One of my greatest joys in life is to see my children learn new things. Some of them master new things fairly easily. Others have to overcome incredible obstacles in order to have the smallest victories.
There was a time in my life when I understood victory as being highly successful in the big things.
Win a big race.
Achieve great grades.
Quit an addiction.
Climb the corporate ladder in record time.
Win a pageant.
Beat an opponent.
But these days, I understand victory to be so much more than crossing the finish line ahead of the pack or mastering the most difficult of skills.
I see great victory in the small things. The things the old me would surely have taken for grated.
Every doctor and therapist told us that Kael would definitely learn to walk within six months of being home. No doubt about it. They were wrong!
Fifteen months down the road, our tiny little guy (who is ten years old and weighs 32 pounds) is still not walking independently.
BUT…
We see victory! HUGE victory in the baby steps that he takes.
Like standing on a balance beam for the first time (instead of putting his feet on either side).
I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.
And mastering the art of cruising!
I know I can. I know I can. I know I can.
These are the things that make me tearful.
Seeing my darling boy learning to overcome such huge obstacles.
Each little step, an unfolding miracle.
A gift.
And one of these days, we know that he’ll be running all over the house.
But for now we’ll go at his pace and trust that our God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly MORE in his life.
And restore EVERYTHING that the locusts have eaten.
Shine, Jesus, shine!
_________________________
Adeye is a blessed daughter of the King of Kings, wife to the most amazing man in the world and mommy to nine beautiful children. Three sons the good old fashioned way, two special needs princesses from China, two angelic treasures who have Down syndrome from Ukraine, and two amazing blessings who also have profound special needs recently adopted from Bulgaria. We’re crazy about Jesus, learning daily about total surrender, passionate about adoption, and learning every day how to live life to the fullest with various special needs and medically fragile children. I share my passions, my heart, my victories, my struggles, and my daily life on my blog, No Greater Joy Mom.
Quite a while ago I stopped posting about the unwelcome guest in our home: Trauma. I wish I could say that absence of posting = absence of the impact of trauma. Not.so.much.
It’s been nearly four years since we were first introduced, and I realize I need to take some time to ‘heal thyself’ in order to maximize my ability to help us become a healing home.
I still ask the Lord to change my hard heart, to give me the patience to respond with compassion, the strength to persevere through the trenches and joy to rise above the chaos. I still make the same mistakes. Not because He isn’t answering my prayers. Because I am so very human. I get in the way of His work in me every day. I.am.not.bragging. I’ve been desperately asking God to show me why I am so insistent upon living as the former self, rather than as the new creation He has made me to be.
And He has! It’s all about forgiveness.
Heaven knows I don’t deserve the depth of forgiveness God has extended to me. I can’t begin to express how thankful I am for His redemption. With God’s grace, I have been able to overcome deep wounds and forgive others who have hurt me, only because He has shown me how! But now comes a revelation that shakes me to the core.
I am withholding forgiveness. I am casting blame. Not audibly, but clearly in my heart. And it is spilling over like poison, tainting everything it touches.
What a horrible admission! But maybe you’ve been there? Maybe you are like me and didn’t realize this is brewing in your heart? Let the healing begin!
I realized that I was so beaten down with the impact of my child’s trauma that somewhere in the process I began to blame him. In my heart I held him accountable for the countless hours we spend on the road for therapy, for the constant attention he requires, for taking my focus off the other children, for every time our plans change suddenly because of his reaction or response, for the fact that he must always be supervised, for the fact that I am exhausted because every moment must be a teaching one, and on and on and on… I blamed him for relationships lost, conflict gained, misunderstandings, judgment, and criticism.
Truth is, as critical as someone else may be of my parenting, I am my worst critic.
And so, I was also blaming myself. I couldn’t understand why he would do things he shouldn’t or wouldn’t do things he should, why he would retreat so deeply within himself, why he would lash out for no apparent reason, why he would lie about something so c.r.a.z.y and obvious, and why MY response would typically escalate his reaction. And so I also blamed ME!
Forgiveness starts here!
My child doesn’t need to know that I blame him or that I need to forgive him. He doesn’t need that burden. But it is something that must happen in my heart. Today I began by granting forgiveness…to myself and to him. I will never be a perfect parent. At the end of the day I hope to say I did my best (totally relying on God!).
Raising a child requires commitment and investment. Raising a child with neurological, physical or emotional conditions requires even more. And in the words of Dr. Karyn Purvis, “…the longer a child experienced neglect or harm, the more invested you’re going to have to become in their healing.” In an effort to help my child heal, I’ve focused too much on ‘fixing’ him. That has proven to be frustrating and exhausting because in the process to ‘fix,’ I have not been able to appreciate who he is, making this adventure more about the destination than the journey.
He is treasured. He is valuable. He is wanted. He is a child whom God has entrusted to me. Not so that I can fix him. So that He can change my heart. And so that I can shape, nurture and protect my child.
