Shawn Rapier: Adoption & How I Learned Love is Unconditional

Shawn never dreamed as a kid struggling with ADD that someday he would adopt 6 children. He humorously shares the struggles, joys and perspective he's learned from parenthood.

Episode Discussion

• What it was like Living with ADD in the 1970’s and 1980’s and how he wasn’t doing well in school.

• How using technology has helped Shawn with his ADD (reminders, alarms, emails, EverNote, etc)

• Why it is important to not use challenges as a crutch.

• Why his home is “dysfunction junction.”

• The amazing story of adopting six children and having two biological children

• How his parenting perspective has changed, and how God has an eternal perspective.

• To change perspectives and “let go” of expectations he had to break and realize he really has no control of his kids.

• When Shawn “broke” and went through a super-rough period, he realize the answer was focusing more on Christ to help and heal.

• The “he is mine” answer which changed Shawn’s perspective.

• How two principles can exist at the same time: God is all knowing and things are out of control.

• Why learning to respect agency is so important.

• Love is the antidote to hate and anger and cannot be used as a weapon or tool.

• Never say something you can’t take back.

• Good question to ask: Did I make peace in my home?

My Favorite Shawn Quotes About Love

• “All we can do is show an increase of love and trust God to do the rest.”

• “Love is not a temporary thing.”

• “Love is to be given freely.”

• “Forgiveness breeds love.”

• “Decide to love and don’t give up.”

• “If you want love, give it and give it unconditionally.”

• “They can’t outrun our love!”

#tamarakanderson #storiesofhopeinhardtimes #podcast #hope #God #hardtimes #adoption #love #challenges #peace #keepgoing #children #family #humor

Transcription

You can find the transcription of today's podcast here:

Shawn  0:02 

You know, I didn't even know you could adopt an 18 year old. And so those are the highlights of how our family came together. Now in that time, lots of cops being called, some holes in walls, broken banisters, threats, homelessness, a little bit of in and out of jail, threatening, and somewhat pursuing ending their own life. A lot. There has been a lot. Also love, fun, hilarity, trips to Hawaii with this crew, trips to the Caribbean with this group, a trip to Disney World where one of them ended up shoplifting, and we ended up at Disneyland jail. That's a real thing. Yet the blessings. Oh, the blessings. I just love our family so much. And we're this crazy crew. This is just wild, ridiculous family, and I would have it no other way.

Tamara Anderson  1:03 

Welcome to Stories of Hope in Hard Times, the show that explores how people endure and even thrive in difficult times, all with God's help. I'm your host, Tamara K. Anderson. Join me on a journey to find inspiring stories of hope and wisdom learned in life's hardest moments.

My guest today is a writer, comedian, speaker, sales guy, and podcaster of the Latter-day Lives podcast. He is a frequent flyer, a Lakers fan, and a Disney fan. Perhaps his most important roles are that of husband and father. He and his wife Vanessa are the parents of eight children, many of which they adopted and love just like their own. I'm pleased to present Shawn Rapier. Shawn, are you ready to share your story of hope?

Shawn  1:58 

Oh, Tamara, thank you so much for having me on. This is fantastic. I really appreciate it.

Tamara Anderson  2:04 

This is going to be so much fun. Sean was blessed to interview me. We had so much fun on his podcasts. So I'm just, I'm excited to return the favor here and get his story because he has a fascinating story. But first, let's break the ice a little bit here with how in the world you got into comedy? Or a stand-up comedian?

Shawn  2:26 

That's a really good question. Quickly, if people want to hear your story, they can go to Latter-day Lives. Your story is beautiful. That podcast is already launched. And people just love hearing your beautiful story.

My own story, getting into stand-up comedy. When I was young, you know, everybody kind of fills a role in families, right? My older brother took too many of the roles. He was the smart one, the successful one, the good-looking one, the athletic one. He was relatively funny, but you know, the comedian was kind of still out there. So I jumped on it, found that I had, sort of, a little bit of an innate talent to make people laugh. When I was a little kid, I’d do funny things. There's power in laughter. I remember at times, like the whole classroom, I'd be doing a presentation and I'd get the class laughing. I'd be like, “Oh, I can do this.” In high school, I got into drama a little bit. Couldn't sing to save my life. But I sure loved doing comedy. So I kind of learned improv there. Then, when I was moved to Utah, I joined an improv group called the Garrens Comedy Troupe and continued and then went to Johnny B's Comedy Club one night and tried five minutes and fell in love. That five minutes took me to ten minutes, and fifteen minutes, and then headlining, and then some touring, and a whole lot of corporate comedy. So I kind of took it from there, and I still love it to this day.

Tamara Anderson  4:12 

Oh, that's so fun. Oh, my goodness. So what are some of the favorite places you visited while touring?

Shawn  4:18 

I spent most of my time performing here in the state of Utah. I did all the comedy clubs here in Utah. I did a lot of corporate events. One of the funnier places I went, though, there's an entertainer named Jason Hewlett, who is well worth looking up. Jason's an amazing guy. I've gotten the privilege of doing a lot of writing for Jason. He's an incredible guy. He and I have done a lot of shows together over the years. We did one in Butte, Montana. Oh, that was just so fun. We got there. There was a big arena. We looked around, and the only heads without cowboy hats were ours. It was this big arena that normally, I think, hosted rodeos. I just looked at Jason and said, “Brother, I do not know about this show.” It just seemed like, man, it was all Western, all the time. Here we were, somewhat city slicker looking, but we had a fantastic show and it ended up being really fun.

With the Garrens, you know, we did a tour of the Pacific Northwest. That was really fun. We got to go to a lot of colleges, which was neat. I've gotten to do some shows in California, in Nevada. So I'm in Arizona, mostly the West, I didn't really go out east. I became a corporate comic pretty fast, and really got into entertaining for companies, Christmas parties, and really stayed more in the western US. I also had a full time career that developed pretty soon thereafter. That made it so that comedy was more on the back burner.

Tamara Anderson  5:52 

Right. That's awesome. No, I think it's so fun that you've been able to use that skill, and just talking to you just like that, I think most people would get the initial impression like, “Oh, this guy has it all made.” And that's not true, right?

Shawn  6:11 

People would be so wrong. Yes, I do not have it all made.

Tamara Anderson  6:16 

So let's peel back the layers here a little bit and talk about your schooling, and what that looked like, and how that felt.

