Adoption and Faith Archives - Page 19 of 44

January 15, 2014January 15, 2014

Again and Again and Again

There was no getting it out of my head. It had become my heart’s background music.

How great is our God. Sing with me. How great is our God.

Ashlyn had invited Lydia to watch her adoption video again…and again and again. As I buzzed around the kitchen, I could hear the song from the other room over and over with Ashlyn’s sweet narration of the images that have become as much a part of the song as the notes and lyrics themselves for our family.

As I danced between the stove and sink to prepare our meal as mothers often do, a small person ran into the room and hugged my legs tight, forcing me to still as small people often do.

I love being adopted. I want to be adopted again!

Caught up in the words of praise and moving music and dramatic images, she recognized in her little 4 year old way the significance and beauty of that moment when we received her in our arms after years of anticipation.

I told her then and write now to preserve the words and my heart here for when her little 4 year old heart is an 8 year old heart or a 12 year old heart or it bursts one day as a mother’s heart.

I love you “being adopted” too. I am so happy to be your mother. When I see you sleeping in the car or watch snuggled up with your sister or listen to your long prayers before dinner, my heart smiles along with my face and I hear the words of “How Great is Our God” in my heart again. The day I saw you enter that office room in the arms of a woman who had cared for you for a year, wearing your big puffy pants, I was amazed and filled with wonder. Years of desiring you had come to fruition. I remember every moment of that day—the songs of the street cleaning trucks, the echoes in the marble halls, the cough that rattled your little frame. I can get caught up in wanting to relive that day too. But, my love, there is no need now to pine for that day. When we adopted you, it was done. Finished. You become ours. Grafted in. If I were able to go back and do it again, I would because I love you even more fully now than I did that day. But, there’s no do overs with that. Our vows that day still stand today and will tomorrow and forever more as every part of you is every part of us.

Yes, I love you being adopted. I loved that day when we adopted you. And, I’d do it again 100 x 100 times if I could. I love you that much.

________________________________________

Forever changed by our experience of being adopted and adopting, Kelly is a stay-at-home mom/manager to 4 children and a professional juggler, juggling her calling as wife and mother with her secondary callings (editing and serving adoptive families through The Sparrow Fund). You can learn more about their adoption story, how they’ve been changed, and what life for them looks like on their personal blog, My Overthinking.

January 13, 2014January 13, 2014

Here We Go

You are my firecracker and my sweet-as-cotton-candy love. I’m crazy about you. You are my favorite three year old, though I can hardly believe that it’s true. Your birthday was Sunday. Where did three years go? You are brave and strong and you love fiercely. When you hug, it is never half-hearted. It is teeth-clenched, arms tight, hard-as-you-can-possibly-squeeze intense, as if the best way to show someone you love them is to really make them feel it. I think you’re probably right.

You love to cuddle and snuggle and wear your “comfy cozy jammies.” You’re smart as a whip and regularly surprise us with your ability to creatively solve your problems… recently you (the girl who loves to do everything herself) began asking us to come to the bathroom with you so that you can “hold onto our legs.” When we asked you why, you matter-of-factly announced it was so you wouldn’t have to touch the toilet and therefore not have to wash your hands. (You don’t want to slow down long enough to wash your hands, and I’ve told you in the past that you must do so after using the bathroom and touching the germy toilet.) We laughed at your problem-solving. You love your puppy, LeLe, and regularly tell her that she’s a good dog. Except when she isn’t, and then you like to point out her foibles. It won’t be long till you take the same approach to us. Your descriptor-of-choice for people lucky enough to be in your good favor is “girl.” Those who aren’t are all “boys.” Regardless of a person’s actual gender, I might add. The other day after your daddy did something that particularly pleased you, you happily sighed and told me, “I love my daddy, mama. He’s not a boy anymore.” It’s nice to know you have a concept of grace.

You sing with joy, and your favorite song – on repeat in the car for weeks now – is Ten Thousand Reasons by Matt Redman. You know all the words, and when the tempo picks up in preparation for the chorus you grin and shout, “Here we go mama!” I can’t help but shout the same thing in my heart. Yes, sweetheart, here we go.

It seems like yesterday we were driving down the bumpy back roads late at night from Qingyundian into Beijing. I was so worried we’d get caught in traffic on the way to the hospital… I could see the spectacle in my mind: American women in full-blown labor on a crowded Beijing subway. Some adventures don’t seem worth having. But you told us you were coming in the evening, and we made it to the hospital in about an hour. Our doctor, Amber Chen, was waiting as I came off the elevator. The evening passed in a blur… fitful bits of sleep and worried doctors and talk of dropping heart rates and meconium and the “baby must come now or we will do an emergency c-section.” I was fretful and tired and unsure how it would all work out, and just like that, there you were. “It’s a girl!” Dr. Chen announced. “Are you sure?” I asked. She was. And so I became a mama right there – laying on a hard bed one cold winter morning in downtown Beijing. Here we go.