God has given me a firsthand opportunity to live out Scripture. It is one thing to say, “Sure, I can love my enemies (because I can keep them at a distance); I can speak for those without a voice (because, in all honesty, I get to choose how much effort I put into it); I can fight against injustice (because I can quit when I’m tired).”
What am I to do when the person who acts most like my enemy lives in my home? When the person whose voice I must be doesn’t want to hear? When my fight for injustice is mocked? When I am at the end of my rope but the battle rages on?
Then I lean in close to my sovereign God, and I trust that He will never leave me (Jos 1:5), that He works ALL things for His glory and for the good of those who love Him (Rom 8:28), that His grace is sufficient (2 Cor 12:9), that He gives me hope (1 Pet 1:3), that His strength is enough (Phil 4:13, Heb 12:12).
God is more than able! He has loved me in spite of my hard heart, and He has made a way for me to love. Healing begins with forgiveness!
To HIM be glory!
*Disclaimer* I am not a single parent. My husband and I are very much a team with the attitude of me-and-you-against-the-world-babe, but this is my heart issue.
___________________________
Connie Johnson
Connie is crazy about her Lord, crazy about her husband, and crazy about her 11 kids. You can read more about life in her family and what God is teaching her on their family blog: http://k6comehome.blogspot.com/
I have no idea if you’ll ever read these words, but I have to write them.
I have to hope that, even if you never stumble across this blog or
open the card that we sent on your court day, you somehow know the way that
we feel about you.
I remember getting the call that you were at the hospital, Amanda. It
was June 28th- the day that we would meet our girl. I had
simultaneously anticipated and dreaded this day since May 16th, when I
first heard your voice on the phone. Although I was grateful to be
allowed in the delivery room when Piper was born, I was also unsure of
myself. Would I say something stupid? Would I pass out since
I’d never seen a live birth before? Would I be able to convey my
excitement about bringing home Baby Girl without rubbing salt in your
wounds? At least our case worker would be there to help us know
how to navigate this situation that most people never face…
Except that when Andrew and I arrived at the hospital, you only wanted the
two of us back there with you. Panic. I was honored that
you and Conner trusted and loved us enough to let us experience something
so special, but up to this point, we had depended on Bonni to help us know
what to say to you and how to act. Andrew put his arm around my
shoulders, and I quickly prayed for the kind of strength and wisdom that
could never come from me. Please don’t act like an idiot, please
don’t act like an idiot.
When we walked in the room, my fears were gone, and I immediately felt at
home. “Hey guys!” you grinned. Even in labor, you looked
beautiful and seemed calm.
In a few minutes, the nurse came in to see how far you were dilated.
She looked at Andrew and me, hinting with her eyes that we should
step out. We took the clue and started to leave the room when you,
Conner, looked at her and said, “No, it’s okay. They’re
family.” I wonder if you know how much those words meant.
Time seemed to stand still as we spent the next hour or so talking with
both of you and trying to wrap our minds around this huge thing that was
about to take place. Though we had met you before, those moments in
the delivery room were especially precious to me as we actually got to know
the parents of our little girl. In the moments away from the agency,
the paperwork, and the caseworkers, you became my friends and not just the
couple who had chosen our profile book. Conner, I learned that you,
like my husband, hate making decisions about restaurants. Amanda, I
learned that you and I are both somewhat obsessive about using the Weather
Channel app on our phones. It was the little things in that
hour-long conversation that made you both seem more real and made me love
you more.
When the nurse came back later, it was “go time.” Andrew and I stood
awkwardly at your head and stroked your hair as we tried to think of
something to offer other than, “You’re doing great!” Conner, you were
a natural. You knew exactly what to say and do to help your girl.
And Amanda, wow. You made labor and delivery look like a walk
in the park. I honestly expected so much anger and frustration, but
all I saw in that situation was love. I wish there was
a way for you to have stood back and watched the scene like we did.
Your relationship with each other is inspiring, and your affection
for a baby who you bore for someone else is, frankly, earth-shattering.
Those words that Conner whispered as you pushed, “Come on, Amanda,
this is the last thing we can do for her,” melted my heart in more ways
than you’ll ever realize.
Just 30 minutes after you started pushing, Piper was here. I cried
the happiest tears of my life as I took in her thick hair, her chubby
cheeks, and her perfect little body. Then I watched as the two of you
held her, and my heart broke. This was the reason why I had
been so afraid of our time together in the hospital. You clearly
loved her as much as I did, yet you knew that she wasn’t yours to keep. You said that we deserved her, and I knew that wasn’t true.
The nurses came in and out to check on Piper as the four of us bounced back
and forth in our conversation between the trivial and the significant.
Andrew and I left for about an hour to pick up some food and to give
you two time alone with Piper. We got back to the room and ate dinner
together, and I found myself wishing (though I knew the impossibility of my
idea) that there was a way for the five of us to be the little family who
lived happily ever after.
