She was happy and content in her world of baby dolls, hair bows and polka dot tights.
Then one night she was aimlessly surfing her agency’s website…..
when her heart literally skipped a beat.
Her husband sleeping, she called her friend in Florida..
“I think i’m looking at my son….”
This mama was scared….A BOY???!! Lord!! What would she do with a boy???
Her best friend would tell her, “there’s something about the way a boy loves his mama…”
and she would listen, but not fully understand.
Until Monday, December 6, 2010, in Guangzhou, China…..
In the International adoption world, a female child under the age of 3 is still the most requested child across every county and continent, including the United States. In 2011, for China, there were 1,888 females to just 699 boys (http://adoption.state.gov/about_us/statistics.php), adopted and brought home to their forever families.
With a shared list of literally hundreds of waiting children in China, the overwhelming majority of them are male. When little girls come to agency lists, the emails come pouring in…..and young boys with minor needs sit.
And wait.
Simply because they are boys.
Now hear my heart.
When the Lord called us to adopt the first time, we knew it was a daughter. It wasn’t written in the sky or spelled out in black and white, but we knew.
We had barely recovered from jet lag when the Holy Spirit began to convict me about my willingness to follow HIS plan for our family, or mine….and it took me digging into His Word, and continually, daily, laying my plans on the alter and and offering them as a sacrifice.
Sometimes, we just have to be willing for this adoption thing to not look like we thought it would.
Lord, did you call us to adopt a daughter…..or a child?
Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.
If you’re on this adoption road I’d challenge you today to seek deep the heart of your Father. Be willing for the end not to look like you planned it would.
Perhaps it will.
Maybe it won’t.
But rest assured….He knows *exactly* what you need.
Even when you didn’t realize what was missing.
Psalm 133:1
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!”
Emily and Jay have been married for 11 years and have 5 childen–Avery 8, Ally 6, Annalyse 4, Ashley 3, and (finally) our BOY, Asher 2. Ashley and Asher were adopted from China and were both special needs adoptions. Emily spends her days chasing toddlers and waiting in line at carpool. Her favorite place in the world is in her van, all alone with the worship music blaring! She would count it an honor to have you be encouraged at her blog: www.ourhimpossiblejourney.blogspot.com.
His tiny little voice barely above a whisper as he approaches me on the couch, handing me a tiny toy colander filled with a wooden pizza slice and two felt pieces of bread- white and rye. “Peanut butter, cheese, and chocolate, ” he tells me.
Gifts from my boy.
From where I am sitting I can see a wall full of pictures; pictures we took of him last July, when we first met our little boy in a Moscow orphanage. He’s two, but he looks much younger. Maybe a year and a half old.
I remember last year: worrying about him, wanting- no aching– to bring him home, and counting down every eternal day until we did. Mostly I remember walking the streets around our neighbourhood and praying as desperately as I could for that home-coming day to arrive soon.
Lots about parenting an adopted child is very normal. We do all the regular parenting things like books and baths, play dough and painting, making messes and tidying up…
But parts of it are just so profound. Every time we walk those same streets together- my boy and I- I think about those prayers I whispered and that deep ache in my heart, now filled. Neither my heart nor my mind can comprehend the mysterious way in which God seemed to bend fate and bring us together. Redemption for both of us.
We do such normal things like taking our boy to the zoo and yet the whole experience is seeped in this profound brew of what is and what could have been. I watch my boy who has morphed from babyhood to childhood in nine short months and I am amazed. As he gestated in our family he has grown only more vibrant. Just when we think we’ve hit the height of his transformation, he surprises us.
Nine months ago, he grew upset when we had him run around inside without shoes on, so used to having his little feet always covered. Five months ago we took him, bundled in our winter clothes, to the shore of Lake Michigan and he froze in the sand, then gingerly pushed it back with the tip of boot, wondering what is this stuff? We tried him on a trampoline twice this summer, both times to cries of, “I don’t like it!!” and scooped him off.
And then yesterday, we came across this net at our zoo’s playground- roped across a pit, bouncing and insecure beneath the happy feet of running children. And Arie tried it.
With apprehension, he took two steps and cried out, “Mama help!” but we encouraged him to do it alone. “Only kids allowed on here Arie! No grown ups. I know you can do it!”
Slowly, he took another step. And another. His face grew more determined and proud with every inch until finally, he reached the other side. Pure victory for my little man.