And we’ve been on a journey, ever since, sweet girl. In some ways, you saved me from myself as we moved back to America. You kept me grounded as I processed the magnitude of leaving China and coming home… a far harder transition than moving there ever was. In those days of uncertainty, you gave me purpose. I found a quiet joy in watching you thrive, after years of being around little ones who weren’t. Parenting is such a challenging journey – partially because just as soon as you get used to one phase, it’s time for something new. But I’ve loved the journey with you, and while I’m particularly enjoying this season where I can have actual conversations with you and hear what you are thinking or feeling, what I wouldn’t give for just one more middle-of-the-night feeding. Our journey is changing sweet girl. You don’t understand, but it’s another one of those seasons where my heart hears the change in the music. Here we go, sweet girl!

You are about to be a big sister. I’m terrified you will hate it but convinced that you’ll love it. I have no doubt you’ll be good at the big sister gig, as long as your little allows you a bit of that “big sister” bossing privilege. But I know it is going to be hard for you. Sharing your toys, your room, your mama, and your daddy. Sharing your puppy and your whole little world. In my heart-of-hearts, I think you will be huge part of showing Alea the way of being in a family. You’ll take her by the hand and wrap her up in your love. You’ll take all that brave, strong, fierce love and you’ll learn what it means to love a sister. Sometimes it might feel like iron sharpening iron, but I believe the two of you will call out all that is best in each other.

Even if you don’t fully understand, I think you know in the deepest part of your heart something is happening. You look at the painting on our wall and tell me you want to ride an airplane to China. You point at the little black-haired-beauty holding your hand in the painting and tell me, “Let’s go get my friend.” My heart swells because you don’t even know what you’re saying, but it is true. We’re going to China again… the land where I first became a mama and you became a daughter. Our feet will hit that soil in just a few months, and our family will go through yet another massive transition. You will become a sister on the same ground where we became a family. Just like your birth, it might hurt and take our breath away sometimes, sweet girl. It’s OK to be scared and uncertain and wondering what the future will hold and how it will all turn out. I am, too. But one thing I know, we are on this journey together.

The music is changing; a new song is coming, and it’s almost time… Here we go, darling.

Here. We. Go.

___________________________

Carrie is an in-process adoptive mama working to bring home her little one from China. She and her husband Jacob spent four years caring for orphans at New Day Foster Home in China, where they also welcomed their daughter Cora. Now, back in the US, Carrie continues to maintain ties to China with her work with Scarlet Threads, a small social enterprise working with artisans in China and Burmese refugees in Texas. Carrie occasionally blogs at her blog, NowHere.

January 8, 2014January 8, 2014

Reflections . . . the first year

It’s hard to believe it has been almost a year since our precious boy walked into our lives that frigid day in Shanghai. I can barely remember life without him. It seems as if he has always been here, and in a sense, he has. God chose him for us before the foundation of the world. He placed Anthony in our hearts before he was even a thought in our finite minds. What a mighty God we serve!

First Photo ever with my new son!

The past year has taken us on an amazing journey far beyond our imaginations. Never in my wildest dreams or fantasies of my future life (of which there have been many) did I ever picture myself adopting an 8 year old boy. When Adam first told me that he wanted Anthony, the fear that rose in me was fierce but stronger yet was the gentle voice of God whispering, “trust Me”.

“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,’

declares the Lord.” (Is. 55:8, NIV)

Adoption is all about trust.

Trusting that God will provide a child for you.

Trusting that God will provide the funds you need for the adoption costs.

Trusting that God will protect and love your child while someone else holds them.

Trusting that God will comfort them when they are ripped from the only life they have ever known.

Trusting that God will meld and knit your family together for His glory.

And now, here we sit, one year later . . . still trusting, as each new day brings

More love

More joy

More frustrations

More openness

More peace

More trust.

What an amazing year!

_____________________________________

After struggling with infertility for 5 years, God led Suzanne and her husband, Adam, to His Plan A for their lives—adoption! Their daughter, Grace Lihua, came into their lives on May 8, 2011 (Mother’s Day) from Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, China. And, their son, Anthony Jianyou, joined their family on January 14, 2013 from Shanghai. After a career in politics, Suzanne now works as a part time Pilates instructor while home schooling their children, writing and working as a part of the Sparrow Fund Blog leadership team. You can follow their adoption journey and life on her blog, Surpassing Greatness.