The hospital prepared a room around the corner for Andrew, Piper, and me,
and we slowly collected our belongings to spend our first night as a family
of three. Before I went to bed, I walked down the hall to refill my
water bottle. Your door was open, and I stopped. Conner, you
were headed out briefly to get some fresh air, so I sat down in a chair
next to the bed for some “girl time.” Amanda, as I listened to you
share your hopes and dreams, as you talked about your friends, and as you
revealed your plans for college in the fall, I felt connected to you in a
way that few people will probably ever be able to grasp. Though we
didn’t always talk over the past nine months, we were in each other’s
hearts as we shared this journey. We have a unique bond: I wanted so
badly to be in your place (to be pregnant), and you wanted to be in mine
(“established” enough to raise a baby). There is no way to explain
those feelings to anyone else, but I think you know.
The night passed uneventfully, and I began to think about how the two of
you would be going home to a new “normal” in just a few hours. I
started dreading those last moments in the hospital. Finally, around
2:30, both of you came down the hall. This was it. Andrew and I
stepped out of the room to give you the space that you needed with Piper.
We held each other tightly and prayed for the words to say as we waited for
you to come out. About five minutes later, the two of you entered the
hall with Piper, and all the tears that I had been holding back came
flooding out as I looked at your faces. I never guessed
that goodbye would be so hard. Amanda, I’ve thought that you
are unbelievably strong throughout this entire journey, so seeing you
dissolved by emotion was almost unbearable. It would have been wildly
inappropriate to take pictures in the moments that followed, but the scene
will forever be captured in my mind as you handed Piper to me for the last
time and as you, Conner, hugged my husband like there was no tomorrow.
In those moments, every word I had rehearsed was gone. Each of
us knew that there was nothing to be said which could possibly convey the
feelings we had. In shaky voices and through blinding tears, we all
said how much we love each other. Amanda, you asked me to “take good
care of her,” and I promised that I would. Then the two of you walked
around the corner and back to your lives. I still cannot fathom
how a day can be so joyful and so gut-wrenching at the same time.
Andrew and I walked downstairs to the hospital’s chapel, where I buried my
head in his lap, and we both sobbed. I have never seen my husband cry
like that before. I had thought that I would be filled with guilt
when you two went home without a baby, but really I was just overcome with
sadness like I haven’t ever known. I was sad for you because of the
difficulty of your decision, and I was sad for us because I felt like we
had just lost two people who, in a matter of days, had come to mean
everything to our family. “Be still and know that I am God,”
the walls of the chapel read, and this is ironically the verse tattooed on
the wall of our bedroom at home. Both of us found it difficult to “be
still,” because our hearts were so heavy for you. We prayed over and
over for God to give you peace, and I still pray every day that you’ve
found it.
As I got ready the next morning, I burst into tears all over again, and I
wondered how many days would pass before I woke up without crying for you.
In the weeks since we have been home with Piper, time has slowly
eased the hurt, but I don’t think of you any less. I have never once
doubted that you would change your minds about the decision you made, but I
have felt an unexplainable stillness in knowing that if you did, I would be
okay because as much as I care about Piper, I care about the two of you
equally.
Every night before bed, we tell Piper how many people love her, and the two
of you are always at the top of the list because you will always be her
parents, too. I can’t wait until she is old enough to ask
questions about the picture of the four of us on the wall in her room,
until she wonders how she got her beautiful black hair, and until she makes
the connection that her middle name is the same as her birth mother’s.
I can’t wait for that day because then I get to tell her, once again,
the story of two people named Amanda and Conner who loved her so much that
they made the greatest sacrifice two people could ever make.
People say that you can’t understand true love until you have a baby.
Although I don’t fully agree with that statement, I do believe that I’ve experienced a fuller and deeper kind of love because I met you.
In your words, Conner, this situation was just “meant to
be.”Through our whole adoption journey, I have been the
most worried about our relationship with our child’s birth parents, and
that has actually come to be the most beautiful part of it all.
You named our sweet girl Grace when she was with you for nine months, and
grace has absolutely been the theme of our song. “Thank you” seems so
inadequate for expressing the gratitude we daily feel for your selfless
gift- Piper. Somehow I hope you know just how much you mean to us,
not just for giving us a daughter who we could never have on our own, but
because of the truly strong and special people that you are. I love
you and respect you both, and because of you, my heart is full for the
first time in years.
Mary Rachel Fenrick recently became a mom when she and her husband adopted their daughter from an agency in Oklahoma City. God used infertility to not only teach them more about himself, but to bring them a perfect baby and two wonderful birth parents. You can read more about her journey on her blog, the Fenricks.
This special season of adjustment for our family, a birthday was kind of a big deal to get through. For Keturah, it probably held some special challenges, but nothing that she didn’t make it through with grace. She’s adjusted to the big sister role beautifully.
It’s the mama in this equation that’s struggling.
Patrick’s presence at Urbana undoubtedly added to how difficult the day was for me in degree, but I somehow think that what I found hard would have been hard had he been here too.
