The Other Mama {Summer Rewind}

My 6 year old daughter has just begun to ask some very thought provoking questions surrounding her birth mother lately. She’s my thinking child, so although this doesn’t surprise me, I must admit some of the questions…oh.my…let’s just say I’m thankful they have come mostly at night in her bed, with the lights off…so she can’t see the tears that roll down my cheeks. We’re entering a whole new chapter in this adoptive parenting journey and begging for wisdom and revelation from the Lord to help us wade and part these waters.

And at the same time, I’m often in awe of how the Lord has been preparing us for these moments, long before Ashley came home. I’ve mentioned before that I worked in the domestic side of adoption for a few years before transitioning over to the international. Over those years, I worked with birth mothers. And you better believe I took mental notes and had dozens of “light bulb, heart pounding, Holy Spirit” moments with these women. Some of them I knew for months and others I met literally in the delivery room or the day after.

But one thing I knew about each one of them….as hard as they tried to hide it, or as openly as they grieved, was that this was a gut.wrenching.process, and one that they would never, ever forget.

One day the Lord gave me this verse:

Isaiah 49:15
“Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you!”

The very God of the universe in His Word, gave an answer to our children…”Did she forget me?”

Can you see it? “…even if that were possible…” which means….it’s NOT. And even if it were…HE WOULD NOT!!!

Meet little miss “A.” She’s just a week new y’all and has the most perfect baby skin I’ve ever seen!!!

Her mama, “M” called me from our church’s Crisis Pregnancy Center a few years back. She was pregnant was interested in adoption. We began meeting and a few months later, a baby girl was born. I watched her do the most courageous thing a woman can do….hand her child over to another mama and daddy to love and raise as their child. And as I watched her grieve, I prayed deep for the woman that had left my baby girl at the orphanage gate for someone else to raise. It’s as if the Lord just allowed me a glimpse of her grief through these women in my care.

A year later, she called back. Pregnant again. And, choosing life for her child, a few months later I stood in the L&D hallway yelling for them to run FAST because their son was about to be born. And she did it again, this time knowing full well the grief to come. Don’t miss that this girl had made some very poor choices, but she had made the most important one for her children….LIFE.

This time around, she’s ready to be a mama. She and her family will raise baby A and get to experience all she hasn’t gotten to with her other children. And rest assured, she has not forgotten them….their pictures hang on her walls. As I left her house, I wondered if Ashley’s birth parents had photos of her….she wasn’t abandoned as a newborn. I’d never wondered that before.

When questions come that I don’t have answers to, I go to the Word. It tells me that it is impossible for a mother to forget her child. And it drives me to pray deep for the two women that will never know this side of heaven how the Lord had His eyes on these babies, and how He placed them where they are loved and treasured.

Oh, how I wish I could send you pictures. For your walls. Just so you would know.

Thanks for the reminder, M…..you are one of the bravest women I’ve ever met, sister.
_____________________________

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 www.ourhimpossiblejourney.blogspot.com.

July 10, 2014June 28, 2014

H. AR. D. {Summer Rewind}

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 been honest about adoption issues here before. It’s not 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 poor sister), 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 & Marilla - Asia Ramblin — 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 at Asiaramblin.

July 3, 2014June 28, 2014

Abandonment {Summer Rewind}

Abandonment.

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 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.

June 30, 2014July 1, 2014

Getting Through the Labor Pains of Adoption

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

June 26, 2014June 26, 2014

Parenting Backwards {Summer Rewind}

Raising a child from birth to adulthood seems like a cycle of teaching attachment and then teaching how to let go. First, you try to get a newborn to attach to a breast for feeding then after a few months, a few years for some, you ween them off of the breast and onto a bottle. The process starts all over again. Attach to the bottle then ween to a sippy cup and so on. Just think about it: we use things to comfort and nourish and soothe our children just so later on we can teach them that they will have to grow up and move on from them. A blankie, a pacifier, a crib, a toy, a home, etc. It’s a cycle of teaching them to attach and let go because that is what life is all about.