January 6, 2014

Science Questions

Always inquisitive and literal, my four year old looked at me at the end of our meal and asked, “Mom, how can God live in my heart if He is living in heaven?”

“Well, honey, God is everywhere, so He can live in your heart AND in heaven.”

“Even when we go on vacation?”

“Yep, even when we go on vacation. He can be in both places at the same time. That’s kind of hard to understand, isn’t it?”

Looking puzzled she replied, “Yes, Mom. That’s like a science question.”

To her, a “science question” is a really hard question – a question whose answer is either “I don’t know”, or is too hard to understand. As I pondered our little conversation, I couldn’t help but find so much truth in it.

Ask anyone who has adopted and they will likely tell you that it was during the course of their adoption that they saw God move in powerful, undeniable ways. Those stories are such an encouragement to hear and are readily shared with others.

But most adoptive parents will also tell you that it was during the course of their adoption that they questioned God the most. Why is this so hard, Lord? Why are we hitting yet another road block? Is this the child you would have us adopt? Why are the feelings of love not coming as quickly as I assumed they would? Why did our adoption fall apart? When will the waiting end? How can this be happening?

Hard, faith-testing questions. Questions that often have no earthly answer or explanation.

“Science questions.”

We all have them. And I dare say that those “science questions” are just as important to share as our “success stories”. Sharing our struggles and questions – even unanswered ones – with each other allows us to experience authentic, faith-filled community. You struggle with that? I do, too!

It’s also important to keep approaching God with our questions. He’s big enough to handle our questions. Even our “science questions”. And while He certainly could give us answers, He just may be more interested in having us wrestle with Him over the questions.

Wrestling requires closeness.

Wrestling produces strength.

Wrestling may also cause hurt (as it did when Jacob), but with God it will be a hurt that will serve as a reminder of the holiness of God and the intimacy of your relationship.

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. … The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.
Genesis 32:24-25, 31

So share those questions with others in your faith-community. Find support and community with others. You are not alone in your questioning. But also approach God with your questions. Wrestle with Him. He longs to draw you closer to him and will use anything He can to get you there.

Even “science questions”.

____________________________

18 years in the classroom as a teacher was easy compared to parenting three little ones at home full-time. Through their three daughters, God has revealed Himself most clearly to Stephanie and her husband Matthew. He not only worked a miracle in giving them their biological daughter, He continued to show Himself in mighty ways throughout adoption journeys in China and Bhutan that were anything but normal. Nowadays she enjoys encouraging and connecting with other adoptive families through her work on “We Are Grafted In”. You can read more about their family on their personal blog We Are Family.

January 3, 2014

He is There. He is Here

Christmas 2009. Four Christmases ago. I was a wreck. We were so close to finding our new daughter. I just knew it would be a few weeks after Christmas; I hoped it would be a few weeks after Christmas. I was filled with expectation that Christmas.

And, that meant that though I didn’t know who she was or where exactly she was, what she looked like or how old she was, I knew she was. I knew she was somewhere across the world, alone on Christmas, what turned out to be her first Christmas.

I was anxious and wondering and thinking all the time about her. Yet, there was something that gave me great peace.

God was there.

In Luke 2:6-20, Luke mentioned the manger three times. Why?

The manger was messy. It wasn’t what we picture and what our children play with as part of our little nativity sets they can hold in their hands. It wasn’t a symmetrical wooden contraption with a sweet bed of hay. It was more like a box looking thing or basin made out of clay mixed with hay or stones and held together with mud. All kinds of food for animals was put into it, not just nice yellow hay. It was dirty, likely moldy, smelly, not anything we’d want our child anywhere near.

And, God was there. Very literally, God was there.

As spunky and full of life as Lydia is now, there was a time that she was in a pretty messy place. I believe her orphanage was one of the better ones—her needs were met, and we’ve learned that there were quite caring women who took to her there. There was a wall of windows with natural light in the room where she lived 24-7. In that room were 40 cribs and a few toys for all to share to pass their days until they graduated to another room and then another. There were older children in that orphanage too, children we weren’t allowed to see. I wonder what their days were like.

I’ve heard a lot of stories, stories about adopted children who flinch when someone moves their direction in fear that they will be hit; children with flat heads who were never held; children who have come to accept that no one wants to bring home a child their age, only babies; children who suffer significant consequences from not having the medical treatment they needed earlier.

And, yet, I believe God is there.