“Hard?” you ask, “how was celebrating Keturah’s birthday hard, exactly?”
Now before I go on to tell you exactly what I mean by hard, let me first state that I share this side of my story not only to acknowledge the less-than-picture-perfect moments of our lives, but more specifically to share some of those moments of our lives post-adoption. I’ve beenhonest about adoption issues here before. It’snot easy.
I also desire to make perfectly clear that most of the ‘issues’ I speak of lie with me and not Marilla. She’s got her own issues, to be sure, but what I’m writing about today concerns my personal response to the reality of parenting an adopted toddler at this stage in the game.
Please do not mistake my self-disclosure as anti-adoption sentiment. It’s not. I’m being honest too, when I say that I love Marilla, and would absolutely adopt her all over again.
Okay, now to spell it out. Celebrating Keturah’s birthday was:
H. AR. D.
H —Harried, but Holding it together.
I started off the day just feeling pulled in too many directions.
My desire was to celebrate Keturah’s birthday by making her the center of attention. To date in our family life, it has proven to be a reasonable expectation that the birthday girl or boy gets mom and dad’s attention, and is generally given preferential treatment. Because that is our custom, the non-birthday child has enjoyed taking part in this celebration, knowing that his or her day is coming.
Marilla, being new to our family, and over the last four months being the primary recipient of most preferential treatment, has no concept of what it means to celebrate a sibling. Why didn’t she get to blow out the candles? She doesn’t know that she’s got a day of her own marked on a different month of the calendar, and doesn’t realize that there is no injustice, and no threat to her position in preferring jiejie for a day.
Marilla needed explanation and guidance through every element of Keturah’s party. This kind of teaching opportunity I would have been glad to seize during another friend’s birthday celebration—staying close by, whispering instructions and affirmations into her ear as we navigated new territory together—but on Keturah’s birthday, Marilla’s needs just served to make me feel pulled in the wrong direction . . . away from my birthday girl.
I ended up with Marilla on my hip or at my side for the majority of the morning (while administrating party games, and barking all kinds of orders at my poorsister), when I would have preferred to draw Keturah in under my arm. The presence of other moms and my sister’s help (she cleaned up at least one accident while I got a wet little girl to the potty), allowed things to go as smoothly as they could given my own internal tug-of-war, and I managed to keep these growing emotions under control for the morning.
By Marilla’s naptime, though, as my sister manned the older two over lunch, I continued to struggle.
AR — Angry & Resentful.
With the party behind us, I thought that I’d be able to have some quiet moments with Keturah—maybe talking about her party, maybe playing with a few of her presents. An over-tired Marilla required a nap time bottle from me, while my sister manned lunch and party-clean-up for the older two.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but I did not do well with Marilla’s nap time needs. I felt she’d robbed me of special time with Keturah, and I took it out on her. I was impatient as she took her bottle. When she had trouble settling (and remember, she’d spent the morning being overstimulated) I just felt angry. I demanded that she “relax” and “stop moving around,” and “go to sleep”. I resented her presence and her needs because they seemed maliciously in direct opposition to my own desires.
I did eventually get to leave a sleeping Marilla’s side, but I must have carried that anger and resentment along with me. It only escalated when a premature wake up dictated that I excuse myself from listening to Keturah’s pretend play with her stuffed animals in her kitty-cat box to tend to Marilla.
D — Desperate.
I don’t like to admit to anger or resentment. Or desperation. But I’m glad that the range of intense emotions that I felt on that afternoon lead me to that place of admitting that it was so hard that it hurt, and that I just couldn’t hold it together on my own.
As I rocked an unhappy and over-tired two-year-old in my arms and desperately prayed aloud over her, she finally settled again. At the end of all of my own resources, I crawled to the opposite side of our bed, and just cried my heart out to heaven. No words. Just tears.
It’s uncomfortable to be desperate. And I loathe the process of getting there. I hate that I don’t learn enough from these cycles: holding-it-together –> anger & resentment. I want to be living there in that final place of desperation that’s so inevitable at this particularly challenging stage of life.
It’s in the desperate moments that I realize how high and unreasonable my own expectations are, and how it’s not my job to meet every need of each my children all of the time—however much I’d like to.
So, yes, Keturah’s birthday was really, really hard. That’s the rest of the story. The honest truth.
Funny how that stuff doesn’t end up in the birthday pictures, somehow, but I would hate to forget it.
___________________________
Kim Smith
Kim met and married her husband Patrick while living and working in Asia in 2004. Their first two children, a son and a daughter, both born in Beijing, came along shortly after. Their adopted daughter, Marilla, was born in Henan province in 2010, then joined their family through the China adoption program as a two-year-old. After fourteen years of serving in China, Kim and the Smith family repatriated to Texas just this last fall. She formerly blogged about their lives overseas atAsiaramblin.
Conscious or unconscious, it is a fear that plagues the adopted child.