As he raced around that play fort I was lost again in the profundity of what is and what could have been. A year ago, an orphanage. Today, a zoo. A year ago, thousands of miles away. Today, here. What could have been: the small world, the day-to-day, the every changing care-givers, and the insecurity of not knowing who comes next. A little boy, relying on himself. What is: a big world of new experiences, the day-to-day and the joyful surprises, the constant love of mom and dad, the security of knowing that it’s us, forever. A big boy, growing brave and finding his way.
With his life, God is doing a new thing. The profound moments stitched like a colorful thread through the fabric of my day.
There will be many more of these moments. Many more times when I will be struck with the wonder of his life- of my life- redeemed. More pictures in albums and photos on my wall. Restoration. Streams in the wasteland.
Love.
_______________________________
Jillian Burden is still adjusting to this beautiful thing called motherhood; she and her husband are parents to a son by way of a Russian adoption. While her belly might not have expanded, her heart and her faith sure grew as her family did! You can read about this soul stretching journey to parenthood on her blog.
I took up knitting not long after our first adoption. I knitted a scarf first, imperfect with its holes randomly scattered, revealing to all that not only was I a novice, but also that I am decidedly not a perfectionist. The holes didn’t bother me really– but the sense of satisfaction I felt at having actually finished a project was soon to become an addiction. I’ve lost count of how many scarves I’ve knitted over the past 13 years, but suffice it to say that even my husband and 3 sons have scarves– I totally knew they’d never wear them! I didn’t care though because I soon realized that the hobby I began as a way to connect with our Russian daughter, who loved to knit, turned out to satisfy a need that parenting definitely does not. That is, I could set out to accomplish a goal and actually see it finished within a week or two. How refreshing in the midst of the parenting goals which consume our thoughts, our time, and our emotional and spiritual energies. Goals like bringing our children into healing from the deep wounds of their pasts, teaching them to give and receive love, to think before acting and to understand consequences, to learn English and to get along with others, to handle their anger well, not to mention personal hygiene, sharing toys etc, etc, etc……..!
Delayed Gratification
Talk about long-term goals–parenting surely can lay claim to being the job with the most delayed gratification ever! We realize early on that our efforts in raising our children often don’t see the fruit we desire and believe for until an undisclosed but greatly anticipated and hoped-for day. So we parents learn to sow seeds in all kinds of climates, stages, and circumstances.
“Happy and fortunate are you who cast your seed upon all waters [when the river overflows its banks; for the seed will sink into the mud and when the waters subside, the plant will spring up; you will find it after many days and reap an abundant harvest], you who safely send forth the ox and the donkey [to range freely].” Isaiah 32:20 (Amplified)
I’m excited to share this scripture with you because it has been such an encouragement to me in the past few weeks. I am encouraged once again as a parent to continue to sow the seeds of love, wise counsel, firm boundaries, unconditional acceptance, words of Truth, kindness and firmness….
“You Will Find it After Many Days….”
Adoptive parenting is one of those jobs that is vast in scope with only occasional (but glorious) signs of accomplishment and finality. We treasure those moments when, like the tying off of the last piece of yarn on my latest knitting project, we see that one of our long-term goals have been met. As this scripture says, “youwill find it after many days…” I want to encourage you parents to continue to cast in hope the seeds of your love (in all its many forms) on all the waters of your child’s life, all the waters of your families’ circumstances. For indeed, that seed will sink into the mud of your child’s life, deep into his identity. And though hidden from you for what may seem an impossibly long season, so long that it may call upon you to believe with faith-filled hope, it will indeed “spring up.”
Glorious Satisfaction
Just recently we experienced the glorious satisfaction, (far more gratifying than any completed knitting project I am here to tell you!) of seeing seeds of healing spring up before our astonished eyes — seeds sown over and over and over and over in hope. To hear our child speak words to us that could only be spoken from a place of deep healing, confirmed in both eyes and tone of voice, left both Stephen and me full of praise to God for His faithfulness. This experience, so fresh and pleasing, reminded us that we must not grow weary of casting our seeds when all we see is a muddy stream and truly wonder if we’ve made any progress at all.
Father God, we are believing You for the promised abundant harvest. Help us to parent in faith when our eyes don’t see any evidence of plants and fruit in our children. May it be to us and our children as you have said. Amen.
___________________________
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.
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.
________________________________________
Haley Long
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.