God is not only not afraid to get his feet dirty; He is about getting His feet dirty. That’s what advent is all about, isn’t it? God coming down, the perfect to the broken, the holy to the unholy.

Psalm 34:18 tells us He’s close to the brokenhearted, and there are so many, so very many. I can only imagine that He is very close indeed to brokenhearted children—here and there—whether they are aware of their brokenness or not. He’s there.

I prayed for our daughter four Christmases ago, that He would be close to her, that He would remain close to her. That He would be tangibly felt in that room where she slept. That He would wrap His arms around her when she was cold. That He’d rock her when she needed comfort. That He’d be in the manger with her.

I know He was there.

And, somehow, in the dark places of orphanages around the world, I can’t explain how or what He always looks like there, but I believe that He’s there. In the warmth of the sun pouring in the windows, He comforted my child. In the smile of a nanny. In the gaze of another orphan. In the provision sent by charities around the world. In her broken heart—emotionally and literally.

Somehow, He was there.

Now, as my children listen to us read about His story every night, sing familiar and unfamiliar words together to prepare, sneak Hershey kisses in their mouths as we make reindeer eyes, and use entirely too much scotch tape on crafts and wrapping paper alike, He is here…and, He is there, somehow making an unholy place, holy.

That’s what advent is about. That’s what He’s about.

________________________________________

January 2, 2014

waiting

He started making eye contact a few days ago and when that happens, it’s impossible to not fall in love with the little boy whose big eyes stare at me over the bottle day after night after day. I tell him that he’s perfect, that someone is praying for him right now, begging that the next phone call will bring the news that their baby is ready. He grabs my finger and I tell him he’s so strong and that one day, maybe he’ll use that strength to fight for the ones who are waiting for families.

Waiting.

It’s impossible to hold one of these waiting ones or to look into the eyes of the ones I love across the ocean and not think, “Are there children out there waiting – right now – for me?” My friends walk off those airplanes with sons and daughters, beautiful and tall, whose eyes tell a story of long years spent waiting. And I’ve been there – lived there – long enough to witness their waiting. I know the ones who have watched friend after friend walk away with their new family and one of them scoots up next to me and says, “Will my family come next?”

So to keep my heart from breaking and theirs from growing hard, I take their faces in my hands and say it over and over and over. You’re beautiful. You’re loved. You were created on purpose. I tell her that she is loved – that this God she reads stories about is real and He’s a Father to us all, but especially to the ones who wait. I tell him that there are things in life that hurt us and if they hurt us they hurt Him, too. They can talk to Him like a Father.

On Mother’s Day this year, I tiptoed into the hospital nursery and scooped up one of the tiniest ones who was waiting. Just a few weeks later, I got to tell her forever mommy and daddy that I held her that day, told her they were coming, and prayed she would feel safe.

And I pray almost daily that there is someone doing the same for my children who might be waiting out there. I pray that someone is tucking them into a bed at night and kissing their foreheads and treating them with respect. I pray that when they look into the eyes of their caregivers, they see delight and safety reflected there. I pray that if they are alone, He would fill them with an unexplainable confidence that this is not their forever – that someone will come for them.

Isn’t that what our Father did for us? While we were waiting, He made a way for us to know that this is not out forever.

So while they wait for me and I wait for them and this little boy in my arms is waiting for someone else and I’m sure you’re waiting for something, too, let’s cling to the truth that this waiting is not forever and that the Father who planned our lives is good even when the minutes and hours aren’t. He promised.

Maybe your waiting looks different. Maybe you’re waiting for a new job or for a spouse to come home from deployment or for school to start or for your child to attach to you fully or maybe just for the baby to finally fall asleep. If, like me, you just need to be reminded over and over that He is good, pop on over to this littleInstagram space where my friend posts daily lifelines to the Father who keeps His promises.

________________________________

Mandie Joy is a foster parent and in-process adoptive mama of two beautiful little girls in Africa. She blogs at www.seeingjoy.com.

December 20, 2013December 23, 2013

On Mei and Mysteries

One year ago today we held our sweet Mei in our arms for the first time.

We met her in an office at her orphanage. They brought us to her and less than an hour later she left the only life she could remember.

We wondered- “Would she be scared? Would she cry inconsolably? Would she learn to love us (for we already loved her)?”

But she wasn’t inconsolable. She was quiet at first. Just taking it all in… tentative… yet open to our love and affection.

