Older Child Adoption Archives - Page 2 of 4

August 17, 2015August 17, 2015

The Big Brother {Advocating}

We were getting into the van to leave the orphanage for the day when the director gently touched my arm and said something to our translator.

He wants to know if he can show you one more child to find a family for.

He brought me to a tall boy who was waiting for me on the front steps, fiddling with his fingers obviously nervous but also impressively willing to look me right in the eye. He continued to stand before me, nodding his head occasionally as the director spoke about him to me with the translator next to us relaying every word.

He goes to a school nearby and is very smart. He’s very social. He likes computers and running.

I saw an opportunity and jumped in.

Running? Wow. Are you fast?

Bigger smile and a head nod as he answers.

He says he’s good and wins races.

I offered him a high 5, and he accepted. The director went on.

The only thing wrong with him is that he looks weird. His brain is all normal.

I was stunned.

His eyes looked away from me as I blinked more than I should have in nervousness.

I wrote down notes in the green binder I carried with me everywhere.

school. smart. very social. computer. running….only his eyes.

That’s his reality. He’s known as the boy who looks weird. But, by some supernatural gift of grace, he’s still able to smile with his crooked teeth and unusual features and look me right in the eye.

On the last day our team was at the orphanage, the staff allowed us to take all the children who were able outside for free play. We blew bubbles and used sidewalk chalk and bounced balls and raced plasma cars. We were nearly finished when I saw L. C.G. in his school uniform running to join us. He looked right at me as he had done before with a big smile but then walked right past me. I saw his head turning, clearly looking for someone. I thought he might be looking for an ayi, maybe looking for the other boys his age whose disabilities keep them from going out to school as he gets to do. Suddenly, he stopped turning as he found what he was looking for.

L. C.G. scooped up a child, a little one who clearly knew him as evidenced by how tightly he wrapped his poofy little arms around his neck. There in the courtyard of a place known for broken relationships, I witnessed brokenness being redeemed.

Before all else, the boy who “looks weird” was searching for this little boy. He hugged him and spoke to him as I stood marveling at how he knew he could offer this child something no one else in that place could.

After a few minutes, he put him down and brought him to an ayi and then ran off to join his buddies racing around the yard on bikes way too small for their growing bodies but not unlike my own sons would do at home.

I added more notes to my binder that night.

Gentle. Compassionate. Would make a great big brother. Look for his file. This boy needs a family.

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His file has been found. He’s on the shared list right now which means any agency can show families his file. And, any family—no matter where they are in their adoption process—can hold and lock his file to move forward to make him their son. Feel free to email me at kraudenbush@sparrow-fund.org if you have questions about him or the adoption process or about an agency to help you. And, click HERE to read the letter he wrote only days ago for me to share with all of you.

June 18, 2015May 16, 2022

Her Inheritance {Summer Flashback}

“And I want Mommy to have a baby in her belly,” I overheard her say as I was walking up the stairs this morning. I stopped in the hallway outside her room just long enough to hear “but sometimes it takes a long long time for babies to come. You have to pray and pray and pray. And wait.”

My daughter delivered a five year-old summary of her mommy’s life.

Nate had been talking with them about Zechariah and Elizabeth. And, to Eden, Elizabeth was another one of those women – like Sarah and Mary … or her mommy – whose story reminded her that pregnancy must come at the hands of a miraculous God.

I’d never told her I want to be pregnant.

She wasn’t my “second choice”, and I didn’t trust her young mind to later process my desire alongside of her own story with a healthy perspective. She was too young to catch wind of her Mommy’s pain.

The first time I remember her mentioning it was after a playgroup where all the women, but two of us, were pregnant. Children built towers, played instruments and read books around their mothers who shared life-stories. Naturally the topic of pregnancy came up. And my little one, who has not yet lost the hyper-vigilance that is a survival mechanism for many orphans, absorbed every word.

Later, in her prayers, she asked God to “send a baby to her mommy’s belly.”

It initially hurt my heart.