Jesus is teaching me, gently and quietly, about this fear and how it takes shape in my own son. I don’t like to think about it, because I want to believe that my son knows he is safe, secure and loved. I don’t like the thought of him feeling afraid or insecure. But the reality is, his beautiful life’s story has a fear woven into it that I may never be able to truly comprehend. And I pray that someday the love of Jesus reaches deep within and heals its scars.
Sometimes I think people believe that when a child is adopted young, that they don’t remember. We think that they happily move from the arms of a grieving birth mother into the arms of a loving adoptive family and never know the difference. And we think that surely after they have been with their adoptive family for a while and seem happy and adjusted, everything must be just roses and butterflies.
My son’s tears tell me otherwise.
We have been incredibly blessed with a beautiful and smooth transition as our son entered our family from his foster family. He didn’t even cry when we took him from the adoption agency’s office back to our hotel. As a matter of fact, he fell asleep in my arms as we rode in the taxi, captivated by our dark-haired angel. At first, the nights were hardest. He would wake up multiple times, screaming and crying. But as time went on, the nights got easier and the days were full of laughter and joy.
He transitioned well into preschool, crying when I left him but stopping quickly after and enjoying the day with his classmates. Leaving him in the church nursery has gotten easier. He has stayed away from us overnight with grandparents. In most ways, he is a completely normal toddler- fully adjusted and secure.
But sometimes.
Sometimes I see the look of panic rise in his eyes when I begin to walk away, even just up the stairs in our home, that can only come from a deep place of hurt and fear. In those moments, he isn’t just a typical toddler wanting his mommy. He is a child who has been abandoned by all things familiar and safe and is overcome by fear of it happening again.
I’ll be honest. Sometimes it is exhausting.
There are days when it seems especially close to the surface and it doesn’t take much to set him off. Being a mom of three, I can’t always just drop everything and hold him. But I am learning that convenience is secondary to fulfilling the need my son has to know he is safe. Loved. Secure.
I know that as he grows, we will continue to deal with the scars left by his past. There may be emotions and situations that are hard to understand. But I am thankful for the grace of God that gives us wisdom and discernment in those situations. And I fully believe in the power of Jesus Christ that can transform a heart that has been abandoned into a heart that finds its complete security in Him. Because, after all, Jesus knows. He was abandoned too.
“About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabacthani?’ (which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'” Matthew 27:46 Oh, beautiful Savior, that He would endure abandonment from God the Father, just so he could feel and understand the pain my son feels. Jesus knows.
If you are another adoptive parent dealing with the grief of your child, take heart! You are not alone. Jesus Himself understands the pain of your child and is able to give you the strength you need to love them through their pain.
Maybe you yourself have buried the fear of abandonment deep down inside of you from a past experience that sometimes takes shape in fear. Be encouraged today that Jesus understands. And He can heal that pain, remove the fear and replace it with the security of knowing you are His. Nothing can change that.
Today I am so very thankful for a Savior who loves my son so much more deeply than I could ever dream of.
And I wait in hopeful expectation of the day when my son realizes that he was never truly abandoned, but that His Heavenly Father was with him all along.
_____________________________
Heather Fallis
Heather and her husband Derick stay busy raising their two biological daughters and their son who came to their family from South Korea in 2012. They are youth pastors at their local church and Heather is a director of a private Christian preschool. When she is not working or spending time loving on her family, you can find her sharing coffee with friends, writing, making music, or getting creative [messy] in the kitchen. You can follow their family’s journey at www.ourheart-n-seoul.com.
He’s in my arms, just fallen asleep. It’s his birthday eve, and I’m thinking of his birth, wishing I had a just one baby picture, so instead I imagine with that thick stack of birth records, his entrance a full nine weeks before his body and brain were fully prepared for the harsh world he would face.
But now I’m imagining, and he’s my infant and he’s been born and I’m gazing at him in wonder. I think of the two children I gave birth to, that surreal experience of staring at them for the first time. Those nine months of pregnancy, those hours and hours of labor, a true 80 hours of agonized labor with my first, but then, the baby.
Women experience conception, pregnancy, labor, delivery, all with hope, a desired outcome, but never a guarantee. The baby created can turn to a demise at any point in the process. But there’s hope. And women cling to that hope while they endure the difficulties in the process. There will be a baby to hold, to call mine, to feed, to hold. Perhaps…
No! women do not think perhaps I will have a child. In most cases the hope is so strong that it overrides the reality that there is no guarantee.
And I’m looking at my son again and see the similarities. When a child is handed to you for adoption the pregnancy begins, the labor begins. But this time the agonizing labor pains are staring you right in the face from the beginning. And sometimes hope is hard to find.
In our culture women easily talk about all the miseries of pregnancy. We share labor stories as if we were swapping tall tales. But what about adoption? Especially in the evangelical community, fairy tale stories of adoption are shared, trying to rally the church to move forward in masses to adopt. And don’t get me wrong, I am glad the church is rising up.
