Monday, November 5, 2012

This Woman has Spirit/Blogging while the Fort Mountain blog comes to me

I had a great time at Fort Mountain, Ga and have a blog in my heart, but need some time to process it. So, as I recently posted an old nomination for the Women’s Lifestyle SPIRIT Award, I want to feature another of my winners. Although I had never met Denise when I wrote the nomination; her story from the newspaper had gripped my heart.


I thank the Lord for this lovely woman of God and am really happy that the Lord got us together, two Southern women, sisters among you, who have some things in common, but mainly we just love the Lord. She is going through a hard time again right now, so I thought this might encourage her. Here it is as appeared some years back:

For about four years Denise Baklid lived through a story that rivals the one where two mothers came before King Solomon (1 Kings 3:16-28) asking for a baby they both claimed as their own.

She and her husband, Ivar's only mistake was falling in love with a child that they had nurtured since infancy and were misled to believe that he would be theirs by way of adoption. Christian was born in October 2001 in Daytona Beach was in the foster care system soon afterwards. Denise and Ivar cared for Christian for sixteen months after his birth and endured a traumatic court battle to try and maintain the home for the child that Denise felt the Lord had given to her.


It takes resilience to live through taking care of a child while dealing with: work, court hearings, DCF or CBC intervention in your life, the child's emotional issues, trying to make a normal life for the child and your husband also. We cannot even begin to comprehend the depths of pain Denise went through. Sometimes in the fast-paced world we live in, a true mother's heart is overlooked, yet I believe it is something of great value and depth.
It takes resilience to sometimes just do the next thing in life when you carry pain in your heart as she did when Christian was taken away from her; then to be reunited only to have him taken away again.
After much prayer and pain she resolved to do what would keep Christian from enduring more emotional trauma; she gave up her dream to embrace him as her child and instead freed him in the hopes that one day they may be reunited in some way.

"We have to be Christian’s true parents to do this," Baklid said in reference to their decision (on Monday) they will not move forward with their adoption appeal to get back their former 4-year-old foster child, stating "there comes a time when we have to decide what is best for Christian." (Daytona Beach New Journal)
Denise's story spurred legislators on, to speed up solutions so that other children in the system don't have to deal with separation and emotional issues as Christian did.

Compassion and love exudes from Denise. Even though she has many a reason to become bitter she has maintained a Christian testimony throughout this ordeal.

The Baklid’s would like to help change the system and try to teach that each case is unique. The judges and DCF cannot continually look at cases and not realize these are real people and families, not just a case number or statistic. Each real person involved in the case has their own story, their own history that contributes to what works out to become what is in the best interest of the child.

She believes that there are countless horror stories of caring people who are just trying to help kids, which have gone untold. She is an overcomer and by God's grace portrays resilience.

Donna Collins Tinsley



PS Denise, I adore you, but I bet you already know that

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