I’ve been preparing to field questions and observations about how our family is different for years. I just didn’t expect the first of them to be about my personal scarlet letter. I anticipated that she’d one day feel the pang of our skins’ different colors and her unique entrance into our family, but I didn’t suspect she’d have this other difference on her radar.

While the things that make our family different don’t seem to be a struggle for her now, they may one day become more than observations. I could call it maternal instinct that makes me want to protect her from every potential hurt, every pain. But my heavenly Father’s instincts were different.

His protection came not from avoiding that which would cause pain, but for offering His companionship as I walked through it. The valley of the shadow of death is land claimed by the Father. It is a holy place.

For me. And for my daughter.

At five, she has lived years I want to erase, but that God will redeem. And then, as one grafted in to this family, she has inherited new opportunities for pain.

But the ground I’ve taken in my life and heart, as it relates to processing my lack, doesn’t need to be won over, again, by her.

Her inheritance comes (from God) through me. She is my legacy. What I win in my lifetime — in terms of a hopeful perspective on all He has allowed and joy in the midst of “setback” — she gets to live out.

Her words to Nate this morning were not pain-filled. Sure, something in her – I’m not quite sure even why – wants her mommy to be like the other mommy’s with babies in their bellies. She longs, in the way a five year-old has capacity to. But what she has come to know as commonplace Christianity has taken me years to receive:

You don’t always get what you want, but in the face of delay, you pray and pray and pray. And wait. Sometimes for a long, long time.

And in the meantime you worship the One who holds beauty.

My highest aim as a parent is not to try and protect my children from all that might befall them, but to, instead, seek the healing touch of Jesus in every area of my own life, knowing that they will inherit what I leave behind. The “unfinished” will be theirs to finish or to pass along. And those ashes subjected to beauty, will remain their crown.

At five, Eden doesn’t wonder if God will still be who she believes Him to be if, next month, Mommy isn’t pregnant. “God is good, He is so so good to me,” she sings as her bare feet dangle from the potty.

Bracing myself against the hits I fear might come from the Father is a distant memory. After many years of having my soil tilled and turned, the ground is supple to receive the God of Hope.

And because of His great mercy in my life, to save me from my fearfully expectant heart, my daughter receives new land on which to plant.

My freedom won is her inheritance to build upon.

The fullness of God I pray almost daily for in my own life, isn’t just my platform for the next age. It’s hers too.

And her daughter’s.

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Sara is a wife to Nate and a mother of five whose arms stretched wide across the ocean to Africa. After almost a decade of Christian life she was introduced to pain and perplexity and, ultimately, intimacy with Jesus. Her book, Every Bitter Thing is Sweet released October 7, 2014 via Zondervan, is an invitation — back to hope, back to healing, back to a place that God is holding for you—a place where the unseen is more real than what the eye can perceive. A place where even the most bitter things become sweet. She writes regularly at EveryBitterThingIsSweet.com.

June 1, 2015May 31, 2015

Why You Should Never Adopt An Older Child…And Why We Did Anyway

“Whatever you do, don’t adopt from foster care. That’s scary stuff.”

Ten years ago, when adoption became more than a hypothetical thought for us, a good friend tried to warn me. She’d been a social work major, and she’d come away scared. I believed her.

Two years later, we adopted a healthy, white newborn through an agency and brought him home from the hospital.

When I felt like we’d adopt again several years ago, and we were not ready to start over with an infant, I talked to another friend about the possibilities we’d considered. Foster care, special needs, HIV-positive. All words that concerned her.

“Why would you put yourself in that position? Why would you ask for that?”

Two years later, we adopted a four-and-a-half-year-old little girl with trauma history who had spent years in foster care.

Thinking back, her concerns were legitimate.

Why would we put ourselves in a position to care for a child with HIV or other special needs? Why would we volunteer to parent a child whose history could mean difficult behaviors and emotional baggage that might last for a lifetime? Why would we get on the adoption roller coaster again?

I have two answers that may seem simplistic at first glance.

