Loved As You Are - Companion Guide

From authors and speakers, Steven and Courtney Cohen.

This companion guide is for parents, counselors, and those who read Loved As You Are, regardless of age. It is designed to create a fun environment, develop common language, validate feelings and perspectives of our foster children, help grasp the depth and connections in the illustrations, and to give insight and discussion point

Join Gif, the giraffe, on his perilous and providential journey to find his forever home – to discover what it means to be loved as you are.

Family comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Adoption through foster care is one wonderful path a family can walk to come together. Even the storms and steep mountains of life your child has faced are part of the larger, colorful portrait God is painting of their life. Though God may not have brought the challenges their way, He can always make use of them for your child’s good.

Gif the giraffe, pronounced Jif, was first painted on our nursery room wall as we prepared for our first adopted daughter. He gained his name almost three years later when she would say goodnight to the animals and she called him peanut butter. Like that creamy substance on the roof of your mouth, the name just stuck.

In Loved As You Are we are invited into Gif’s journey of adoption through foster care. For kiddos who experience these unimaginable challenges and hardships it can become hard to see God’s love for them or His bigger picture, sometimes making them feel hopeless or unloveable.