In the past year, we have had the honor of watching Mei learn so much- she took her first steps when home just three days, and she learned to talk (she was not speaking yet in Ch*na)**. She is now speaking in full sentences (at a consistently elevated volume to be sure that she is heard!) Not only is she talking, but this child is one smart cookie! I am always amazed by the connections she makes and her comprehension of things for her age (and considering she’s only heard our language for a year!) For instance, the other day, I was watching her pretend to make some cookies out of sand, and I said “Mei, you are such a good cook!” She looked right at me and said, “I am not cooking; I am baking!”

We’ve seen wonderful things on the medical front, too. Our little peanut has gained a pound for every month she has been home- no longer can she be labeled ‘failure to thrive’! In Cincinnati this summer, she was able to receive the surgery that will give her the best chance at ‘normal’ function of all of her systems. And perhaps even more importantly, the testing prior to her surgery in Cincinnati revealed another condition that, left undiagnosed and untreated, would have led to kidney failure. (We sure stood in awe of God that He had orchestrated all of this – her crossing the ocean and then us all heading states away- to get her to the right doctor who would find this condition.)

Please if you hear anything in this post, please hear this. We share all of this for one reason and one reason alone- to give glory to our Lord. If you think for a second, what an amazing family… see what they’ve done for her… she is so lucky! … you have totally and completely missed the point. Oh, how my heart hurts inside when someone says this! I know it is meant for good, and we do receive it as such- as a gift of encouragement. But all I can think is- Oh, how I wish they knew the truth.

If there is one thing that I have learned this year, it is, ironically, exactly what Satan tried to convince me of to keep me from adopting Mei in the first place.

Because the truth is- we are not enough.

We are not strong enough, loving enough, or faithful enough. We do not have what it takes to save or redeem or heal the broken heart and body of an orphan child- (or, coincidentally, ourselves or our birth children).

Now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is true… It is just not the whole story.

That day when we met Mei, we met a child in desperate need. And she met two parents in desperate need. And all we have done is carried her, sometimes crawling ourselves, to the altar of God. Where all those who know they have nothing to offer meet a God who delights in offering Himself to fulfill our every need.

So I have shared with you how Mei has changed in the past year. How we have seen a life renewed… redeemed. But what I cannot share with you is how. Because so much of it is mystery. This is all I remember, and quite frankly, much of these memories are foggy (smile). I remember …

hugs
kisses
pigtails
dirty diapers
doctor’s visits
laughter
tickling
laundry
reading together
playing
cleaning
hospital visits
prayers, tons of prayers
tears
awe
gratitude

That’s what I remember. That was my part, pretty much. So you can see I am pretty much un-awesome. Pretty much just like you. Doing the things you would do. Many of which were thoroughly enjoyable.

But what is awesome is how all of those things, offered into the hands of our Loving Father, have been shaped and molded to bring about miracles right under our roof- in both my life and MeiMei’s.

It is a mystery. A beautiful, marvelous, redemptive mystery. I have not the slightest idea how to explain it, but I know it is not new. It is, in fact, the Story we celebrate this Advent season, is it not?

Like Mary, I want to say- “I am your servant. Let it be to me as you have said.”

And yet, so very often, the best I feel I can offer Him is .. well, not much. I am a mess. I want to offer Him more, but at the end of the day, the truth is my greatest efforts often fail… I am a mess.

But then I remember… that’s where He first came. Into a messy, dirty, humble stable. That’s where our God chose to enter the world.

And (can I get a Halleluiah here?) HE STILL DOES!

This Christmas we celebrate Emmanuel, “GOD WITH US”. And that, my friends, is the key to the mystery. The mystery of my redemption.. of Mei’s redemption.. of all these mundane, commonplace things transformed by God into marvelous miracles.

He still comes! He is still Emmanuel!

I’m not talking about how he comes when I get a warm feeling while singing Silent Night by candlelight on Christmas Eve. (Because for eighteen years this is as close as I thought He got to me).

I am talking about how He comes in the everyday– even in… no, especially in… my stables, my messy places I set aside for Him with a hope-filled prayer that He would make His home here. Right here in my heart, in my home, in my arms as they reached for that no-longer-orphan child… Praying Oh, come Emmanuel. Just be with us. And help me to trust that is Enough.

My prayer for us this Christmas… That we may slow. Slow the searching for the “magic” of Christmas- in all the lights, and gifts, and parties, and food. That we might look deeper. Look for the miracle. Celebrate the God who came. The God who still comes. Emmanuel.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel has come to you…

** I would be remiss if I did not pause here to stress that Mei was in a very good institution. We believe that she was truly loved and cared for. We do not believe that she was mistreated in any way. To the contrary, we believe that she was given the best care that was available to her at that time. We are incredibly grateful for her birth country and specifically for the orphanage and caregivers who loved and cared for our daughter for those two years.