First, because kids are worth it. All of them. They’re worth the fears and inconvenience and changes to their new families. They’re worth changing your parenting style to address their needs. They’re worth therapy appointments and grocery bills. They’re worth your tears on the bathroom floor as you question what in the world you’ve done and if it will ever get better. They are worth it.

Second, obedience is worth it. James 1:27 says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” I don’t take that verse to mean everyone is called to foster or adopt. But for us, that’s exactly what it meant. Through His Word, circumstances, prayer, and other people, God made it clear to us over the course of years that this was His plan for our family. To do anything differently would have been disobedience. I know this is different for non-believers, but for us, knowing that we were being obedient was what kept us going on the hardest days. And it was enough.

Why did we volunteer to love and pour our hearts into hurting children? (And yes, children from infant adoption can hurt just as much as older children). Why do our foster parent friends take in filthy, hungry children in the middle of the night? Why do they stay up with screaming babies who were born addicted to meth? Or love teenage foster kids whose behaviors are difficult to say the least, even knowing that love is not enough to heal their hurts?

Because they’re worth it.

And although obedience is costly, it’s worth it too.

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Matt and Becca write about marriage, parenting, and life through the lens of a married couple, parenting team, and pastor and professional counselor. They share hope and restoration by giving a glimpse into their lives- the failures, the successes, and the brokenness and beauty of everyday. You can read more of their writing at WhitsonLife.

May 27, 2015

My Gardening Life.

I am not a gardener, but if I were my garden would look something like this.

Pretty, right? Everything in its place, ordered, organized, contained and thriving. Beautiful and fruitful. Yep, that is it right there.

And that is a pretty good picture of what I was going for with our family. Each child organized, contained within the life-giving boundaries we set up, and thriving, etc. Sounds good doesn’t it?

But as our family grew through adoption my neat rows of seasonally appropriate lettuce and tomatoes, and those lovely flowers intentionally planted to catch just the right amount of sun, changed into a whole other garden.

Our family metamorphosed overnight into a crazy out of control mess of a garden. A beautiful, willy-nilly kind of place, full of surprising varieties and diversity.

It has been a great adventure to discover and appreciate all that our adopted children have introduced into our lives. They brought with them so much that is lovely, fascinating, strong, creative and exciting from their birth families, country, and culture that have made our garden gloriously unique. Like an heirloom tomato imported from a far away place, I haven’t always immediately recognized the special qualities introduced to our family through adoption. But as the years have gone by, 15 now since our first two treasures came home, I have identified so much that I might have at first mistaken as a weed.

I have learned to not to try to pull up something because I didn’t plant it, but rather clear a space for it in my heart and in the culture of our family. Let it grow and enjoy its fruit and beauty, and make it my own.

And where weeds have come in (to join the ones already there!)–the unwanted and unwelcome residue of rejection, abandonment, trauma and orphanage life–then I have learned to carefully remove them. Not all at once with a hoe of shame, but gently dig them out with the trowel of prayer and love and identity. Some of these weeds continue to sprout up over the years, the lies that threaten to choke out sonship, so I continue to maintain this special plot of land God has given us.

And I have learned that some plants just need some time to grow before they can set themselves apart from the look-alike weeds. So I garden with care and nurture, waiting for the season of flowering and fruit.

And I have learned to be at peace with the process of being a care-taker of such a crazy garden. As tempting as it was to take our new transplants and try to force them into my perfect rows, it proved to be destructive to us all whenever I tried it!

So instead I focus on enjoying the beauty and surprise of it all, and the honor of being a part of such a family.

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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 Hope at Home.

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We’re building the nest this month!

Head right on over HERE to find out more and learn about the 40+ businesses that support adoption and the work of The Sparrow Fund!

May 21, 2015May 27, 2015

My Gardening Life

I am not a gardener, but if I were my garden would look something like this.