Shawn  6:28 

Yeah. So I was born a long time ago. What is it Steve Martin says? “I was born at a very young age.” I was born in California, raised in California. I was born in Orange County, but raised in San Jose, California, and great parents. My parents are still married to this day, and good, good people. I started noticing, when I was a kid, when I was very young, actually, I started noticing I'd be sitting in the classroom. All of a sudden, a teacher would call on me and ask me a question. I had no clue what we were talking about. I didn't know what we were saying, whatever. Then sometimes I’d get to class and he'd say, “Okay, time to turn in your assignment.” I'd look around and go, “What assignment?” This was in the late 70s, early 80s. We just didn't really understand ADHD. There wasn't an understanding of it. It's very real. It's something that I lived with, and then compounded with that I was told, which I think was very natural, “Hey, you just don't try. You're just not listening. You're not trying.” I'd sit and I'd say, “I am going to try today. I am going to listen. I'm going to pay attention. Oh my gosh, wasn't that fun last night, that TV show? Where did they get that actor? I wonder if I could be an actor? Was that a real park he was in?” Then next thing I know, teacher asked a question. I go, “Oh, for Pete's sake, I have no idea what's happening.” It was very, very difficult.

So I really struggled with that for a long time. My grades got worse and worse in junior high, then in high school. By my sophomore year, I was apoplectic, I just I couldn't do it. I became very rebellious. I became kind of angry, a little bit. This was the 80s. So I showed it through all the punk rock trappings, you know, of crazy hair and everything from the 80s. I just didn't feel like I fit in. Then my junior year, I was struggling so bad that I’d gone to my third high school, which was a continuation school. I still just could not put the pieces together. I came home one day, and I said, “Mom, Dad, I'm done. I will never go back to school. Whatever you're going to do, that's acceptable.” Because it was such torture.

What's weird, Tamara, to this day, I struggle going to my kid’s schools for activities. Really. It's still an uncomfortable place for me. I do not like being at a school. It brings back… I had great friends. I have friends I'm still friends with, especially in high school. But to this day, when I am in a school for a school assembly, I can't wait to get out of there. My youngest is a junior now, Keaton. He'll be a senior next year. Then I'm done. I'm actually really grateful. It makes me very uncomfortable to be in schools. So I dropped out. My sweet mom said, “We're going to pay for a GED course for you so you can prepare and practice. It's a six week course and then you can take the GED.” I was like, “Mom, if I'm going to go to six weeks of school, I'm just going to go back to school. I'm not going to go sit in some six week course.” So I said, “Let me try the GED.” I passed it, got my GED, and I was done. That was really it for school.

Later on in life, I tried going back to school at a community college. Same thing. Brought back a lot of the same thoughts. I just felt like there were other things I should be doing, and could be doing. Fortunately, I have a very scholastic wife, who's a remarkable student. School is her life. She works for the school district as a therapist, as well as she's a student finishing up a doctorate. So yeah, she's in charge of the education of our kids. Our kids come home and go, “Hey, my grade is like C minus.” I'm like high fives. My wife looks at me, and I go, “No? Not good? Is that not good? It's not good. Okay. Not good. I've just been informed C minus is not good.” So yeah, I do other things in the family.

Tamara Anderson  10:57 

Yeah. So let me ask you just a real quick question diving a little bit deeper on the end, what are some of the things that you have found that have helped you be successful as an adult that you wish you would have known when you were younger?

Shawn  11:15 

So it's something that I don't know if it could have helped me when I was younger, because it didn't exist. But I live and die off of technology. So like, when we scheduled this interview, bam, it was on my calendar instantly. I have buzzers, and alarms, and calendars, and reminders, and emails. I use Evernote, the note-taking app. I put everything in Evernote because it's searchable. Then I can find stuff later on. That's been a big part of it. But then also just knowing that I have these issues, and letting other people know, because they're going to figure it out sooner or later. Just telling people. The first time that they asked me a question, and then they say, “Yeah, I was just telling you about this an hour ago,” and just saying, “You know what, I'm sorry. I have some struggles with learning. I'm sorry about that.” It's frustrating. It's frustrating to me, but it's frustrating to others. I know it is, and recognizing that it is, and that that's okay. It's part of what I deal with. But I try hard. I really do try, and I try listening. One thing that helps me is I tend to watch people's mouth a lot. Is that hilarious? What a weird thing I watch. Sometimes if I'm having a hard time really focusing, and especially I have a hard time listening when there's a lot of noise around me, I will sit and I'll kind of stare at people's mouths to really catch the words that they're saying. It's kind of an odd thing. But we didn't have any of that technology. What a blessing, iPhones, and laptops, and the web. There are just lots of ways to structure things. But I'll tell you, if I don't put something in my calendar the minute I see it, yeah, not a chance I'm gonna remember. My calendar is everything.

Tamara Anderson  13:06 

Well, you know, it's interesting, because one of my kiddos was diagnosed with autism and ADHD. I just remember watching other families, especially at church. Some kids would, like, seriously, sit on the row and not move. Then there was my child, who was trying to cry, and climb under the bench, and over the bench, and around the side, and throwing toys, and he just could not hold still to save his life. I just remember thinking, “What am I doing wrong?” It's just part of who he is. If he's sitting at the table, his leg is moving.

Shawn  13:51 

Yeah. We have kids who have ADHD issues, so I'm pretty sympathetic toward it. Like I understand when they say, “I can't sit still.” But also, you know, I'm able to tell my kids something important that I've learned over the years, which is nobody cares. Hey, congratulations, what do you want? Do you want an award for having a struggle? Nobody cares. I try to tell my kids, there are three things that matter: God loves you, we love you, and no one owes you anything. You have to figure these things out. Nobody's going to say, “We were about to fire you, but then we found out you have ADD, so it's okay. We're not going to fire you now.” Like you can't make excuses. These challenges, they're real. We can share them. We can learn from them. But it can't become like, “Oh, it's okay that I fail at life because I have challenges.” It's just a matter of setting the right expectations.

Tamara Anderson  14:51 

That’s very smart. It's a good perspective to have on that.

So let's dive a little bit into your kids. You have a very Interesting blend of a family. Tell us a bit about that.

Shawn  15:06 

Well, if you're ever on our street and you need WiFi, I can get you the password. But the name of the network is Dysfunction Junction. We call our home Dysfunction Junction. I don't want to know what our neighbors call our home. It's a surprising number of times we'll be in Walmart or whatever, we'll see a police officer, “Officer Williams, how are you?” “How's your son doing? How's your daughter doing?” “Great. Thanks for asking. Let me tell you since you haven't seen them, since you haven't been here in two or three months?” No, it's been a challenge. But I'll take it back to my wife and I. We got married very young. I was 22, I think, when we got married. We actually are one of those really weird, I do not recommend, but it worked for us, cases where we got married less than four months after our first date.

