"You Came From My Heart" is a children's story about adoption. The story follows Arik and Julia in their adventure through the forest as they discover the wonder of new life. This leads to questions about their own birth, which the parents address thoughtfully and lovingly without the use of loaded terms. The children learn that no matter how God creates families, they are blessed and part of His sovereign design.

This is the story about a bright little boy named Arik who one day, while playing in the woods with his Daddy, began to see the world in a whole new way. With his parents and younger sister Julia, Arik shared a big house in the mountains with a purple beta fish, a cat named Espresso because she was so full of energy, and a big yellow dog named Casey.

Skipping under a green canopy of pine and oak, Arik loved to explore the trails that threaded through the forest near his home. The cold and clear streams seemed to sing as they careened happily through the steep mountainsides. And everywhere, if you paid attention, were hints of strange and fascinating creatures. For Arik everyday in the woods was a new adventure.

On this day Arik wondered about the fat sequoia trees so high you could barely see the tops. What made them grow so big? Or the tiny ants that lived in underground cities they built themselves; how many lived down there? Arik especially wondered about the birds. What made them float and glide through the sky?

Just then a brightly colored robin flew down into the tall pine Arik and his Daddy were standing under. Perched on a branch was a nest with eight, fuzzy faced, baby birds, their tiny orange beaks open wide as they bobbed their heads up and down and cried a persistent “peeep, peeep.”

“Are those birds very hungry Daddy”, Arik asked?

“Well”, answered Arik’s Daddy as he peered up into the nest, “it looks as though they have only just hatched from their eggs and, yes, I suspect they are quite hungry from the sound of them”.

Arik asked, “Was I hungry after I hatched, Daddy Bird”?

© Mark R Schneider