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March 18, 2015

Telephone

So, Lucy and I have a little game we have been playing where we pretend to call someone on the telephone. Usually I am supposed to place the call… ring, ring, ring… and say hello to the recipient on the other end of the line. Then I pass the phone to her and she says hello and passes it back and then proceeds to tell me what else I should tell them. I think I am learning all kinds of interesting things by being part of these phone calls that I may not otherwise be privy to! Recently, we started out calling Hanna, Spencer, Becca, Baba… then we moved on to calling people in China. We called Baoji Mama and Baba (her foster parents in Baoji) and some other familiar names of her friends. Then things started to get interesting and she started asking me to call other friends from China with names I was not yet familiar with… some of them were younger children, some older, some had been adopted. It is amazing to me how well we can communicate in our combination of Chinese and English after only 3 months and how quickly more and more of the balance of our communication continues to lean toward English. Sometimes we talk around ideas or use a translator app on my phone like Google Translate or Pleco to help us get over a hurdle. On this particular day, as we continued to make calls, I used the English word “adopted” and she stopped and asked what I meant. ”Remember that Baba Mama came to China to find Lucy? Remember that we signed papers together? Remember the blue thumbprints and your hand print that we put on the papers?”

Nods and agreement from Lucy to all of this. ”Lucy, do you understand? Now I am your mama. No more new mamas.” Yes, she nodded and asked to tell me something in Chinese using the translator app. I found it on my phone and we both patiently waited for the little ding that indicates she should start talking. Then I held the phone and waited for the English word to appear…

Back in China, in the world that Lucy knew, all the female caregivers were called “mama” and all the male caregivers “baba.” These caregivers have come and gone in Lucy’s life and have not been “forever and always.” When I caught my breath, I couldn’t help but be amazed and be so blessed. As I type tonight, I am thinking of how easy it is for things to be lost in translation even among speakers of a common language and
of the other game called “telephone” that demonstrates this so well!
I am so grateful that this truth is taking hold in Lucy.
May she truly feel it in the depth of her heart.
She has a family forever and always.

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Kirstin Rothfuss is Mama to 5 wonderful children and wife to Jason. Two of their children came to their family through the blessing of adoption. Their family mission statement is …“to glorify God by working together to help people of all ages all around us reach their full potential through adventure, hospitality, education, and service.”
You can read the story of the Rothfuss family’s most recent adoption at http://www.rothfuss.us/.

February 9, 2015

Will You Love Me Forever?

Excitement, curiosity and fear of the unknown filled the eight year old boy’s mind as he entered the cold, stale room. His eyes landed on some smiling faces that looked vaguely familiar. Yes, these were the same faces that had smiled at him from the pages of the photo album he carried in his backpack, the faces of his new family. Who were these people that looked so different from him? Would they be kind, or heartless, as he was told? Would they send him back the moment he did something to upset them? Would they like him, maybe even love him? Wait, what were they saying? If he couldn’t understand them, how would they understand him? In that moment, as reality set in, uncertainty and excitement gripped him. When he looked in their eyes, he knew all would be ok. What could he do but follow them and leave all he had ever known and loved behind for a new life, a new family, a new world. In that moment of anxiety and anticipation, he simply had to believe that they would love him.

It’s been two years since that cold January day in Shanghai, and my sweet boy has finally begun to truly understand our love. We are not going to send him back when he is disobedient. No one is going to take him away from us. He will be ours FOREVER.

The process of attachment is a rugged journey. My son was with his foster family in China from about the age of 2 until we adopted him at age 8. I can only imagine how it must have felt to be ripped from the only family he has ever known and how confusing that must have been. Why did they let him go? Why didn’t they keep him? Is it normal to be passed from one family to another? Can it happen again? Could the government take him away? He has asked us all these questions and more as he has been processing his journey to us, his forever family. He is no longer afraid to share his experiences and feelings or divulge what he felt that very first day. Sometimes, even at the age of 10, he wants to be held like a baby and rocked while asking over and over, will you love me forever?