Tamara Anderson  16:06 

You’re like my husband and I!

Shawn  16:09 

You guys too, got married very, very quickly. Yeah. We're coming up on, let's see, I think it'll be 27 years in September. So just over 26 years. So we were going to be, though, the normal family. We were talking about between three and four kids, normal. That's what we were talking about. I was doing comedy. I was doing some acting, I was selling acting classes for an agency. I was doing commercials. I was kind of living the life of Riley. My wife was working for the Provo School District, as an occupational therapist.

One day, talk about just rocking my world, she came home, and she said, “Hey, there are two kids. And we need to adopt them.” Out of the blue. Like, what? Why? I heard a little bit about these kids. I was working, doing all of these other things. At the same time, I was also, I don't like to brag about jobs and stuff, about how cool my jobs are, but I was selling frozen steaks door to door to make ends meet. That's a very glamorous job, knocking on people’s door asking if they want to buy frozen meat. It was an interesting place, a lot of high turnover. Anybody who could sign their name could get that job. I was good at it, because I felt pretty natural. But interestingly, I was working with a couple who were complaining because they had actually lost their children to the state. They thought it was unfair. They were complaining about how their children had been taken away. Meanwhile, I've got my wife coming home saying, “Hey, I think we need to adopt these kids.” I was like, “Why are we adopting these kids? We're not adopting these kids.”

Then, fatal flaw, my wife challenged me to pray about it, because she'd gotten an answer. Don't pray about something if you want the answer to be a certain way, because that's not how prayer works. Basically, I had met the kids, and they were beautiful. They were a one and a two-year-old, bright red hair, curly, beautiful red cheeks, just beautiful kids. The two year old was autistic, as well as some Fetal Alcohol issues, and all kinds of just real problems. At two years old, he couldn't speak at all. Just grunts, and couldn't really formulate much of a thought. No one really knew what was going to happen. He was very violent. He was an angry kid. If he was excited, he would bite you. If he was mad, he would bite you. If he wanted your attention, he would bite you. But there was something in them that was so sweet.

So I went in for a walk one night in the rain, super dramatic. Cue the dramatic music, walking on a baseball diamond in the rain, praying. I got an answer that yes, these are your children. You are going to adopt these kids. This was an answer from God. That I know. So we went in and said to the caseworker, “Great.” Caseworker agreed. Well, what happened was these particular kids had a foster mom. Good woman, loved these kids. But she already had too many kids, couldn't adopt them. She came over to our house. She saw this young couple, no clue what they're doing, in a tiny little starter home. We paid $74,000 for our first home. It was built in 1947, I think, something like that. Anyway, she saw our home and she said, “No, I'm not sending the kids to this young family. They don't know what they're doing.” She had neighbors who were quite well off, who had already adopted two kids who were looking for two more kids. She went to them and said, “You should adopt these kids.” They agreed. They said, “Great, we love these kids, we're gonna adopt them.” The social worker came back to us, and the caseworker came back and said, “We're really sorry, but this foster mom has threatened to sue if we give you these kids. So we're giving them to this other couple.” I was devastated. Tamara, I was beside myself. We had prayed. This was right before Christmas, we were planning on Christmas with a one year old and a two year old. We had no kids, nothing. We were gutted. We went to California to visit my family for Christmas. I kept praying. I never want to second-guess God. But I kept thinking, why would I get an answer like this?

Then one day, a couple months later, my wife called me up and said, “Hey, you're not gonna believe this. But the family that took in the kids are not able to keep them. I don't know why. But the team has already met, and they're going to give them to us.” I said, “I need to know more. I'm not jumping back in. I'm not falling for this.” So we went and met with this family one night. We went in there, they were a very religious family. We sat down with them. We said, “What is the story?” They immediately started to cry. The mother said, “We have two adopted kids who we know God sent to us. They are our kids. They're our children. David and Krista, who are our kids, she said, “Every night, when I kneel down to pray with them, the Spirit tells me, ‘These are not your children.’” She said, “I can't take it anymore, because I've fallen in love with them, and I still get that every night. We still plan to adopt more kids. But we've told been told again, and again, they're not our kids.” They brought down those two sweet little kids who were sleeping in their pajamas and my wife and I held them. The four of us sat there and sobbed our eyes out and the Spirit was so strong.

The next day we went and bought a crib, and a day bed, and two high chairs, and strollers. We went and I swear we cleared out Toys R Us kids. Then the following morning at 8 AM, we brought those kids home. They've been with us ever since. They're 24 and 25 years old now. David, our son, is now living in a group home. We had remarkably rough years in between, but he's now really thriving in this group home. Our daughter, Krista, is a dog groomer in Provo. She was just over at the house Saturday. She's just doing wonderfully. So that kicked off our journey into adoption.

Now, a couple things. You kind of think, well, that must be the end of it. Because we're handed these kids and it all works out great. Well, funny enough, we went to meet with the parents, the birth parents, and they still hadn't legally been totally taken away yet. It was just trial separation, the goal was to reunite them. So we go in to meet with the parents, the parents walk in, guess what? It's the coworker from selling frozen steaks. Their kid’s therapist, whom they had met, was my wife too. They're like, “Why is our co worker and our kid’s therapist sitting here?” Well, guess what? We're married to each other. We're the foster parents for your kids. Yay. So we all sit down and have these meetings and we already had a good foundation. They kept telling us, the parents had a lot of struggles, still do. The dad was a little checked out. But the mom kept telling us, “I'm sorry, you will never be able to adopt these kids. I will fight it and fight it until they're 18 years old. We will never relinquish rights.”

One day, my wife, Vanessa, calls me and says, “Get to the courthouse. They are willing to sign over rights.” I jam over to the courthouse, “What is going on the?” The birth mom is sitting there crying. Like I said, the dad’s kind of checked out. The birth mom says, “I realize I'm not going to win this battle. However, I need three people to get on the stand and testify that I love these kids. So my sister, my mom, and my best friend are all going to stand up one at a time and testify that I love the children so that it's on the record.” Now, you want to talk about God's hand in things. We're ready to do this. All they're waiting for is the best friend. The best friend's not showing up. She starts to panic, “This is a sign. I can't do this. I need these three people. I need three witnesses to tell my children so it's in the court record that I love them.”

She finally says, “I'm leaving. We're not doing this.” I go walking over to her and I said, “Annie, how many times when we were working together, did you tell me how much you love those children? Let me be the third person.” She said, “Sweet, okay.” So her mom went up and said, “Yep, she loves them.” Her sister went up and said, “Yep, she loves them.” I went up and bawled my eyes out. I don't think I said anything comprehensible. I think I was just sobbing, “She loves them so much.” And I testified. And that was it. Just like that. They were legally free. A few months later, we adopted them. They've been with us ever since. So incredible journey with them.