But what about the labor, the agonizing labor pains of adoption with no guarantee this child will attach to you and you to them? I propose that we need to ask potential adoptive parents – are you willing to imagine yourself in gestation, in labor with this child for as long as it takes?
Secondly, adoptive parents need to a place to voice the hard questions during the labor process and labor coaches to get them through it. And we need to normalize the questions, take away the stigma –
Will this child ever accept my love? Will my care for them ever feel more than mechanical? Why do I respond differently to this child than my other? These questions are no different than wondering when this 24 hour-a-day “morning sickness” will end.
Without ending the stigma of these questions and offering support, we increase the risk for fetal demise, the D-word in adoption that no one likes to talk about. The disruption rate for children adopted between 3 & 10 is 10 percent. Teens are a staggering 25 percent. I read a website that described these statistics as low. I disagree. I think the statistics are way too high because adoptive parents do not have what they need. They do not get help with their labor and delivery until it is too late. Back to my son now. It has not been an easy week. But he’s in my arms, body soft and I smile. I have been “pregnant and in labor” with him for two years. I have asked all the hard questions and we have worked to get the support we need. But I have realized enough hope to carry me through a hard week. He is mine and I am his. Fruit of my labor.
______________________________
Jenny was just 15 when she felt God’s call to spend her life with foster care and adoption. Shortly thereafter, she started working for Royal Family Kids’ Camp and did so for the next 10 years, even asking her then boyfriend to join her at camp. Her vision became a shared vision and she married her best friend Joe in 2002. By 2012 they had two children ages 4 and 6 and were planning on fostering babies and toddlers. But instead God brought a sibling group, ages 1, 3 and 5 into their lives and made it clear that they were to adopt them. Her professional background in Child Development and Early Intervention has made her passionate about forming healthy attachment relationships with her children and helping them heal from trauma. Her personal blog has been her way to seek God’s heart along the journey and you can read at lifewiththebrackmans.blogspot.com
If you follow me on Instagram, you know that we’ve been experiencing some tough things around here. And to be honest, blogging about the joy in our days just didn’t feel right, when I’ve spent most of the last 2 weeks just trying to remember how to breathe.
But I’m here now.
For Me.
For You.
For Moving Forward.And now it’s time to share.
{breathe in, breathe out}
Our oldest son was recently admitted to an inpatient behavioral health program. He will be there for an indefinite amount of time.
We do not know when or if he will be able to return home.
{breathe in breathe out}
We saw this coming.
The writing was on the wall.
But that has not made it any easier.
It is a nightmare.{I’m going to take a moment to ask you to, please, not try to minimize this event by pointing out that he was adopted & that he had a better life with us than he would have other wise. HE’S MY SON. The End.}
Before today, you knew the basics about my lil’ fam:
I am married to the man of my dreams.
I am the mother of 5 boys.
We had our oldest 2 through fostercare adoption.
We had our youngest 3 biologically.
We like to celebrate.
That is all I let you see.
Because, that is what I want to remember.
I want to live joy, choose joy, remember joy.
But that is going to change.
We are now in the midst of a journey that will not be forgotten.
A journey that demands to be noticed.
And joy is harder to find.
And hope is a constant choice.
{breathe in, breathe out}
So…
Why am I sharing our family secrets on the “big world wide web”?
Why am I telling you his story?
Because I know what it feels like to be alone.
Because I know I am not alone.
Because while this is his story…it is my story too.
So I’m gonna get back to blogging.
Pursuing Joy in our days and documenting it as much as I can.
And every once in a while I’m gonna go here.
I’m gonna let you see inside the not so pretty parts of these days…because even in these dark spaces, hope can be found…and how can I not share that with you?
I will NEVER give up Hope.
Never Ever.
“For we have this HOPE as an anchor for the soul…FIRM & SECURE…” Hebrews 16:9
**I took the above photo’s of our son & his room the day before his latest episode…the day before he was admitted to the inpatient program…I am not sure why I wandered up there for the little photo shoot…but I’m glad I did…I want to remember the little boy in the middle of all of this…because at the end of the day he is just a little boy…a little boy with a broken heart…and I want you to remember that too.**
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Hello! I’m Tracey Lynne…and I couldn’t be happier to be here today!
So a few tid bits about me:
I am married to the man of my dreams
I am a fost/adopt, bio mom to 5 boys
I am a part time photographer in South Jersey
I am girly
I am tough
I play in the mud
I catch frogs
I love to celebrate…anything & everything.