While these questions make my heart ache for him, they are questions he needs to ask and are a part of the attachment process. He didn’t ask them in beginning. It was all too new, and there was so much he didn’t understand. Fear coupled with excitement, but as time passed he began to trust us and our love. He realized that the decisions we make concerning him stem from our unconditional love for him and our desire for the best. As his understanding and love grows, so does his courage, and as the questions come I welcome them. As I hug him for the 15^th time today, reassuring and physically demonstrating love, my thoughts turn to the One who has wrapped me up in His arms more times than I can count.

“The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” (Romans 8:15-17, NIV)

Reflecting on my sweet boy’s journey of understanding and attachment, my thoughts naturally draw the connection between his adoption and my own spiritual adoption. What can I take from my experience and apply it to the journey of earthly adoption, especially as we prepare for our third adoption?

Once we believe and trust in God, we become adopted as sons and daughters. We are co-heirs with Christ! We are children of God! Do we really understand what that means? We believe that God loved us so much that He sent His one and only Son to die in our place, but do we really BELIEVE God, His promises and forever love?

Did my son truly grasp that cold winter day in China what it meant to have a forever family? He didn’t know much about us, but he trusted us enough to follow us, strangers from an unknown land, out of that room because he believed we were his new family. In that moment, he knew we would not hurt him, but did He really BELIEVE in and understand our love? Of course not! There was a long journey ahead.

Similarly, as we begin our walk with our heavenly Father, we believe in Him and hear words like “God loves you”, but do we really BELIEVE that? We begin a journey of discovery and understanding just as our precious older children do. Over time, our eyes are opened to His truth, and we finally come to a place where we truly BELIEVE that He is who He says He is and that He will keep His promises. Do we still sometimes question Him and struggle to understand? Of course! How many times have we doubted even when we knew that God is faithful and trustworthy? Too many times to count. But as we witness example after example of His love and provision for us, our faith and understanding of His unconditional love grows exponentially. We begin to see that even though we won’t always understand all that He does, His love is unwavering and unfathomable.

Our adopted children experience life up to a point and then are suddenly ripped away from all they have ever known. Can we walk unwearied with them as our Father walks with us through our doubts and fears? Are we ready to traverse the confusing waters of abandonment? Can we be as patient with our children as our heavenly Father is with us? Will we hold them when they just need to held?

God made a way for each and every one of us to be adopted, and then He gave us this amazing picture and reminder through the example of earthly adoption. As I look at my son on those days when I am frustrated and tired of answering the same questions again and again, I pray that the Holy Spirit will remind me again of the beauty of my adoption and the gentle, patient, never-giving up love of our awesome God.

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After struggling with infertility for 5 years, God led Suzanne and her husband Adam to His Plan A for their lives—adoption! Their daughter came into their lives in 2011 from the Fujian Province, China. Their son joined their family in January of 2013 from Shanghai, and another little girl will be joining their family in 2015 from the Hunan Province. After a career in politics, Suzanne is thankful for God’s provision in their lives that now allows her to work part time as a Pilates instructor while home schooling their children and working as a part of the WAGI leadership team. You can follow their adoption journey and life on their blog, Surpassing Greatness.