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.
This has been a busy and exhausting week. We are hosting 2 sisters for 3 weeks at our home through Safe Families for Children. Some days I’ve laughed and felt my heart burst at my girl’s ability to share, love them, and be welcoming. And some days I’ve cried and felt defeated at our inability to get anywhere on time, the selfishness that emerges so quickly from the girls (and myself..ahem), and the death of our “normal routine.” It is hard but the best kind of hard. The kind of hard that Jesus asks of us so that we know for sure with every ounce of our being that we are not self sufficient. It has been almost one week and there have been days I was ready to say “this is just too much” but in those moments God has sustained. I have visited a friend who is on the journey with us and has 2 of the siblings from this family as well. I have remembered that when we come to the end of ourselves then God shows up and we cannot take credit. And He does things better and more beautiful then we ever could.
The timing may seem crazy but as I sat in the Safe Families conference last week I felt so convicted that I always can think of a reason why right now is just not the right time. And my reasons are pretty good ones: I’m still feeling sick, I am almost 8th months preggers, we have two kids, we don’t have tons of extra space. But as I examine my heart I know that those are excuses. The truth is there is never a “great time” to serve and love and welcome in a stranger into your home because it is messy. But yet that is exactly what Jesus calls us to do. It is so important to Him because it costs us something, it transforms relationships, and it requires us to live in faith and not just talk about it. It changes others but mostly it changes my selfish heart. I read that the Bible instructs us to love, welcome, and care for the stranger over 100 times. But yet I can always think of a reason why now is just not the best time. I cannot recall a time in recent history when I have sat happily on my couch while perfectly behaved children played in a completely clean home while dinner cooks in the oven. There will never be a “good time” to do this. Our life is messy and real hospitality means inviting people into that mess and chaos and saying we love you. We don’t love perfectly but because we are desperately loved and have received outrageous grace from our heavenly Father we gladly can extend what we can to others. The grace we have been shown is not just nice or great it is ridiculous and life changing. And it spills from us.
We want to support their mother in a difficult time and really show that we take seriously the command to love our neighbor as ourselves. You see it is easy for me to think I am pretty good at that until my personal space and time is threatened. It has been hard for us all to share our lives, our space, our stuff, and our time. And the opportunity to do so has allowed us to loosen the grip on those things. Anni and Evy are counting the cost with us and I am so proud of them. Not because they perfectly share but because they are struggling through and living what it means to love others. It has afforded us so many great chances to talk as a family and work through this all. I am bursting with stories and it has only been a week but this morning as I was puking in the sink and thinking to myself “I just cannot do this one more day” I saw this….
The girls getting their hair did and then Annikah brought me this….
A note the oldest girl wrote about her time here so far (we eat a lot of fruit…be still my heart).
And I remembered that God knows best and His grace is enough. And friends and family are supporting us in this and one will be here with pizza in an hour (crowns in heaven I tell you). It is these things that convince me more and more we are meant to live exhausted and spent for His glory but full of abundant love and peace because of His scandalous grace.
Boasting in my weakness because that is where He is shown to be strong.
______________________________
Roxanne Engstrom is a mama of 3; Annikah, Evangeline, and the newest little boy Abishai. Roxanne and her husband Jason now live in Chicago after returning from 4 years learning, loving, and living on a small island in Africa. They have a heart for adoption and supporting vulnerable families and are now back stateside after a failed adoption overseas. They are currently a Safe Family through Safe Families for Children and becoming Foster parents in the hopes of adopting. She blogs about their family’s adventures and what God is doing in their lives at www.roxengstrom.blogspot.com. She is grateful that even though the journey can be difficult God gives joy and promises abundance along the way.
My sister and her husband shared the news. And, I shared my thoughts, which really were a number of reasons why foster care was not a good idea.
Eloquent argument #1: It is a lot of work. There’s paperwork and training and meetings and appointments just to get permission to foster in the first place. After you have a child in your home, those meetings and appointments won’t end. Then, add in the normal care-for-a-child stuff inherent to caring for a child. That’s a lot of work for a child who isn’t your own. Wouldn’t it be so much easier to just avoid it altogether?