I REALLY REALLY like taking pictures
I like pretty things
I like to create
I do not like to do the dishes
I do not like to do the laundry
I like high heels
I like dresses
I have tattoos {3 to be exact}
I love a party
I love decorating
I DO NOT LIKE SPIDERS
Pink is my favorite color
I love Jesus
I love my family
I am blessed
Hidden Cupcakes (my little space on the internet) has been where I celebrate the “happy moments”in my days. The moments I want to remember for always…
{I like to think my happy moments may inspire some happy moments for you…}
Nobody’s life is perfect. Mine is no exception. And recently I’ve opened up a little more letting you see some if the “beautiful ick” that mixes with our happy. Still, when I “look back” I want the happy memories to outweigh the not-so-happy ones. It’s a choice…
So much of what’s communicated about the world of adoption can feel so fatalistic. Both the outside observer and the mom who is in the thick of it can share the same bleak perspective. One perceives trouble and the other lives it, daily. Anecdotes about the neighbor’s son who, post-adoption, traumatized his siblings, share equal weight with a mother’s desperate prayer requests for her child, whose countenance has iced-over since they brought her home. Rewind 10 years and any sort of bump in the pathway to the “normal” life intimidated me. My secret goal was to maintain an equilibrium in every way.
A good marriage, steady friendships, growing impact on the world, faithful-but-not-interrupted walk with God. None of these, in and of themselves, are wrong, of course. But, they couldn’t exist alongside my prayers for a unique intimacy with God. He let me share, however little, in His sufferings. Little did I know that what was in front of me would prepare me to administer healing to my daughter and walk alongside my son in his grief. My hiccups found me a Father, and they are teaching me to be a mother. Though I met with Jesus in the back-alley of life and found true safety outside of my “normal” life, I still carried those same expectations for normalcy over my children, who came to me through an anything-but-normal means. Residual fear of straying from the norm carried through to our first months and even year of absorbing Eden and Caleb into our fold. “Happy children” was my goal. The problem, unfortunately, being that I also prayed even before the first time I laid eyes on them, that they would know Him as Daddy. I’ve asked, almost daily, that they would know in their innermost being how high, wide, deep and long is His love. While happy is surely the fruit of a child who knows their Father loves them, there are years where that truth may have been called into question, for my little former-orphans. And, they cannot be erased. And, grief has surfaced in our home. The pain behind her eyes is unavoidable at times. Her grasps for the promise of security exposed behind weak attempts to disguise them. Is our love as temporal as the one she first knew? If the womb’s bond was broken by poverty, who can she trust?
The foundational fissures of a child, once abandoned, cannot be easily caulked. Even the early years are subject to a forever imprint. But God.Yes, but God. The same words I heard years ago about all those areas of “normal” being stretched thin, are the words I hear now. I found a flicker of light in the night, then, that set my whole heart on a different course. One breath of His changed everything. I was not made to simply endure, forever living by the scars I’d incurred along the way. I was made to conquer. To win. And the prize was the internal shifting of my heart that would never be taken away from me. I would never be the same again. My walk through the valley of the shadow of death marked my twenties and early thirties. My daughter found it at three and four. But, her scars will be her testimony. And, the imprint, a remainder mark of the sweet kiss of Jesus. I feel the ripples of loss in my home. When fear fills her eyes and insecurity leaks out, I inhale the abandonment too. She clasps her hands around my neck with a hold that craves promise, while expecting that one day this, too, will end. Her joy and zeal, overshadowed as of late, by tentativeness. By itself, it is bleak. It is fatalistic. There is reason to accept our children will be forever broken. “But God” echoes from my insides. I want to shout it in my home and let the hope of those words linger like a candle’s fragrance in winter over our responses to this vessel not-yet-fully-healed. She gets to find Him. Early. The darkness ignored by many but undeniable to her, begs a light. My little girl will see the goodness of God in the land of the living. And because I’d faulted in my marriage, my friendships, my impact, my ambitions, her road to Him is actually exciting for me. I know not just what is on the other side, but the Man she gets to meet along the way. And His grip around her tiny fingers offers her early admittance to safety.
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Sara Hagerty
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 Bitter Thing Is Sweet.
Before we adopted for the first time, I had only a vague idea about “orphans”. I knew they existed in damp countries where townspeople wearing shades of brown and gray stood in line for bread rations. I pictured dark-skinned babies with distended tummies and Chinese orphanage rooms lined with rickety cribs.
Not in a million years did I picture faces that would one day form my family.
One of the magical things about adoption is that God always knows. It doesn’t come as a surprise to Him. His walls are lined with family pictures that would take our breath away if we were to get just a glimpse. We think the one hanging on our wall is it. We think we know things, or that our family is already complete. But we don’t even know the half of it.
Fifteen years ago, I daydreamed about knobby-kneed, fair-skinned kids with sticking-out ears and (fingers crossed!) Cory’s blue eyes. But God had already decided something better for me.
Our family grew, and I forget sometimes that we don’t share blood. We share time and space, a history that is whole enough to carry us home. We share laughs and germs and rants and prayers. We are a family.
And still, we grow.
This afternoon I rushed between dinner prep and homework when the front door opened and Robert and his best friend Fernando tumbled in, all long limbs and pierced tongues. They sat at the island for not nearly long enough and somewhere in between their stories and nonsense, Fernando referred to Cory as “Dad”. Oh, I saw this one coming. It made me smile.
