children do struggle with deep connections, miracles do happen and in time you arrive at a place of wholeness and deep, deep love.
We planned to grow our family naturally and desired to adopt later, but God had different plans which He made abundantly clear! When we heard our first daughter’s story, who was eight years old at the time, we knew she was ours.
We quickly emailed her social workers, completed foster care classes and brought her home just 4 months later! Again, we were busy making our own plans, but 7 months later we saw a picture of our first son and heard he was likely going into foster care soon if someone didn’t intervene. We were nervous, there was red tape that should have prevented it, but at four years old he became a Neff!
By this time, we had realized that God had far bigger and better plans for our family and we completely surrendered to any preconceived ideas of family planning. Through the years, we cared for many other vulnerable children on the weekends through respite care, but when we met a certain set of siblings, our hearts knew our family was growing again.
Six months later our next two sons (five and three years old) and our infant daughter were in our home forever!
Open hearts and surrendering to His will, brought the five biggest blessings to our family!
I wish people knew that it wasn’t as scary as it seems. It is hard, it stretches your whole family, but it is such a beautiful gift that makes the hard days pale in comparison to the joy and blessings. There will be tough seasons, but find your village to support you in those times and return the blessing when you’re out of the valleys. It’s perfectly fine to not have read all the books, but to have other’s support and do it afraid.
Michelle Neff, via their family photographer Molly Wantland, of
Simply M Photography