And…
They have worked hard. A lot of training. A lot of meetings. A lot of teacher conferences and doctor appointments and social worker visits. It hasn’t been easy. But, you know what? It’s been worth it. They’ve been developed individually and as parents together. But, greater than that, they’ve experienced the blessing of getting to play a significant part in a child’s life and getting a front row seat to witnessing every child they’ve served grow and learn and experience healing in part or in whole. I admit that it’s been pretty amazing to watch from the sidelines.
Eloquent argument #2:You have to face hard stuff. If a kid needs a foster home, something has broken that should not have been broken. And, when you start foster parenting, you step into that brokenness. Simply acknowledging the messyness can be hard. But, when you step into that mess, you have to not only recognize that that mess exists, you get messy too. Hard stuff. Wouldn’t it be so much more comfortable to just avoid it altogether?
And…
They have faced hard stuff—a toddler found walking on the highway, a teenage girl given only a few clothes she could fit in a backpack and enough money for a one-way bus ride, and children having children. But, you know what? They can do hard stuff. They have been changed as they have come face to face with brokenness in their own neighborhood. They’ve gotten messy as those caring for children from hard places inevitably do, but they also know the God who is right there in the mess and, because of Him, they know how to wash the feet of the children in their home, bringing restoration into broken lives. And, that is what it’s all about.
Eloquent argument #3: Your heart may get broken. The goal of foster care is not adoption. While there are adoptions out of foster care, fostering isn’t designed as a way to grow a new family; family reunification is the goal. That means you are likely going to give and give to a child only to see him or her go to another family long term. Wouldn’t it be so much safer to just avoid it altogether?
And…
Their hearts have more texture than they had 7 years ago. Some newborns stayed for only a few days. Some children stayed for over a year. We’ve watched them open gifts on Christmas morning. We’ve clapped when they’ve blown out birthday candles. My mother made a teenage girl jump up and down with pure joy when she gave her a pair of big-girl footie pajamas after she said she had always wanted a pair and never had them as a little girl. They have braided hair, left quarters under pillows from the tooth fairy, helped with homework, read bedtime stories, and taught them how to pray. The family celebrated when the first child they fostered became their son. But, we’ve said goodbye to many more. All of our hearts have more texture today than they did before we knew these children. If you took an x-ray of my sister’s heart, you’d see a lot of cracks and craters of stories in there, stories of children they loved and served for a time. But, that heart is also bigger than it was before, capable of even more love than it was before they took that step to become foster parents and stand in the gap for the children who need it the most.
Somewhere along the way, my eloquent arguments seemed to lose steam and the reality of foster parenting became a bit more real to me. When Mark and I spoke last month to a group of foster parents about connecting with the children in their care, it became even more real to me. My textured heart was stirred.
Foster care. It’s all about life. Life giving all around. Life changing all around. For children. For those ordinary heroes we call “foster parents.” It’s not easy or comfortable or safe. But, the best things in life simply aren’t.
______________________________________
Kelly Raudenbush
Forever changed by their 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.
“Sometimes what we call ‘wisdom’ is actually fear,” she said, casually, but carefully in response to the story I’d just told her.
Searing truth.
We’d been parents for under two years. We’d just begun to hit a stride with Eden and Caleb when we felt the nudge to say ‘yes’ to yet another paper pregnancy. We suspected it would be two, but felt for sure it would be children who were the same age or younger as our two now. “The paint is still too fresh on the walls,” Nate said when I told him about the older girl lingering around the orphan babies with new stories emerging, often overlooked. She haunted my waking hours. “Later, we’ll adopt an older girl,” was his response.
I agreed. The thing I wanted most was actually the thing I feared most.
Isn’t that how it always is? Fear forms a hedge around our greatest calling.
But then, through a circuitous series of events –one that, in retrospect, was the undeniably kind and gentle way of the Father, we learned about her.
Nate’s heart changed. “We have to go after her, Sara” he said one morning.
Somewhere deep down I knew he was right, but my mind made a case otherwise. Fear wore the guise of reason.
And when I recounted to my friend, that afternoon over tea, all the reasons why adopting an older child, alongside another and outside of the birth order, at this time just didn’t feel wise, she spoke truth.
I had article after article and hours of classwork to back up my case. And, friends, I am a researcher by nature so my intent in this post is not to blow the research out of the water, but it’s to point to a Man who, at times, trumps both research and reason.
God builds the family.
++++
“I need to do what Lily does, Daddy,” she said. It was the first morning we saw significant progress in an issue on which we’d focused heavy attention, prayer and training weeks prior. Our “first” oldest child made a shift. Her newly-older sister’s example, the catalyst.