________________________________________

I am a recipient of amazing grace. I’ve been married 12 years to my husband, Scott. We had 2 children, Isaac and Zoe. Then one day God met us both in the same moment and broke our hearts and filled them with love for orphan children. In 2008, we brought our son Beniam home from Ethiopia and in 2012, we brought home our daughter, Mei from China. I am a Florida girl who loves sunshine, water, and sand. I enjoy almost anything you can do outdoors, especially in the mountains. When forced to stay inside, I love to read and write.

December 18, 2013December 18, 2013

Analytical Anna

Early this morning, as I was gently stirring my two littlest for K-5.
I suddenly heard a familiar voice in my head accusing me.
The voice was analyzing the way I woke up one daughter compared to the other.

The voice was telling me that it was because I still don’t treat them equally, saying I still have a long way to go, and making those feelings of condemnation rise back up.

You know, the ones you hear when you first meet your new little one and you realize that this attachment thing takes some time because you don’t have all the “feelings.”

Yeah, that one.

The voice was immediately making me doubt myself and how far we have come. Making me feel I should robotically go through certain motions just to think I have attained all the checks on the “Prove Your Love” checklist.

Today, I realized that I want the days of the questioning to be over.
The days where I analyze every action and doubt myself.
I want to just be their mom and stop constantly evaluating my every little action.

It has gone from something to good to being a source of condemnation.

As I spent the day contemplating that thought and talking with the Father about it.
I began to consider what Paul said to the Philippians about attaining our goals.

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Sure I am probably not where I want to be.
But according to Paul, what good am I doing evaluating every action.
What I need to be doing is constantly focusing on pressing on.
This life is a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other journey.
A journey in which Paul said, I will always need to be reaching/straining forward.

I will certainly never attain perfection this side of heaven.
So I might as well just enjoy being a mother with or without my daily failures.
I might as well just trust the love working inside of me.
And trust God to give me ideas at just the right moment
that accomplish just the right thing that is needed for that moment.

Because I can actually hinder the relationships I so desperately want to build
by attempting to treat each of my children exactly the same, all the time.

As if that even proves anything.
Where is the love in that?

I can be the source that keeps these relationships from flourishing,
if I live in a constant state of frustration or condemnation.

I want to live free from that fear.
At the heart of this, I know that is the enemy’s voice-planting fear.
But I refuse to be afraid.

I will press forward.
And I will do it without doubt,
without condemnation,
and without over analyzing everything I do.

And I truly believe that as I build this confidence in God in my own heart,
it will spill over into my children as well.
For this is something they, too, will have to face in their own way someday.
Especially as they contemplate their story and begin to face doubts of their own.
What better model could I give to them as their mother than this!

______________________

Anna Lokey and her husband Shaun have four girls (one from China) and FINALLY a boy (also from China). She’s a normal mom, living a life for God, raising a family that does the same, homeschooling, and trying to keep up with everyone’s schedules. She says, “If I can get my kids to school and gymnastics on time and then fix a real meal for dinner, it’s been a good day!” You can read more about them and their anything but LoKEY life on her blog www.anythingbutlokey.com.

December 11, 2013December 11, 2013

The Door No One Can Shut

It was definitely a surreal experience to be sitting in that soviet-style government office back in the fall of 2000. My husband Stephen and I had flown to St. Petersburg, Russia, to complete our first official trip in the painfully slow process to adopt our son and daughter, Pasha and Kristina. Like so many of you, we were not prepared for scope of what would be required of us to bring our children home. There was the financial and time out-put, of course. The paper work alone was a huge source of stress and effort! Anyone else out there know the tune to that song?! But there was also a considerable and unmeasurable emotional and spiritual cost as well. Joyfully given, but as I said, unforeseen.

So, that morning sitting across the desk from the stern woman who seemed to hold the fate of our children in her rather intimidating hands, Stephen and I were already experiencing a sense of relief at being so close to the finish line of a long race. We eagerly awaited the official approval of our adoption, sure that we had dotted every proverbial “i” required of us. So, what happened next totally took us by surprise.

This woman slammed her fist down on the desk and in a severe tone said, “You cannot adopt these children.” When our translator and amazing advocate, Sasha, explained to us what she was saying, we were absolutely dumbfounded. How could this be? What else could we possibly do? We had jumped through every hoop, and some of those hoops more than once as the time passed.