Well, parenting an adopted child feels completely opposite of that to me. I feel like I am having to parent backwards. Instead of teaching Jaydn to attach and let go, I am trying to teach her to let go and attach, let go of her defense mechanisms and the tools she has been using to survive her almost animalistic institutionalized life up until now and attach to us at the heart level, let go of her fears of abandonment and sense of self-sufficiency and attach to us, her loving family who she can trust and feel safe with because we aren’t going anywhere.

It is really hard to parent this way after years of doing it the other way. Call me selfish, but I enjoy the times when Jaxon and Jovie are playing in the other room while I do my quiet time or dishes or whatever I need to do for a little while. I have taught them to trust a babysitter or a Sunday school teacher so that Nathan and I can have a date, or I can enjoy worship with our church body. Teaching even toddler-aged kids to let go has its perks! But, parenting backwards is a conscious sacrifice of those perks. With Jaydn on my lap 24/7, I can only catch bits of the sermon between feeding her crackers or keeping an eye on her as she destroys my notes with a pen. Nathan and I don’t go on dates. Dishes, quiet times, and whatever else I need to do will just have to wait until she is asleep at night. And, to be honest, by then, I’m too tired, so it simply doesn’t get done.

Another example is last night. We went to a worship and music ministry party. We couldn’t get a babysitter because it’s too early in Jaydn’s development to leave her with anyone else so Nathan and I drove separately just in case I would need to leave because of the kids. So, as Nathan wandered around meeting and greeting people he will be working so closely with in the coming years, I sat on a couch with a 40lb 2-year-old squishing my face at an almost painful strength, knotting my hair with her forceful fingers, and then jerking herself backwards at random times with brut force almost breaking my arms as I attempt to catch her each time. A sweet new friend offered to watch her for a minute while I ventured to the chocolate fountain, and I jumped at the chance. “OH! YES! Kid freedom!,” I thought to myself. I returned from the other room a few minutes later, knowing I wasn’t really “supposed” to do that, but Lord knows I needed it (both the break and the chocolate-covered fruit). Then, it was back to my lap she came. I kept thinking about how the other two kids were upstairs, entertaining themselves, and what a gift that truly had become to me as one tired mommy. I went upstairs to join them and sat on the floor while Jaydn would get up long enough to grab a toy and then plop onto my lap again. The process of her seeing me as different than every other woman in the room is an arduous one.

Please know that I am not complaining. Actually, I am learning out loud. I am learning how to parent someone who has no experiential reason to trust/love me. I am learning how to walk through every painful door of her self-sufficiency and place Christ’s redemption story there. I am not Jaydn’s mommy because I had to be. I chose this role out of obedience to God’s command through Scripture. So, as in all things I experience in my life where I feel ill-equipped and unable, I believe that God has placed me here to be more reliant on Him. I know He can parent forwards, backwards, upwards, downwards, sideways and upside down–He is The Everlasting Father. My prayer is that through all of this, He will also teach me how to let go (and let God) and teach Jaydn how to attach.

________________________________________

I have been married going on 8 years to a worship pastor, a rock star, and the most involved and intentional dad I have ever seen! Together, we have the privilege of parenting three amazing children (Jaxon- 5 1/2, Jovie, 2 1/2, and Jaydn 2). Jaydn came to us through adoption from Uganda, Africa. We moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, but I am a west coast girl at heart. I enjoy photography, adventure recreation, and teaching high-school students about the most important decision they could ever make: to follow Jesus.

June 19, 2014June 20, 2014

Things That Matter {Summer Rewind}

I’ve been counting down the days until this Spring’s Created For Care conference for over a year.

I stayed up until midnight the night registration opened to make sure I got on the list before it sold out. I arranged a sitter months ago. I made new friends online and even arranged to share a room with someone I’d never met, which is huge for a socially awkward girl such as myself.

Created For Care is a conference for Moms who have adopted to come together and be refreshed. To learn more about what it means to parent for these kids that come from a broken past.

Cause y’all, it’s hard.