Eden was joyful and obedient. Her little-heart’s zeal for Jesus and His children was unquenchable, and she was about all-things-Mommy-and-Daddy. Her life carried the perfect mark of an oldest child, one that would set the pace for children to come after her. “We want to preserve her place in our family,” we told our social worker during our homestudy. Every time I said that phrase I felt a nudge, a check, as if maybe that framework was being checked by the true family Planner.
When we learned about Lily, all we knew of her was her picture and a few brief observations from her soon-to-be foster mama. On paper, she was foolish for us. Adopting a child who would be third or fourth in line seemed like less of a risk than this one (who could be as old as 10 or 11 for all we knew), after which all the others would now follow.
But He led. He confirmed. He gently course-corrected.
And we walked what felt like the plank, with no reason other than His.
At times while we waited — and even after we immersed ourselves in Africa’s dust — the fear felt unbearable to me. I would read an email, a post to an adoption forum, another research article and find myself shackled, again. What were we thinking? We’re nuts. Worst-case scenario thinking would rest over me like a cloud. Our first few weeks with her offered many opportunities for me to search for confirmation of those very fears. My perspective was horizontal, not first from His source, going out from me and back to me.
But then, beauty broke dirt’s surface. Early indications rolled in: His plan was better.
Her quiet, gentle spirit began to carry a mantle of leadership. She desired obedience, and they made her a role model. She looked for hidden ways to bless, and they stole her ideas. She giggled loud, and the joy that marked our family before she came only grew. She received, and they, too, sought to shed orphan-skin.
He sent us a first-born, late but just in time, who hungered for Jesus — my deepest heart cry for my children.*
We couldn’t have ever known. Our principles would have kept us from His perfect plan, had He not been so gentle to speak clear and consistently.
He showed Himself faithful to thwart our plans with a better one.
Just the other day Nate found this in his pocket.
Her own words, not copywork. She hid it in his coat. Full of surprises, our little girl, their big sister.
Full of surprises, this mysterious God.
*One caveat for those of you who have brought older children home and are in the midst of the inevitable intensity that comes with a life finding a new home in you: our highs with Lily are sometimes proportionate to our lows. But isn’t that so with life? We want her to soar with Him, but it’s in the lowest places where we find that we were made to soar the heights. Lest you read this post and think we drew a “lucky” card, Jesus is healer in our home. And He will show Himself healer in yours. Though you may not see it today, I pray my words might be the same signpost He’s flashed for me. (He continues to flash for me.) God always wins, their hearts are included in that promise. Part of the healing, for us — for our hearts, has been to set up memorials around beauty and make the decision not to see struggle as the final verdict, but a pathway. He is good.
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Sara Hagerty
Sara is a wife to Nate and a mother of four (and one on the way) 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.
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.
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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/
“If Mommy gets a baby in her belly, will you send me back?” she asked him, with nervous eyes searching the floor, inhaling the shame of those words as if they were her indictment.
It’s often near the surface for this one — not the year she was “chosen” and a mommy and daddy flew all the way across the ocean to look her in the eyes and call her daughter — but the too-many, earlier years that still seem to weigh heavier. These days, she lives buoyant and giddy. Her eyes have found a sparkle and we see them more than we see those hands that spent nearly a year awkwardly covering them. My little girl laughs. A lot. And this week when I hugged her I could tell her body wanted to melt (not stiffen) in my arms.
But just within her reach is the shame she feels about her life on the other side, when her given last name tied her to no one. One phrase or question or hint of her past and I watch those eyes, which just harnessed a sparkle, go dark.
Adoption saved her and it haunts her, because of its open-ended definition to her. It’s still a question.
She, like many of the rest of us, has yet to reconcile the power of this one act.
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I hadn’t even kissed their foreheads or tickled their feet and this stranger’s words about them stung.
“Oh, you’re adopting? Just you wait. Once you have them at home I’m sure you’ll be able to have children of your own.”
A phrase I’ve heard a hundred times, and it never ceases to give my heart pause. Children of your own, words that expose a subconscious understanding of adoption as charitable affection versus primal love. As if these, once-adopted ones, were somehow, not truly … mine.
There is a distinction in our language about those children, once adopted, and their biological counterparts that reveals much more about the state of our hearts — the state of my heart — than it does about the children to whom it’s referring.