We then ended up having a son, Myles, who's 22 now and an amazing kid. Then we had another son, Keaton. I was sure that we were done. That's it, four kids. Then I was in church. Now our one son, David, he had so many problems. Went through so much with medication and therapy, that for a little while, he was actually at the state hospital. They had him in there for a few months to try to figure out what was going on with his medications. So I went up there one Sunday to go to church with him. I'm sitting there in church, my life was complete, everything was good. A man was speaking and he said, “Those of you in this room are called to work with those who need you.” Instantly, the Spirit said to me, “You will adopt a teenage daughter,” in no uncertain terms. Tamara, I was not, “Hey, I feel like maybe...” No. Maybe it's because of ADD boy over here. But maybe I just needed to hear, “You will adopt a teenage daughter.” So I go home. Now, how am I going to tell my wife this, right? But she got to spring the first two on me. So I go home. I just said, “I don't know how to tell you this, but we're gonna adopt a teenage daughter.”

Now, you know how sometimes spouses just have to be right? My wife said, “I know. I've known this for a while. I've been thinking the exact same thing.” So we put in our name in to the state, knowing that there were lots of teenagers who needed homes. We put our names in. Next thing you know, they start calling us. They would call, and this might sound really strange to some people, but they would call and say, “We have a young woman who needs a home. Her name is Jenny.” We go, “Jenny, that doesn't sound right.” It didn't feel right. It was like, “Wow, that's not her.” I didn't know who she was or what her name was. But we’d go through the motions. We would go down to the state building, we'd look through the file, whatever. We’d pray and we just didn't feel right about it. This happened for several girls in a row.

Then one day, my wife called me and said, “They have another young woman. Her name is Portia.” I went, “Ha, that's her.” My wife said, “I know.” We could have signed the paperwork then, I received such a confirmation that Portia was our daughter. But we went through the process. Portia had turned down other homes. Originally, she didn't want to be adopted. When she came in, she had her hair down in her face, wouldn't look up, wouldn't speak to us. We just loved her. We're talking to her. At one point, she leaned over to her caseworker and said, “I like these people. I think I could live here.” So sure enough. Portia has been through some of the most horrific abuse in her life, like, the things that she went through would make any grown man cry. So the things that she went through, the trials, and the struggles were just horrifying. Yet she was placed in our home. She was 14 years old. We just absolutely love her. She'll be 30 in June. We just absolutely adore her. So she was placed. So then that's it right? We're done. No more. That's it.

At this point, my wife comes home at some point and says, “Hey, guess what? I got an email about a nine year old boy. His name is JC and he needs a home and he's been through a heck of a lot. Parents went through a bunch of addiction and it was bad news.” That time, I actually went and when I prayed, I just went, “Heavenly Father, whatever, just you know, I'll do it.” You know, what am I going to do? It's very funny because when I look back at David and Krista it was like, “I'm gonna pray, get an answer. I will step up and do the right thing.” This time I was like, “Yeah, sure. We got a bedroom. Yeah, send them, whatever.” This wasn't being put in our path just by whatever. We knew. So we adopted him. JC, our son, who is 18 years old, and is just a dynamite kid. A lot going on, comes from a background of a ton of abuse.

You want to talk about a tender mercy of the Lord. He loved his birth parents. That's one thing about adopted children. Some of them are very angry with their birth parents, but they love them. If they had one wish it would be to be reunited with their birth family. They all want that. I want that. Who doesn't want that? Right? Sure. But his mom and dad had a lot of challenges. My wife, very shortly after we brought him into our home, before he was even really legally adopted, my wife had this strong feeling, “Hey, why don't we build a bridge together? You and me, let's go meet your birth parents at a park. And let's take some photos of you with them. Won't that be wonderful?” I was out of  town on a business trip. She packed up some food and they did a picnic. She took a bunch of photos of our son with his birth mom and his birth dad. They had a wonderful experience. A couple of months later, very suddenly, his birth mom passed away. Actually, it may have been weeks. I mean, it was very, very shortly thereafter. But what did he know? He knew that his adopted mom loved his birth mom. Then, I don't know, I'm bad with timelines, maybe a year later, his father passed away.

Thankfully, he was here with us. He had a safe home. Just more energy. If we could find a way to bottle JC’s energy, it would be amazing. He's had some big struggles, really big struggles. We have a lot of broken furniture, and some holes in some walls. Yet he is doing so great right now, better than we ever expected. He is doing wonderful things. He's 18. And then that led us to this was done. This was it. Then my wife got another email about a young lady named Chloe, who was 14 years old. Sure enough, another just, we have a bedroom. “Heavenly Father, is this the thing?” “Yes, it's the thing. Guess what? She's your daughter, too.” So we brought Chloe in. Chloe really was a challenge, in a lot of ways, and yet so sweet, and so loving, and so beautiful, and cheery. We have such a close relationship. She is now 22 years old, she comes over at least twice a week. Stops by and hangs out with us and, and just a wonderful kid. So we adopted her. That was seven.

She had a brother, who is severely autistic, verbal, but will never be able to live on his own. We met him a couple of times. He has a lot of behavior issues, a lot of rebellious anger issues. He's a full blood brother to our daughter. He came to her high school graduation, we had him over to the house a couple times, but didn't really know him. We got a call from the state and they said, “Hey, he's about to turn 18 and timeout. He doesn't have a family. Would you be willing to adopt him?” And at that point, yeah, we have seven, what’s eight? We adopted him. That was just a couple of years ago. He's living in a group home, he and our other son David, who become fast friends. They talk almost every day, they call me all the time saying, “I was just talking to David, and here's what's going on.” They've got big plans together. I took David and, his name's Cameron, I took them to Disneyland together. Wow, that was so fun. Just amazing.

I didn't even know you could adopt an 18 year old. But apparently, you have to be more than 10 years older, and the person has to be legally free. Then you can adopt them. So those are the highlights of how our family came together. Now in that time, lots of cops being called, some holes in walls, broken banisters, threats, homelessness, a little bit of in and out of jail. One a lot of in jail. Threatening, and somewhat pursuing ending their own life. A lot. But there has also been a lot of love, fun, hilarity, trips to Hawaii with this crew, trips to the Caribbean with this group, a trip to Disney World where one of them ended up shoplifting and we ended up at Disneyland jail. That's a real thing. Yet the blessings. Oh, the blessings. I just love our family so much. We're this crazy, crazy crew. This just wild, ridiculous family, and I would have it no other way. So that's a remarkably long answer to a very short question.