January 26, 2015May 8, 2015

For This One

I was weary.
After all of the months of planning and organizing we were finally on our way to Ukraine. But instead of being overwhelmed with joy, in my fatigue, I allowed fear and doubt to come in. It would take three trips to complete Sergey’s adoption. Who, in their right mind, flies three times to a country that is in the middle of a war, when they have six children at home? It’s was crazy, positively crazy.
On the plane to Amsterdam, I couldn’t sleep. A commercial airplane, on its way to Ukraine, had been shot down just a couple of months prior to this time. What would our children do if they lost both of us? I tried to distract myself with a movie. Dead Poets Society wasn’t exactly a wise choice.
When we arrived in Kiev, my spirit relaxed a bit. I had a couple of days of reprieve from my emotions, as David and I walked around the center, drinking in the beauty of the cathedrals and the parks. But on the night before our SDA appointment, sleep escaped me once again, and worry was set into my heart. A 16-year-old boy? What in the world could we possibly be thinking? In the desperation of the moment, I asked God if there was any chance of a way out. I’m sad to say that there was actually a part of me hoped for a way out.
Our appointment went smoothly, however, and despite my fears, we were truly grateful. After we received the official paperwork, we were surprised to find out that we would be leaving for Sergey’s orphanage at midnight. It was in the middle of this pothole-laden seven hour drive that the questions resurfaced. Could we really do this? How in the world would we be able to make this trip two more times? I was already exhausted and our children were missing us. Why did we come all the way to Ukraine anyway? There were plenty of children in the US who needed homes and it wouldn’t cost us thousands of dollars to adopt one of them.
The questions swirled around in my mind, causing panic to rise up in my heart.
But in that moment of fear, God intervened. He whispered to my heart…
“Dear one, didn’t you say that you wanted to be like me? This is what I do. I go to the ends of the earth to rescue the ones that I love. I will travel any road, climb any mountain, cross any sea to reach my beloved ones. I give everything that I have, all the love that is in me, to gather up my needy ones and carry them in my arms. It is good that this journey is long, because it gives you just a glimpse into how far I will go for my children. Will you join me in this willingly? Will you joyfully rescue this child, this precious one, this son whom I have chosen?
Daughter, I did it for you. Will you do this for Me?”
In a moment, I experienced complete peace and joy. Yes. I would do this willingly. Yes. I would go to the ends of the earth for this precious boy. Our dear Father had just shown me His beautiful heart and I found it irresistible. He had done it for me, and my friends, He did it for each one of you, as well.

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David and Sarah have been joyfully married for 19 years. God has blessed them with seven amazing children (one homegrown, two from Ukraine, and four from China). They recently moved to the urban core of Kansas City where they are learning to give their lives away (and raise chickens!) within their inner city church family. You can read more about what God is doing in their lives on facebook or at http://davidandsarahb.blogspot.com.

January 21, 2015January 22, 2015

Our Weighted Blanket

Stephen and I were not as prepared as we thought we were for parenting our new children. Truthfully, we thought we had this parenting gig down. We didn’t know that our adopted treasures would need something different from us. But, as with many of us who adopted before all the trauma and adoption education was so wide-spread, we figured it out pretty quickly! Yikes!

Our first clue came in those early days after coming home from Russia with our new son and daughter. Huge HUGE transitions for us all! We were constantly asking the question, “Is this behavior adoption related? (We didn’t even know to ask if was trauma related!) Or is this normal for this child? Or maybe it’s just the stress of travel and jet lag, or frustration at not being understood, or…..?”

It reminded me of caring for our three newborns, actually. “Is she crying because she’s hungry? Tired? Needs a diaper change? Sick?…..” But, our children who came home to us through adoption were older, years beyond diapers and midnight bottle feedings.

Once the honeymoon stage was over, the rages began. It became clear that our son’s fits were actually not fits at all. There was an intensity, a deep place of anger and fear, that I soon realized was more like rage than any childhood fit I had ever seen.

I remember times when I would literally lay the weight of my body over my son’s raging little form– praying that he would know that he was safe, desiring that my embrace would keep him from hurting me or himself, hoping that maybe the strong physical presence of his loving mother would somehow communicate to him that no anger need ever overcome him, that peace would replace fear. The weight of my love was the beginning of the miraculous process of displacement that is adoption.

Whirling fear is displaced with love

Raging anger with an anchored peace

Dark hopelessness with a bright future

Over the years I have found that the trauma my son experienced before he came home requires this action of displacement quite often. Like a weighted blanket, I still cover him. Of course, I don’t cover him with my body any more for he has grown into a strong young man, but with my love, through prayer and words of hope.