That simple phrase, often spoken by beautifully-intentioned people**, reveals the shame under which my daughter sometimes lives. But she’s not alone, she just lives an outward existence that represents the battle each one of us fights in our understanding of Him.
It is inherent to human flesh. We are interlopers, or so we think, hanging on to the coattails of another person’s inheritance. Certainly we’re not “one of His own”, we hold deep-down; instead we grasp at something we believe will never really name us. We are simply recipients of His charitable affections, we subconsciously reason.
Our language about physical adoption reveals the gaps in our understanding about how He has adopted us. And those words that sting when I hear them make me hurt more than just for my children, but for the representation of His name.
Most can’t imagine a love beyond what we see in the natural as the most intense form of love — the kind birthed when a mother’s body breaks open to give life to one that shared her flesh and her breath. How could it be that a mother could not only love, but see as her own, a child that her womb did not form and who wears another mama’s skin? We see the struggle of attaching, mother to child and child to mother, that so often happens in adoption, and it only reinforces our subconscious belief that true love between mother and child is only inherited through blood … and not won.
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When her eyes fill with the shame of her history and her heart begins to clamp behind them and adoption is still her question — am I truly “in” or just posing – I see me. I see a hundred weak yes’s as just plain weak and all the things I’ve declared with my mouth that my body never fulfilled and the times I poured out prayers to Him only to forget Him, the real source of my strength, hours later.
I see a never-ending list of failures.
I live, subtly, as if I am on the outside of that fence. Just like her.
All things that could be wiped away in an instant if I understood the power of His having adopted me. This reality changes everything.
I am a child of His own, this God-Man who wrapped His holiness around my sin-stained existence and renamed me.
Adopted.
Grafted.
I am one who is marked by His name more than any of my failures.
A child who knows that adoption isn’t really about the past that haunts her, the forever stamp of separate, not included, but instead the name of the King who fought, hard for her — she wears a love that is fierce.
She’s a force with which to be reckoned, this wildly-loved former-orphan.
Me.
+++
So when I hear that phrase “a child of your own” separating the children under my roof from the one my womb will bear, and my heart saddens at the misunderstanding of this wild-love that’s been birthed within my home* among children who wear another mama’s skin, I can’t help but think of Him.
He calls me “His own” when the world and my heart wants to label me forever severed.
Adoption is His great declaration.
*For the mama who has children “of her own” wearing different skin: This love we birthed, when we signed countless papers and spent sleepless nights waiting and fell in love with a picture or a name before we heard a heartbeat, is other but still very much His. To love them fiercely, like blood, requires an unnatural impartation of His love, in and through us. It’s not normal, but it is fully possible. In Him.
If you’re wrestling under the weight of the “not yet” that you feel towards them or the “not yet” that they demonstrate towards you, don’t shrink back. This gap is merely His opportunity to move. Now, more than ever, it’s your time to pray and to ask and to hope for Him to bind your family with a beautiful love that can only point back to His name.
**For those looking for a new term: There is grace to learn, and learn now. If you are like me, you have likely been one who learns what not to say by saying it several times the wrong way . You are in good company.
The term we and many other adoptive families prefer to use to distinguish a child born into a family versus one adopted into a family is “biological child”. We, personally, prefer not to refer to our children as “adopted children” as we see adoption as having been a one-time event. We just call them our children. (And this leaves room for all the other adjectives that define them;)). If we need to distinguish, we’ll say “we have four children who were adopted.” But that’s just our personal preference. No need to stumble over your words around us, we’re all learning — there is grace for you to stumble while you learn!
Photos compliments of Mandie Joy (who is currently fostering a baby, stateside! Pop on over to her blog to catch a glimpse of those baby-toes.)
For Your Continued Pursuit (verses on adoption): Ephesians 1:4-6 | Galatians 4:5-7 | 1 John 3:1 (&2) | Romans 9:26 | Romans 8:14-16 | Romans 8:21,23 | Ephesians 2:19 | Romans 9:8 | John 1:13 | Isaiah 43:7 | Psalm 27:10 | Hebrews 12:6 | Revelation 21:7 | Hebrews 2:10 | Ephesians 3:15 | John 11:25 | Psalm 68:5-6 | Psalm 10:14, 17-18
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Sara Hagerty
Sara is a wife to Nate and a mother of four (and one on the way) 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.
. You are in good company.