Tamara Anderson  35:08 

No, but it's so fascinating to me. We're gonna take a quick break, but when we get back, we're going to dive a little bit deeper into how Shawn's perspective has changed since adopting all these wonderful children. Stay tuned.

Hi, this is Tamara K. Anderson, and I want to share something special with you. When our son, Nathan, was diagnosed with autism, I felt like the life we had expected for him was ripped away, and with it, my own heart shattered as well. It's very common for families to feel anger, pain, confusion, and anxiety when a child is diagnosed. This is where my book, “Normal for Me,” comes into play. It shares my story of learning to replace my pain with acceptance, peace, joy, and hope. “Normal for Me” has helped change many lives, and I'd like to give this book to as many families as possible. We put together something I think is really special. My friends and listeners can order copies of my book at significantly discounted price. We will send them to families who have just had a child diagnosed with autism or another special needs diagnosis. We will put your name inside the cover so they will know someone out there loves them and wants to help. I will also sign each copy. You can order as little as one or as many as hundreds to be shared with others. So go to my website, tamarakanderson.com, visit the store section for more information, and to place your order. You can bless the lives of many families by sending them hope, love, and peace. Check it out today at tamarakanderson.com and help me spread hope to the world.

And we're back. I've been interviewing Shawn Rapier, and we have been talking about some of the amazing stories of how he was able to adopt some of his children. You know, one of the questions that's been kind of buzzing around in my mind is how has your perspective of God looking at his children changed since you’ve become a parent to so many different children?

Shawn  37:28 

Yeah, thank you. I think that's a great question. So I think part of it is we get very hard on ourselves. We're always harder on ourselves than we are on our children. Because we see the longer view for ourselves, we tend to have blinders on. We look at today, or I keep failing in this one way, I keep failing in this, and I can't see my own value. I think God takes the long view, and he has something we don't have. That is perspective as to what's next. I'm 48 years old. I don't know what it's like to be 55. I have no idea. So to me, life kind of ends at 48. For God, it doesn't. Not only does it keep going on until hopefully I'm 80 or 90, I hope, then He also knows the eternities. Well, I know for my children. When I see them too hard on themselves at 17, and 18, and 25, at 30 years old, I'm able to say, “Yeah, I know, that's a big deal now. But you're going to get through it. I know that because you're going to make it to 40 and 45 and 48 where I am.”

Now I don't have that long view that God has, but the infinite love that I feel for them, that we are going to make it through it together, and you're going to be fine. The little things, it's so funny because I'll have you know, a 15 year old, or an 18 year old, or now even a mid 20s come to me and say, “Oh no, this is the end of the world. I've got this, and I've got this,” and I kind of roll my eyes and go, “Okay, that's not the end of the world. Let me help you through it.” Part of me thinks, “How could you be so short sighted? Why do you think that's so dramatic?” Then that night, I'll get on my knees and say, “Oh God, I have this, and that, and there's the end of the world.” I'm sure he's going, “Aha, that's adorable that you think that you have a big problem.” So it really gives that perspective. I love it.

The other thing that raising our children has done for me is, and you talked about it a little bit when I talked to you, you have sort of an expectation for your child. You have these expectations that they're going to do X, Y, and Z and I expect to see them. I want to go to their wedding, and I want to go to their graduation from college, and I want to go to whatever. It shifts your perspective. Sometimes I hear, like, I'll be talking to a neighbor, or a friend and, I don't mean to diminish their pain, but they'll be like, “Oh, this kid, he's not going to go to college. It's the end of the world. You know, we've failed as parents because he wants to work full time instead of going straight to college, what are we going to do? We don't sleep at night.” I go, “Yeah, my kid’s about to get out of jail, we’re happy.” Or, “We didn't have anyone in jail today.” It gives this incredible perspective as to what matters most. It gives a sense of appreciation. To get there, I had to break. I think that's one of the most beautiful blessings is when you break, when you finally can let go.

We went to a parenting class once that was very instructive. The guy was telling a story about a woman he had taught. She went up to him and said, “I just don't get this class. What you're trying to tell me is I should completely give up control over my children?” He said, “Oh, you've totally misunderstood the point of the class. The point of the class is you should give up on the idea you ever had control. That's the misnomer.” I will never forget that. That's what I learned, is that I had all these plans. Every couple of months, I'm laying down the law, and here's how it's going to be, and here's what you are going to do. The truth of the matter is, before this life, we fought for agency. I've learned that. I've learned to appreciate my kid’s agency. I've learned to appreciate their mistakes. I've learned to show them an increased amount of love through all that. Lots of lessons, lots of lessons.

Tamara Anderson  41:26 

Now, you mentioned that you hit a point where you broke. Would you mind sharing that?

Shawn  41:33 

There are certain areas in our lives where things just get really rough. There was a little while that I was traveling. So I work in sales. I've been very blessed. I've never been without work, which has been a tremendous blessing for me. I've been in the consumer electronics industry for a long time. I've actually flown more than 2 million miles with Delta, over the course of my career. I've been in international sales, I've done US, all of it. There was a time where I was traveling a ton. My poor sweet wife was home with these kids that I mean, it was constant destruction, screaming. You know, you've been through it, the screaming fits, broken furniture, holes in walls, the threats, the stealing, the lying, the constant conniving, and it was just to the point where no one was happy. No one. The kids weren't happy, I wasn't happy, it was taking its toll on our marriage. I was happy to be on the road. It was hard, and everyone was kind of just unhappy.

That's when I realized we need more of the Atonement, we need more of Christ, we need to be focused more, and we need to stop trying to control. I think that's what broke me, was stopping that need to micro manage and control. You can’t scream at a kid who's been through seeing a parent pass, which, you know, unfortunately, two of our children have, or a child who watched his dad shoot up heroin when he was five years old, and then make himself breakfast. Like, the things they went through, to think that you're going to scream at them, and tell them how they're going to behave. I look back at it, and I go, “How nonsensical is that? Who was that? Who thought that might work?” I think where I broke was finally just recognizing that I needed God. I needed to understand His plan. Once I kind of broke that way, like, “Hey, you know what, being unhappy doesn't work. It's not working. We might as well be happy.” We might as well be happy because God has a plan. Certainly, my way is not working, and getting mad, and yelling, and being miserable, and being depressed, and everything else sure doesn't seem to be helping anyone, least of all me.