It was then that Stephen experienced one of those moments that you remember and tell about for the rest of your life. He said that as we sat there, with this dread coming down on us like her fist on the desk, that he heard the Lord’s voice as clear as ever he has heard it. Our wonderful, kind Lord met with us right there in that ungodly office–He is indeed EMMANUEL! GOD WITH US. Stephen said out of the blue he heard God say, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. (Revelation 3:8 NIV)

I include the scripture reference here, but at the time, although he knew it was from the Bible, he didn’t know exactly where. After we left the office (there were lots more harsh words directed at us before we could leave) Stephen shared with me that such a peace and assurance came over him at that moment, totally in opposition to the atmosphere in the room, that he knew that whatever that woman said or did at that point would carry no weight and have no influence in the end.

Dear friends, the call to adoption is an open door that Father God placed before us and our children. Undoubtedly many of you, like us, have had similar occasions when someone has come along, and with some authority of their own, reached out to slam that door shut. And I am not just talking about the part of adoption that is the process of getting your child into your home, all the official paperwork finally completed and officially approved. For if adoption is the transformation of an orphan into a true Son or Daughter, then to some degree many of us are still adopting. As we parent our children, loving them through their grief, trauma, attachment issues, and search for identity, you and I enter into the powerful and efficacious expression of the love of the Father that we call adoption, both for our children and for us.

It is good for me as a mother of 7 to remember how the Lord intervened in that Russian government office all those years ago, for since then there have been many different versions of that scene played out over the years–times when the enemy has tried to stop the process of my children living in their full inheritance as a true son or daughter. That door of adoption God opened for you and me will not be shut!

And that spot right there, in the center of that doorway, is where this mother will take her stand!

Father God, together as a community of mothers and fathers, we thank you for the open door of adoption through which your love continuously flows to us and to our children. We are in total reliance on You God, for we cannot open that door, nor can we keep it open over the years– BUT YOU CAN AND YOU DO. May each child represented by each reader of this post enjoy every single bit of their inheritance as a True Son, a True Daughter. Amen.

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Beth has been married to her husband Stephen for 27 years. They have seven children, ages 18-24. Several years after giving birth to three girls God called their family to the adventure and blessing of adoption. In 2000, they brought home a brother and sister, ages 5 and 10, from Russia. Then they returned to the same orphanage 18 months later and brought home two more brothers, ages 7 and 10. Beth’s heart has been deeply and forever changed as she has watched the love of Father God poured out on her whole family through adoption. She leads Hope at Home, a ministry dedicated to help adoptive and foster parents encounter the Father’s heart for their families, partnering with God to transform orphans into sons and daughters. For more parenting insight and encouragement in the Lord, go to hopeathome.org

December 9, 2013May 16, 2022

Go Again

We stand in line at the grocery store like clockwork. It’s Friday. The cashiers know my family and my children know them by name. Miss Misty is having a baby. Eden called it months before it was obvious and I hushed her in fear that she’d engaged in the taboo question all children have a hard time containing. Mr. Ty’s daddy just died. Caleb prayed for him to be healed nearly every day since he’d told us, but Mr. Ty’s heart seemed to be healed in the meantime. “I believe in God, now,” he tells them as he weighs my cucumbers. Miss Sata has a new hairstyle, again, and Mr. Roger still isn’t quite sure my groceries will fit in the oversized bag I tote every week.

Just like at home, I forget we are different when we are there. We may have been”different” to each one of them, when they first met us, but now the normal we live everyday is just as normal to the man re-stocking the produce each week as we scoot our cart passed him.

But one week, our cashier was new and curious and demonstrative. The groceries slowed to a halt on the belt and his face flushed, red, as he gushed about them and gave kudos to me. “Wow, it’s so amazing what you’ve done.”

Adoptive mamas alike share the same discomfort with comments like this, but this particular one struck a new, strained, chord.

This week, when the window shades were pulled, I had been far from amazing.

Tired at best. I hid behind my bedroom door and cried, exhausted. Was it always going to be this hard? I’d run bone dry — out of those tender, patient words with a long-suffering tone, and this particular child pushed away every movement I’d made towards love. It was as if every one of her actions was purposed to say: “I’m going to make it impossible for you to love me. I’m waiting for you to fail me. Prove to me I’m not worth it.”

And fail her I did.

She needed steady and I reacted. How many times will this child resist my advancements towards her heart? In my fearful expectations, I inhaled her years of fatherlessness like it was a death sentence. Albeit subtle — all in my head — she read me, of course; a child, once orphaned, becomes an expert at detecting a weak-link of love. They prepare to flee at the first indication that love might fall short.