It is so clear to me that as surely as my husband and I are creating a legacy of love and security and hope for our children, that there exists also an orphan legacy–things handed down to a child from a past marred by relinquishment, fear and lack. But in those long moments of struggle with my son, and all through the years when the legacy of fear would burst to the surface despite the weight of our love, I have known that when God’s peace rules, the orphan legacy is nullified. It must make way for life-giving peace.For though the mountains should depart and the hills be shaken or removed, yet My love and kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace and completeness be removed, says the Lord, Who has compassion on you. (Isaiah 54:10)And it has not stayed hidden from me for long that I am not so unlike my son. His trauma has traumatized me. His pain has become my pain.

And I am desperately in need of the weighted blanket of my Father’s love.

And I must choose, once again, to allow His legacy of love, peace and hope, displace my fears and heal my wounds.

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January 14, 2015

Broken

There were lots of things, about China in general, that I wanted to post. And maybe I will sometime. I was going to now. But something happened. Lucy happened. She is everything now. Lucy is the world.

The days, and mostly the last few hours before we met her for the first time, I always felt like I should be preparing somehow. But there was not much I could do.

And nothing could have prepared me for that moment. I thought I had cleared it in my head that she was real. That she was a person, not a picture; something I could touch, and love on and hug. But I guess I hadn’t.

I was expecting to have more time to get ready (like time would help!) but we just walked into the room and there she was. It was shocking; life-changing.

I expected Lucy to be wonderful. I expected her to be beyond my imagination—but I didn’t expect her to shatter my world like this. I didn’t expect to come to pieces over her.

It’s been three years so I don’t remember everything, and I wonder if Michael shattered me like this. And I wonder how many times I can shatter before I just break. I hope it’s a lot. Or maybe I hope it’s not very many. Because maybe we’re supposed to break. Because there’s pain in this world, and brokenness. And I think it shatters God’s heart too. I’ve been praying lately that HE would give me his heart. Well, maybe he has.

We’ve had reality-checks, sure; but I’m in love. And that’s a dangerous thing. Because when you really love someone you are willing to sacrifice everything for them. I’ve worried before that after Lucy comes home I won’t be able to play by myself—swing by myself—what about reading? And writing? And in the car on the back from the Civil Affairs building, I realized: it didn’t matter. If I could be with Lucy, I would give up anything.

I’m in love. And it’s dangerous. But I don’t even care. I thought I knew what it meant to love her. I was wrong. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to be her sister. It’s not what I expected. But very few things are! And I like her the way she is. I’m glad I was wrong.

I was kind-of caught up in the fact that I WAS GOING TO CHINA at first, and I’m still excited about that, but Lucy is what’s most important.

I remember when I was on the plane, shortly after I’d spent hours trying to sleep next to my comfortably snoring parents, as I was sitting there in a total haze, only sort-of coherent; I thought, “what if this whole trip just goes over my head in a wave of jet-lag and I can’t even enjoy or really remember it?”

And then I realized: it did not matter. The trip isn’t important—it’s what we’re bringing home. ‘Cause Lucy is forever. Forever and ever and ever. That’s what family is all about: foreverness. Always being there for each other.

Lucy is a sister. She belongs; as much as I do. And someday I’ll probably forget sometimes that we had to do without her for eight years. Someday she’ll just there. The seven of us. And it will be the most natural thing in the world.

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My name is Hanna Rothfuss. I am 14 and in eighth grade. I have lived in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska for my whole life. My interests are reading and writing, mainly about fantasy and orphan care–often adoption. I have four siblings, two of which are adopted. I’m a homeschooler and a child of God. I pray that all my writing is encouraging, empowering, and brings glory to Him.

You can read more of Hanna’s writing on her blog: Taking My Time.

Blog

Category: Older Child Adoption

The Big Brother {Advocating}

Her Inheritance {Summer Flashback}

Why You Should Never Adopt An Older Child…And Why We Did Anyway

My Gardening Life.

We’re building the nest this month!

Head right on over HERE to find out more and learn about the 40+ businesses that support adoption and the work of The Sparrow Fund!

My Gardening Life

Telephone

Will You Love Me Forever?

For This One

Our Weighted Blanket

Broken