Harder then I ever imagined.

Josie’s six now and it’s been about six months since the questions started.

Some are easy, “How big was I when I came home to you?”

Some squeeze my chest until there’s no air left and I have to actively fight the tears back, “Can I call her Mommy? Does she love me? Would it be OK if I love her?”

It wretches and twists.

I selfishly want her all to myself, but that’s not the truth. She once belonged to someone else and even if that woman has no clue what she gave up when she walked out of that hospital and left my Josie Girl behind, Josie has a right to know about her, to love her if she wants to.

I want so, so badly for her to have a positive view on her adoption story. It’s special and,miraculous. Touched by God so obviously that anyone can see it. And everyday that Josie gets older I’m more aware that how she feels about her adoption will lay largely on how I react to her questions.

We’ve been age appropriate, but open with her.

We’ve recently began sharing more details with her when she asks. We don’t know much and a lot of her story she won’t be mature enough to hear for quite awhile, but she has names and her birth story and, yes baby, you can love her too.

“You don’t look like your Mommy,” her true to the world six year old friend states matter of factly and I see her eyes searching mine. I know that she’s feeling shy so I take her hand in mine and share the mystery of adoption with a huge smile on my face. I watch her friend get excited and yell out, “you got to be adopted?!?!” and there’s Josie’s smile. She’s ready to share.

Born in an ambulance, made to be a Pope but had to find us first. It’s her story and she’s piecing it together and I’m letting her grow and ask and trying hard to hold fast to my peace that I get to be her Mommy now and it’s ok, it’s good, to share.

So it’s hard and I was excited to go to Created For Care.

I was going to meet other moms that could really understand me and hear me and know I wasn’t complaining or ungrateful, but learning and feeling my way though, hoping I don’t screw up these kids.

And maybe a little bit scared too.

The closer the conference got though, the crazier our days were getting. We have a few big trips coming up and I am struggling to find ways to fit everything in. I tried to fight it and push on, but the feeling that something had to give kept pushing back.

And after a stressful morning where I was unkind to Josie, I looked at her coloring at the school table and my solution became clear. I didn’t need a weekend away to refresh and regroup. I needed a weekend away with her.

Just the two of us. Where we can talk and make memories and nurture this bond.

And so we are.

This morning we hopped on a plane and are headed to our Winter Wonderland. We should land in Minnesota anytime now. We are going to have tea and meet Baby Ralphie and, if I can talk myself into it, spend some time sledding down hills in the freezing cold.

Sometimes I have to get out of my own head and refocus on what’s important. I’m sure I’ll go to that conference someday. But today I’m going to hold my daughter’s hand and celebrate everything God gave me when he handed me this child.

It isn’t easy, but it’s everything I’ve ever wanted.

________________________________________

Nicole is a Northern Girl turned Southern Belle. She loves Starbucks, Photography, and Homeschool Curriculum Catalogs. Passionate about Jesus, adoption, and squeezing all the love and joy out of each day. You can follow along with her life at www.JourneyToJosie.com

June 16, 2014June 16, 2014

Between Beauty and Brokenness

I’m on vacation in one of my favorite places on earth- the Florida beach on the Gulf of Mexico.There’s a 7 mile stretch between Pensacola and Navarre called the Gulf Island National Seashore. It’s a protected area so there are absolutely no buildings- no high rise hotels, no restaurants, no bars, and no tattoo parlors; only a two-lane road with a 35 mph speed limit. It’s the beautiful beach the way God made it. Two years ago when we drove through with our kids, I told Tom, “One day, I want to come back and run this gorgeous stretch. You can drop me off and pick me up on the other side”.

Well, the “one day” just arrived today! I excitedly prepared for my run of beauty which included lots of sunscreen, lots of water, and my favorite sunglasses. There were special signs placed all along the road reading “Shorebird nesting- 20 mph”. How cute- the Mamma birds are nesting so the cars need to drive even slower. Just perfect!!! Maybe I’ll see a nest or two. I just can’t wait!