Because family is so much more than blood. And no one was meant to be alone.
The needle draws us together, pulls us near, and with every stitch, we’re closer to what we were always meant to be. And with every stitch, our love grows, covering us and all the ones left standing cold around us until the shivering stops and we know that what we are together is real.
I can’t say for sure that you’re meant to adopt. But chances are, you’re meant to be impacted by adoption. In one way or another, I believe you’re meant to see that what the world calls brokenness can be a thing of sure beauty, adorned in the best possible ways, unexpected and entirely holy.
It could be a niece, a nephew, a grandchild, a godchild. Maybe your best friend will adopt, or your neighbor.
Maybe you’re not as close to “done” as you thought.
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Shannan Martin believes the turns in life that look like failure are often holy gifts, a lesson she chooses to embrace after the bones of her comfy farmgirl life were shattered and rebuilt from the toes up. Together, Shannan and her family sold their dream farmhouse, moved to a disadvantaged area in the city, and adopted a 19-year old felon. Nothing could have prepared her for the joy she would discover as her family began to live the simple, messy, complicated life they were created to live. In walking beside the forgotten and broken and seeing first-hand the ways she so cleanly identified with both, Shannan’s faith was plucked from the mud. She and her jail-chaplain husband now live on the wrong side of the tracks with their four children. She blogs often at Flower Patch Farmgirl.
We were just snuggling up in my favorite chair to read together. A few pages into some silly old book about the Jetsons that she dug out from the shelf, I found myself skipping words and wondering how long I’d be sitting there killing time. She joined me in corporate loss of interest and shuffled through a stack of books to find another, landing on one about adoption that I don’t even like and have kept only as an example. Great. I had this book in my own stack of books next to my desk, not with her books, but she found it and now wanted to read it. I decided reading an in-the-moment edited version was better than the message that could be sent if I said no. And so I read, moving quickly, changing words as we went, and closing the cover in record time.
She didn’t seem affected and just nestled in under my arm and chit chatted about seemingly silly things. Sandwiched between observations about the cats and requests for the iPad, she threw this one in with a big smile on her face:
Tell me the story of when I came out of someone’s belly.
You mean your China mommy’s belly?
Yeah, I want to hear the story. Start with Once upon a time…ok?
While Mark was sleeping on the other side of the world, the place where her story began, here I was facing perhaps the most challenging request she’s ever made of me. Sitting comfortably in my favorite chair on the prettiest day of spring yet and being asked to tell my daughter her own story is infinitely harder than all her midnight requests for more water waking me from a sound sleep put together.
I looked right into her eyes, brushing her hair from her forehead and I told her her story, starting with “Once upon a time” just as she had requested. She smiled the whole time as I told her things I know because I just know like how her China mommy’s belly grew and grew and how she felt her kick and twirl inside her because I bet she was a little monkey even then. I moved to what I know universally to the little we know more specifically, giving her what I felt like her little 5-year-old heart needed. She added in a few details she knew herself that she has learned along the way as I’ve looked for opportunities for openness, and I affirmed her as she did.
Oh yes, the lady with a ponytail walked into the room holding you and your eyes were so big and I thought at that moment that I was looking at the most beautiful baby in the whole world.
She told me to keep going when I thought I was finished, urging me to continue until I took that story right up to today, summing up several years in a few sentences that included things like moving from a crib to a big girl bed and then another bed as we made the playroom into her new bedroom. At a loss of something more to say when we got to present day, I paused and wondered if I should tack on a The End or something but feeling like it just wouldn’t be the right words. Instead, she nestled in closer and smiled even bigger and ended my story of her story herself
And they all lived happily ever after.
And, then we just sat for a while, the quiet interrupted occasionally by another funny observation about a stuffed turtle toy or the marble tower she was going to build until she jumped up and bounded onto the next thing.
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Kelly Raudenbush
Kelly has a passion for supporting adoptive families, specifically to encourage parents to be intentional and understand their own hearts more clearly as they seek to care for their hearts of their children. Kelly has a Master’s degree in counseling and has been working with adoptive families since she and her husband Mark founded the The Sparrow Fund. Married to Mark since 1998, they have 3 biological children and 1 daughter who was adopted as a toddler from China in 2010. You can learn more about their adoption story, how they’ve been changed by the experience of adoption, and what life for them looks like on Kelly’s personal blog, My Overthinking.
Adeye is a blessed daughter of the King of Kings, wife to the most amazing man in the world and mommy to nine beautiful children. Three sons the good old fashioned way, two special needs princesses from China, two angelic treasures who have Down syndrome from Ukraine, and two amazing blessings who also have profound special needs recently adopted from Bulgaria. We’re crazy about Jesus, learning daily about total surrender, passionate about adoption, and learning every day how to live life to the fullest with various special needs and medically fragile children. I share my passions, my heart, my victories, my struggles, and my daily life on my blog, No Greater Joy Mom.