I had an interesting experience one night. One of my kids had moved out of the house. I was very, very concerned about this child of ours. I was in Miami, I was in a hotel room, and I was so overcome with worry. I knelt down, and I just prayed, and I poured my guts out. “Heavenly Father, you've got to bless us and we'll know how to help this kid. What do we do? What do we do?” I was so wracked with this pain and what do we do? The Spirit came to me with a really unexpected answer. Three words. He said, “He is mine.” That was it. That was the entire answer. “He is mine.” As I finished my prayer and pondered it, I realized that what God was saying is, “Who are you to sit and freak out over this kid? He's not yours. This is Earth. This is temporal. All children are mine. I am God. You relax. You take it easy, pal. Deal with your own issues. He's mine.”

I got so much peace that I called my wife. I said, “Hey, I was praying about this child of ours.” My wife said, “That's so funny, because I was, too.” Before I even finished, my wife said, “I was, too. I got this strong feeling that God has this. For whatever reason, I got the feeling that God has this.” See, she had to be first again. I said, “Yes, I got the same thing, that these kids…” And we forget that. I think, sometimes in our frustration, in our pain, and our guilt, in our depression, in our whatever. I don't want anyone to feel worse about themselves for it. I should say, for myself, there was a little bit of a lack of faith, like, “Oh, no, everything's out of control.” Well, two things, those two things can't be true at the same time, God has this. God is merciful. God is all aware. These are God's children. This is totally out of control, it's all my fault. Those two things can't coexist. They are not both true. So we have to choose the truth that God has this.

Tamara Anderson  46:27 

That is such a powerful shift, to pause and think about that. It takes that tremendous burden away, but it's a shift in perspective that you probably have to remind yourself up over and over all the time. “Yeah, God’s got this.”

Shawn  46:45 

Yeah. Eventually, it passes, and it's like, “What else is gonna happen?” You get to a point where it's like, we survived. We've survived visiting kids in jail. We've survived kids running away, and being gone for two days where we didn't know where they were. We survived finding out that a kid stole from Walmart, or stole from Disney World, or stole from the neighbors. We've survived having kids threaten to kill us. We've survived. Once you get through all these things, you kind of go, “Oh, yeah. What else are we going to do?” The only thing we can control is how we respond to it. I think respecting agency has been such a blessing.

I was on a flight once. It was funny. When I got on the flight, it was my dad's first cousin. I hadn't seen him in years, we got seated together, which was a blessing. We sat talking. He was telling me about my cousin who had gone through a really rebellious period and gone to his dad and said, “Dad, I don't want to go to church anymore. I don't want to live by the rules anymore. I don't want to whatever.” He said, “Son, I need to process this. I really need to think about this.” So he called a friend of his who was older and much wiser. He said, “My son said he's not going to go to church, he's not going to have faith. He doesn't want to be a part of the family prayer, all that.” His friend said, “Well, what are you going to do about it?” He said, “I want to say to him, ‘Son, you are living in our home, you're a teenager, you're going to go to church, you're going to go to church activities, you're going to pray, you're going to study you are going to do all these things, because you live in my home. And you don't have a choice about it.’” His friend said, “You know, I'm pretty sure that that plan was proposed and voted down. Why don't you try again?” Mu uncle said it hit him that all we can do is really show an increase in love, and trust God to do the rest. We don't give up. We keep instructing and we keep guiding. But now he still has such a relationship with that child. That was a tremendous lesson for me to learn.

Tamara Anderson  48:57 

I’d love to dive a little bit deeper into love and what you have learned about love through all of this.

Shawn  49:05 

It's interesting. Love is not a temporary thing. Love has to be a deeper sentiment. That's one of the things I've really learned through all of this process of raising these amazing children. It's interesting. Children go through what they call attachment disorders. What it really is, is this child bonded with somebody and then was ripped away and that pain was so intense. Maybe it happened multiple times that they say, “I'm not going to go through that again. I will sabotage so that I never have to go through that pain again.” So almost 100% of the time, you end up with these kids that go through a honeymoon phase. You get this wonderful honeymoon phase where everything's great, so happy to be with you, then, “Oh, I'm starting to feel love. I'm starting to feel attachment. If I get ripped away from these people again, I will go through so much pain. I am going to sabotage. I'm going to prove to them. They don't know what a bad kid I am. Everything's my fault. So I'm going to prove to them what a bad kid I am.” Then you go through whatever amount of time. For some kids, it's a year. For some kids, it's less or more, you go through hell. I don't know another word to use to describe it. But you go through hell. And they will do anything they can to break you, and to show you, to prove to you, to get you to finally admit that you don't really love them. Then they get over it. That's when the bond can actually start.

But I've had kids who have screamed at me, threatening to kill me, I never want to see you again, I'm running away, whatever. 10 minutes later, sitting in my lap, cuddling and crying, and telling me how much they love me, or just sitting and crying. We can get caught up in the moment and say things that we don't mean in the long view. It's important that we don't, because words really matter. Now, it's funny seeing all my kids grown and gone except for the last one. They still, at the end of every conversation, say I love you. Oh, that love is real. And love is unconditional. My gosh, I know that. The scriptures teach us that. But love is so unconditional. It really is. We cannot bring people into our lives with conditional love. That is one thing that I've learned. There are people who often will say to us, “Man, I don't know how you guys do this. I don't think I could.” Well, you're probably right. Tamara, I've listened to your story. I don't know if I could do that. I'm probably right. We are given the challenges that we are given.

But there are all kinds of scriptures about what love is and what it isn't. It's not conditional, and you can't lord it over someone. You can't hold it back and say, “If you do x, then I'll love you.” The only way to grow is to show so much love, and when you least want to give that additional measure of love, no matter how hard it is. And to keep giving that love. Love is the antidote to hate. It's the antidote to anger. It is the antidote to everything. There have been times where we've had to say, “I love you, and you need to move out. I love you. And this hurts me so much. But I'm calling the police. And I'm calling the police because I love you,” or, “I'm asking you to move out because I love you,” or, “You're grounded because I love you,” or, “We're going to talk to the school and tell them what you stole because I love you.” You have to trust that that will come back around to you. Because in the moment, they hate it and they're like, “Oh, I'm sure you wouldn't do this.”

Love cannot be a weapon. It cannot be a tool, it cannot be withheld, it can only be given in abundance. We should never, ever put ourselves in a position, not with a spouse, with a child, with a friend, with a co worker, with anything, where we are not willing to 100% give love unconditionally. If we are looking to use love as a tool, we have failed. That is Satan's plan. Satan's plan is for us to wield love. Love is not to be wielded. Love is to be given freely. The more I give, the more I give to my kids, the more I get back. We all go through different little times, I do, you do, my kids did. In those times where it was darkest, it was most important that they knew how much we love them. The number of times I've been on a phone call and I've said, “I love you,” only to hear a click. That's okay, that has to be okay. You can't at that point go, “Oh, sorry I said I love you then.” No, that's when they need to hear it most and when it resonates.

