An Unlit Path

By Deborah L. Hannah

Book Overview

What happens when love is not enough? A true story of one family's journey, although tragic, it raises awareness to the inherent risks and rewards of adoption and foster care. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1600344844
• ISBN13: 9781600344848
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Xulon Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

An Unlit Path

As an adoptive Mom and Founder of a parent-led support group for foster and adoptive families, I empathize with the Hannah family. Unfortunately, foster and adoptive families often endure situations that involve physical and or mental health issues and sometimes false allegations of abuse. An Unlit Path can prepare parents for the "realities" of caring for children who have experienced traumatic beginnings that include abandonment, neglect, substance abuse and violence. I am especially grateful to Deborah Hannah for letting her readers know that it is possible to heal after crisis.

An Unlit Path

One of the best and most meaningful books I have ever read. The faith, honesty, and humility with which it is written is awe-inspiring. The author describes her family's painful journey through fostering and adopting "hard-to-place" children and how her faith helped her through the turmoil of living with children who were deeply damaged by abuse. As a fellow adoptive mother of a severely abused, special needs child, so much of this book resonates and touches me. The ways that the author's faith sustains her, especially through her dreams, are deeply moving to me and are a reminder that all our attempts at serving God are meaningful.

A must-read for prospective adoptive parents

As a person who works with families who adopt through foster care and as an adoptive mother, I think this is a wonderful resource for foster and adoptive families, current and prospective. Too often I hear from families -- foster and international -- who say they didn't understand what they were getting into when they adopted. We don't give parents enough information when they begin the process, when they receive their placement, or post-adoption. But parents also need to take responsibility for learning about the children they will bring into their families. When we step up to parent children who are abused, neglected, prenatally affected by drugs and alcohol, who have spent months or years in institutions, etc., we must understand that the journey will not be an easy one. The author did an excellent job explaining that love is not enough when parenting these kids. She also did an excellent job explaining that the rewards outweigh the risks.

Grief demands a choice of life or death.

An Unlit Path speaks to any parent who has given a lost child the great gifts of unconditional love and the keys to a bright future, only to find themselves and these gifts despised and trashed. Children who have been abandoned by the natural parent sometimes feel an overpowering need to abandon those who try to replace that loved one. When the new parents have cried out all their emotions and found little comfort from friends and professionals, where can they turn except to the spiritual? James l:27 says, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." Difficult as the first part of this verse may be, the Hannahs' experience shows that remaining unstained in the process is much harder. By turning back to their faith, which is where they started in the first place, they grow stronger and wiser, providing new hope for all their children. This book is essential reading for foster and adoptive parents.

An Unlit Path - One Family's Journey Toward The Light Of Truth

Wow! In a time where celebrity adoptions are at an all time high it is important to know what one is really getting into. We always hear about these adoptions but we rarely hear the follow-ups of what happens a few years later. Sure, there are many adoptions that are successful, but the truth is the converse needs to be considered because it is a real possibility that these adoptive families will struggle in the years following. I was happy to learn that that although the family endured such tragic events, they survived, faith intact.