Hearts bleed in my home in different intervals, but at any given moment one or another is reminding me that we aren’t exactly re-creating normal. I press my hand against the wound and it hemorrhages and I wonder if we’ll ever stop bleeding out old blood.

What a perfect storm. The recovering perfectionist fails and the child backs away further. Who wouldn’t fail this child who’s fiercely resisting my love? I argue to myself. She waits expectantly for her history to repeat itself and I fight feeling trapped by her expectations.

On days like these, while you cry behind the shades pulled tight and your neighbors are shouting out accolades, the YouTube video of the beautiful moment when they found themselves wrapped in your arms is not enough to sustain you. Those of us who have saidyes to the wounded child — or even if you just happened to find yourself raising one — need a grid for their very worst days.

He gave it. In words, once. In expression, all throughout history.

Go again.*

He told the man, Hosea, who married a harlot that couldn’t leave her darkly-patterned ways. What a life calling. How do you explain this to your mother and father, whose dreams for you surely stretched well beyond welcoming a stained bride who still hasn’t decided yet if she is staying?

His words to me are in kind. Look deeply into those eyes that are like vacant corridors and hold her again. Let her forehead feel your lips. Scratch her back and tickle her belly and tell her — again — that she’s yours … forever. Call forth from what is not, what will one-day be. “…just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel” (Hosea 3:1).

You see, friends, she (any one of the “she”s in my home on a given day) is only my greatest challenge if I believe that my eighty-something years on earth were intended for me only to know safe love — the world’s version of love. If I am to receive and live a love that has a known a shape and form that doesn’t bend or break or bleed, then she’s a real problem. A hindrance.

But His love isn’t plastic.

And He said about me what He is saying to me about her.

Go again.

So I go, again, to her — not because I have some stalwart strength that needs recognition from a grocery store cashier, but because I want to invest my life in knowing the “other-than” love of the Father that outlies every one of my natural understandings of Him.

It’s not my resolve that equips me. My knees are busted open and blood-shod from falling in my pursuit of her heart. But in my weakest moments, I can know this love. Because of my weakest moments, I can know this love.

The most beautiful part of my story these days is bloody.

A friend recently stared into the eyes of her daughter, adopted at an older age and bristling — hard — against her love, and said tenderly, “Babe, you’re going to call me your best friend one day.”

That’s His love that goes again.

Going again is looking into that dead-pan expression and saying it’s not about how far gone you are [the lie they’ve listened to all their lives], it’s about how far He is willing to go to retrieve you.

I won’t come by this love naturally. It’s not natural for those of us clothed in flesh to lean in, not back, when pushed away. The real life-blood of God courses through my system when I resist the urge to divorce my heart from the battle for hers and, instead, go again.

It’s in the going again that we wear the cross and find out from experience what we know in Word, that that tree was more about life than death. Though death was required.

The person in our lives most challenging to love — the child in our home or the friend down the street or even our blood-kin — is the instrument for bringing us to the end of that plastic kind of love and the beginning of our own personal revelation of the cross as a doorway, not just a destination.

He’s aptly positioned them so we might have a place where we get to be the rare ones on the earth who share His heart — the heart that goes again.

They aren’t our greatest challenge, friends. They are our greatest asset.

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Making it Practical for those in and outside of adoption: If your love for the one under your roof has run dry, start the line of prayer with yourself: Father, where I am putting up walls to Your love? Where am I not receiving You? Though maybe not connected by blood, this child was given to you for more than just their own heart’s redemption. Every one of their challenges is tied to something He is also doing in your heart. Resist the urge to divorce them in your heart and ask Him to reveal the layers in you that need to know Him as the Father who goes again.

Spend time meditating in the gospels on the cross. Smell the blood and sweat against that wood. Ask Him to make His Word alive in your experience.

And put what He shows you into action. Slide away from the screen, pad your way down the hall to her bedroom, and wrap your arms around her, tight. Ask Him on the way “How do You see her?” and tell her what He shows you. Make it a habit: hug her as many times as you feed her. Give her His words about her, not just your observations. Let them become her true food.

Go again.

First, fourth, fifth and sixth photos compliments of Mandie Joy. Second and third photos compliments of Cherish Andrea Photography. Last photo compliments of Photography by Kamarah.

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Sara is a wife to Nate and a mother of five whose birth canal bridged the expanse between the United States and Africa. After almost a decade of Christian life she was introduced to pain and perplexity and, ultimately, intimacy with Jesus. God met her and moved her when life stopped working. And out of the overflow of this perplexity, came her writing.You can read more of her writing at Every Bitt er Thing is Sweet.