If you can, teach your kids that love is not a weapon love cannot be wielded. It's critical, but you love on such a deeper level. You love because you see their pain and we knew my own pride, my own ego would get in the way of it. But I knew what these kids had been through. I knew what their lives had been. Unfortunately, I'm sure sometimes I contributed to that. There were times where I acted out of my own ego, my own pride. It was time for me to apologize to them. Something that's really hard for me to think about, but I believe, right now I only know my kids after the pain they went through. But someday in the next life, I am going to see them for who they are without that pain and without all that armor that they put on, and I am going to ask for their forgiveness for my shortcomings as their father. I'm going to ask them if they'll please forgive me because I didn't know, I didn't really understand. That flips everything upside down, right? I mean, it's the same thing. We're the parents and whatever. I still have to appear before my parents, before my God, before my Savior. I have to go, and I have to ask for grace from those children. Thankfully, right now, at least in this moment, they're all speaking to me. They all still say, “I love you, Dad,” at the end of every conversation, and they all hug me. They all love me, thankfully. But I'm still gonna have that moment. And gosh, it's just that reminder to never say something that we can't take back.

Tamara Anderson  55:55 

Wow, that's powerful. Now, I can't imagine that this love was something that you just snapped your fingers and instantly had? What did you do? How did God bless you? What did that process look like, to get to that level of love? I think in the scriptures, they call it charity. But how did you do that? Like, I'm sitting here going, “Oh, my word that is such a deep level of understanding, of love, and compassion, and all that.” How did that process, what did it look like for you?

Shawn  56:32 

So I think part of it is believing in the eternal nature of the soul, and believing in God having a plan. So in the same way that you love a baby, and I've gotten to watch two babies come into my family, and I've been able to say those are mine. In the same way, when an adopted child comes in, no matter how hard they are, there is that sense that this was, somehow, I don't know how it all works, but agreed to before we came here. We knew this was going to happen. We were just meeting up a different way. That knowledge, and a knowledge that life is short and temporary, and that the eternities together would be so long, and that we can have these relationships forever, and that our souls go on forever, that eternal perspective is what gives that love. It's funny, it used to somewhat offend me. Now it doesn't offend me at all. Because I realize it's just a different understanding. But people would say, “Well, you can't love your adopted children the way that you love your birth children, can you?” I say, “I don't love my two birth children the same way. I love them differently. I love each of my adopted children differently. However, I cannot put love on a scale. I can't weigh love. I love them differently. And that's all I can say.”

But it comes in those times. It comes in the time. Forgiveness breeds love. My kids have messed up at times. When I forgive, I feel that love. That's Christ like love. When I ask for their forgiveness, I feel their love. And that's how love grows. And then spending time together. I love that. I love things about them. I had a coworker who passed away last week very suddenly. It hit me pretty hard. One of my adopted daughters knew that. That night, she brought me flowers and ice cream. Oh, how much do I love that? You know, I mean, that was love. So you continue to build up. But again, it's knowing that. The truest thing I've ever heard about any parenting, for you, for me, for anyone is that the days are long, and the years are short. That is the most truthful thing I can imagine about parenting. There were days that I would say, “Oh my gosh, I'm so tired. I can't see.” The screaming has been happening for hours. This is miserable and everyone's unhappy. Holy cow, it's 5:30pm. It was the worst thing in the world. Yes. Then I look back and I talk about that one and two year old, 24 and 25 now, and I go, when did that happen? It goes by and it creates that eternal perspective.

I think the biggest thing as far as growing love is deciding to love and not giving up. And again, knowing that and drawing it out, that, for myself, that this love is unconditional, I'm going to give it to you. That's it. I can't take it back and no matter what you ever do, I will never take it away from you. I'm giving you this love as a gift, the same way that the Savior gives us His love. I think that's how it begins to grow, and then you have good experiences, and you love things about them. You laugh at other things about them. They're things that drive you nuts but you still love about them, even though it's quirky. Thank heavens, my wife puts up with my stupidity and my garbage all the time, and sometimes even laughs about it, and sometimes kind of loves things about me that I'm sure other people are like, “Wow. Talk about I don't know how you do it.” People say that, I think, to my wife all the time. But that's how you grow that love.

The truth is, if you want love, give it and just give it unconditionally. Do not wield it. It cannot be wielded. And if we've wielded love, if we're trying to teach someone a lesson, by withholding love for a little while, I'm withholding love for your own good, my gosh, we've gotten off track. We have gotten so far off track. No, we can withhold and we've protected ourselves. There have been times where we’re like, “We cannot have you live in our home. We love you so much. What can we do?” And give that love and that love is there no matter what. There have been times that our kids have been surprised that we still love them. Good. Let it be surprising. Love should be surprising. Great. It is always there. And now. I know that they know that they can't outrun our love. They can't bad behave out of our love. They can't. It doesn't matter what they do. The love, that's table stakes, that is there no matter what.

Tamara Anderson  1:01:29 

I love that phrase. They can't outrun your love.

Shawn  1:01:32 

They can't out run it. They can't out bad behavior it. They can't. Even if they hate us. We love you.

Tamara Anderson  1:01:38 

Wow, that is that's so amazing. And incredible. Thank you for sharing that. I just have to ask, through all of this, have you found a Bible verse that has just really resonated, or inspired you, or helped you, or giving you a different perspective?

Shawn  1:02:02 

I am a huge fan of the Sermon on the Mount. I love the Sermon on the Mount because there's a promise in there. There are several promises. It talks about the poor in spirit, it talks about if you mourn, you'll be comforted. There's a lot about, if you will give way to yourself, if you'll let go of your own desires, then you're going to get more than what you would have gotten. If you're poor in spirit, you get the kingdom. If you try to get the kingdom, then you're going to be poor. Yeah, there's a lot of that. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. But for some reason, if you don't mourn with others, you're not going to be comforted by the Spirit.

There's so many things, but I think my favorite is Matthew 5:9. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” I love that scripture. I've learned so much about that. Seek for peace. When you seek for peace in a family, there is no peace in being right. There is no peace in winning. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” If we want to be the children of God, we will seek for peace and we will make peace. It doesn't say the peace acceptors, it says the peacemakers. The peace of peacemaking is an active term, it's something you have to do. And I think that only if we are the peacemakers, if we're trying for peace, not complacency. It doesn't mean that you look past what your kids are doing, or look past the bad behaviors of a friend, or a spouse, or a parent, or whatever. It doesn't mean that. It means you strive for peace.

