FINDING SARAH, FINDING ME - Christine Lindsay - One Free Book

Welcome back, Christine. How did you come up with the idea for this book?

Finding Sarah, Finding Me is the true-life story that started my writing career in the first place, way back in the year 2000. It was shortly after the reunion with my birth-daughter, the child I relinquished to adoption in 1979. We were reunited when she was an adult in 1999. But the reunion that I had prayed for, for 20 years, was nothing like the actual reunion. Coming face to face with the daughter I relinquished to adoption reunited me with all the original loss of her as my child---even though it was better for her at the time because I was a young unmarried woman. But finding my daughter Sarah turned me inside out emotionally and, for a few years, I struggled with a great many issues. As time passed though, the Lord brought healing to me, and it was through the journey of searching for my birth-daughter that I discovered my true identity in Christ. This is our story, and the foundation of all I write on and speak on. 

I know the book is awesome. I can hardly wait for my copy to arrive. If you were planning a party with Christian authors of contemporary fiction, what people would you invite and why?

Rachel Moore, because she is my critique partner, and I don’t get to see her enough in person, and she is an excellent writer with the awards and nominations to prove it. Linda Nichols, Susan Meissner, due to excellent writing and going deep. I love fiction that is realistic without being too edgy.  

Now let’s do that for a party for Christian authors of historical fiction, what six people would you invite and why?

I read both ABA fiction and CBA fiction, so my favorite historical authors as follows: ABA: Kate Morton, Suzanna Kearsley, and an older author, MM Kaye simply because they are excellent writers. In CBA my favorite authors are: Sandra Byrd, Kim Vogel Sawyer, and Bodie and Brock Thoene. I’d like to chat with them simply because I enjoy their writing style.

Many times, people (and other authors) think you have it made with so many books published. What is your most difficult problem with writing at this time in your career?

Finding the time to be a good author, but squeezing in the time to promote my work. I love to write, but I hate promotion, and finding the time to do all this and still remain a mother, grandmother, wife, and friend to the people in my life.

I so understand. Tell us about the featured book.

Finding Sarah, Finding Me is a the weaving of three strands. Each chapter takes the reader through my search for my birth-daughter during the late ’90’s, with a second strand that also takes the reader through my pregnancy and relinquishing of Sarah in the late ’70’s. Each chapter also has a separate story from other adoptions and reunions.

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.

Please give us the first page of the book.

Do Not Be Afraid

Christine, February 1999 Two months before the reunion

The clandestine nature of my trip paints a picture of me I don’t want to look at too closely. As I drive from Maple Ridge to Abbotsford twenty miles away, I wonder if I am one heartbeat away from being a stalker.

I find the high school after several wrong turns. Squelching down the fear of getting caught, I park in the school lot and drum up the nerve to walk in the front doors. I repeat under my breath, “It’s no different than walking into Lana’s high school at home in Maple Ridge. It’s no different at all.”

I’m an ordinary person just like any ordinary parent in the Fraser Valley, the Bible Belt of British Columbia. I’m a Sunday school teacher, a bonded bank teller, a woman of forty-one, hair lightened blond, dressed like any nice mom in jeans, casual shirt, running shoes, my bag slung over my shoulder. I am David’s wife, mom to seventeen-year-old Lana, fifteen-year-old Kyle, and ten-year-old Robert.

I am also the woman who wrote in her journal last night, “For twenty years I’ve comforted myself that this time would come, that my birth-daughter and I could legally be reunited. And now I am afraid of her.”

I, I, I, yes I am all of the above. I hate my self-centered focus. Am I also obsessive? And dear God—am I stalking my firstborn?

There’s still time to turn around, get back in my car, forget this whole crazy escapade. Instead, coldness grips my spine as I stride past the office, praying none of the staff will stop me and ask why I’m here, like a criminal.

I’m only coming to Sarah’s former school just this once, not driving past her house like a real stalker, although I have the address. At least I’ve held myself back from that temptation. This one look—in a public place—I’ll allow myself. But I shudder.

Who can understand my hunger to know, to see? My husband and my mother understand, but do I deserve their pity? Close friends can relate yet aren’t able to hold back their trepidation. Those in any adoption triad who search for that missing biological connection will understand. I’ve heard plenty of their wild stories at the adoption support group. Certainly the militant ones with agendas of their own, if they knew what I was up to today, would urge me to barge forward despite my qualms. The average person though? Would they understand this slipping over the edge into a gray area that frightens the daylights out of me?

How can readers find you on the Internet?

Please drop by Christine’s website www.ChristineLindsay.org or follow her on Amazon on Twitter. Subscribe to her quarterly newsletter, and be her friend on Pinterest , Facebook, and  Goodreads

Thank you, Christine, for sharing this book with us. As the mother of a daughter who was told by a pastor to give up her baby for adoption, so she had to think about that, but she chose to keep him, I can understand a lot of the emotional trauma.

Readers, here are links to the book. By using one when you order, you help support this blog.

Finding Sarah, Finding Me: A Birth Mother's Story - Paperback
Finding Sarah, Finding Me: A Birth Mother's Story - Kindle

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