What is peace? Peace is the Savior. Peace is the Atonement. That is the way that you kneel down at night. You are the children of God. When you pray, no, you cannot pray and say, “Hey, my son, or my daughter, or my spouse tried to do this. And Heavenly Father, you'd be so proud. I belittled them. I shamed them. I was right and I won.” No, you lost. Blessed are the peacemakers. Two big parts: peace and makers. Did I make peace? Did I make peace in my home? Are my kids able to feel the Spirit. And oftentimes, after the biggest blow up, the meltdown, the kicking, “I'm never gonna see you again, I'm going to run,” after the running away sometimes, it's that sitting in a chair and holding them. Sometimes I held 17 and 18 year old grown children and just rocked and scratched backs, and told them how much we love them, and told them how wonderful they were, and told them that I understood how painful life must be, and shared with them some of my pains, and tried to bring peace. It's those times when I felt like a child of God in the most pure way. Whereas there were other times that my ego got involved, and, “How dare you, you're gonna this, and that, and whatever.” And guess what, there was no peace.

Pride is the antithesis of God. So I love that scripture and blessed are the peacemakers. That includes being an angel for others. As we've had people who have created peace in our home, who have come and picked up our children at times. I got a call from a former young men's leader, just the other day, that one of my kids who has moved out and is going through some struggles, called him and FaceTimed him. He FaceTimed with my son for 20 minutes. He hasn't been a leader for six or seven years. Blessed are the peacemakers, and people who knew, people who would be out for a walk with their dog, and would see the police out in front of our house, and maybe one of our kids dragged away, and cops or whatever, and then would call an hour or two later. They’d ask if we’re doing all right, and would bring a loaf of zucchini bread or whatever. Wouldn't ask questions. Just I hope you know, we love you. Blessed are the peacemakers. I've just learned that that’s the one thing I want. I want to be a peacemaker. I want to be that child of God, that's what I want in my life.

Tamara Anderson  1:06:25 

Oh, my goodness, wow. You know, you've learned some very profound lessons, through your up and down journey in life. Thank you for being willing to share those with us today. I know there's going to be people that are going to want to find you online and connect with you. How do they do that? Why don't you tell us a little bit about how they can find you and where they can listen to more of Shawn?

Shawn  1:06:54 

There's plenty of Shawn to be listened to. I need to get this in before I plug myself. This has been a little bit of a running theme. But I cannot overstate the importance of a strong marriage. My wife is my absolute Rock of Gibraltar. She is a solid rock. My kids know it. They know that dad can be a pushover, dad can be swayed, and dad can be whatever. My wife is solid. Solid in her love, solid in her patience. No nonsense. She is the reason that we still have relationships, that we still have everything. And the reason I have sanity. I have no clue what this woman saw in me just to begin with. I have zero idea how she has stuck with me for all these many years. But I will tell you that my kids would tell you, “Yeah, dad's a little bit of a weirdo. But mom, mom is solid.” I just love my wife and, and she is just amazing.

If people want to hear more of my yammering, which I'm pretty sure my wife does not, but if people want to hear more of me, I do have a podcast that I've been doing for a little over three years. It's called Latter Day Lives, and I interview people from our faith. We call it conversations with fascinating people who happen to be members of our faith. What a blessing to have you on the show, but we've had on actors, and singers, and authors, and then just people with an interesting life story. People who, you know, former drug addicts, or people who have turned around their lives through Christ, and that's incredibly moving and I've met some incredible people.

Then the other thing is, and this is really bizarre, but if you like good barbecue, I'm part of a competition. We are a competition barbecue team. On Instagram, it's called @gabbacue. We do competition barbecue. We compete all over the place. We competed in St. George two weeks ago. We'll be down in Vegas in a few weeks. So that's how I keep my sanity, is doing competition barbecue.

But Latter Day Lives, we have an Instagram page and a Facebook page. I will say, it is not for people just of our faith. People might say, “Oh, I'm not of your faith.” We actually have quite a listening base of people that are not specifically part of our faith, or Christians. I have listeners who are atheists. I have two listeners who I know, who write to me somewhat regularly, who are devout Jews. It's really an uplifting, just fascinating place, where people testify of how faith has affected their lives, and they talk about their lives. It's a fun, fun show.

Tamara Anderson  1:09:45 

That is so awesome. Okay, before we close you have to tell me your favorite thing to barbecue.

Shawn  1:09:53 

That's a great question. You know, it's funny, my go to probably is whole chicken. I like doing whole chicken. So yeah, I do a kind of chicken, this is at least once a week, where you split it in half, you basically cut out the backbone. Then you can either crack the rib, but I hang it. I actually put it on hooks, and I hang it over fire, over wood. I smoke chicken that way. That's probably my favorite. It's simple. It's easy. It's so delicious. I just love a good smoked chicken.

Tamara Anderson  1:10:30  

And now I'm hungry.

Shawn  1:10:34 

Well, one of these times, when COVID is all done, we'll have you guys over. That's a lot of fun.

Tamara Anderson  1:10:41 

Oh, my goodness. Well, Shawn Rapier, thank you so much for coming and sharing your story of hope. I have just been so motivated. I think I've learned so much, especially about love, and being a peacemaker. So thank you for sharing that with us today.

Shawn 1:10:58 

Well, thank you for all you're doing. It’s interesting, as you know, it's a little different being on this side of the microphone. We're not used to opening ourselves up as much. So thank you for the opportunity. Thanks for all the wonderful work you do. I learned so much from you as well. So thank you.

Tamara Anderson  1:11:12 

Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's show. If you like what you heard, subscribe so you can get your weekly dose of powerful stories of hope. I know there are many of you out there who are going through a hard time, and I hope you found useful things that you can apply to your own life in today's podcast. If you would like to access the show notes of today's show, please visit my website, storiesofhopepodcast.com. There you will find a summary of today's show, the transcript, and one of my favorite takeaways. You know, if someone kept coming to mind during today's episode, perhaps that means that you should share this episode with them. Maybe there was a story shared, or quote, or a scripture verse that they really, really need to hear. So go ahead and share this podcast. May God bless you, especially if you are struggling, with hope to carry on, and with the strength to keep going when things get tough. Remember to walk with Christ and He will help you bear the burden. And above all else, remember God loves you.

www.tamarakanderson.com/podcasts/shawn-rapier-adoption-how-i-learned-love-is-unconditional