It wasn’t long before my “How cute!” turned into “Hey!!! what’s going on???” I had no more run 100 yards when these cute mamma shore birds starting flying overhead, screeching and dive bombing my head- obviously threatened by my presence. Tom and I were running the first few miles together, and I was a few steps behind him laughing at the one brave bird who got within a foot of his head, swooping down over and over. Laughter soon turned to dismay as the number of birds increased and I started hearing splats hit the ground beside me. How could my much anticipated run in such a beautiful location be so full of poop?

It was then that I remembered a word picture given by Dan Cruver at the Together for Adoption convention in Atlanta last fall. He said that adoption is the road between beauty and brokenness. Adoption is so beautiful because it pictures what Christ does for us- taking us as His children and calling us His own. But it is only possible because of brokenness in our world. Dan said that he realized this as he stood on a road in Haiti with the beautiful emerald ocean on one side and a mass grave with thousands of hurricane victims buried on the other. As I ran along today trying to dodge the bird poop falling down, I also thought of my own adopted children. They are so beautiful and were so anticipated. Yet because of their early years of abandonment and institutionalization, they have a lot of yuck to work through in their hearts and lives.

This sometimes translates into difficult parenting. But isn’t that the reality of adoption?

When I reached the other side of the Gulf Island National Seashore an hour later, I was covered in bird poop. But along the way I chose to enjoy the beautiful white sand, listen to the roll of waves, smell the salty air, feel the breeze on my face, and thank God for my wonderful, adopted children.

____________________________

Rebecca Cruttenden, founder and director of Team Orphans, is a dedicated mom of three adopted children, and a three-time Ironman finisher. She has raised over $80,000 for adoption grants in the last three years. She, her husband Tom, and their three children live in Rockford, Michigan. Her next race is Ironman Florida on November 1, 2014. You can read more about Rebecca’s work with Team Orphans on their blog.

May 20, 2014May 20, 2014

Once Upon a Time Until Forever {Part Two}

There’s a new picture hanging in my kitchen today, a new masterpiece to our mixed media gallery, hanging between Olaf magnets and a flyer from school.

Yesterday was her last Chinese class of the year. Little dark-haired people skitted around the room while soft-spoken Lao Shi tried to shepherd their bodies with seemingly swelling energy. Typically, one of us sits in her class and typically tries to read despite the reason why we’re there. But, with the senioritis that suspiciously attacked even these preschoolers, I was needed.

Lao Shi had brought photocopies for the children to complete and staple together as memory books of the year. Way over the heads of children who can barely write their own names, most of them were scribbling and distracted and alternating between singing Liang Zhi Lao Hu and Let it Go. Lydia clutched a red pen in her little fingers, firmly held it motionless over the ABOUT ME page before her and swung her feet with gusto below her. As the teacher tried to help other kids, I pulled up to her desk to help her, filling in the blanks with the words she supplied to me.

My age: 5.

Where I was born: China.

My parents: Mommy and Daddy.

Brothers & Sisters: Ashlyn, Drew and Evan.

Pets: Mojo and Bebo.

My picture:

Okay, Lydia. Go ahead. You draw a picture of yourself there.

Pressing hard on the page, she drew her typical person—a round circle for a head, an oval torso, stick arms and legs, eyes and a smile, and some hair around the head. But, then she started intensely working on that torso. I thought she was intent on giving herself a dress that matched the one she was wearing. I watched until she put the pen down with contentment.

That’s a big belly and inside that is a baby that was beautiful called Yue Yue that became Lydia.

It was not a dress she was intensely drawing, it was herself in the womb of her first mother. I smiled and waited for her and for the lump in my throat to dissipate a little. While I waited, she picked up the pen again and went back to her drawing, this time drawing a little body on the chest of the stick figure that was her China mommy.

A doctor helped me to come out of her belly because that’s what doctors do.

Is that your China mommy holding you?

Yup….I don’t know her name.

I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know her name either. I wish we did….

No one stopped to listen. No one there sat with me and marveled at all this little 5 year old girl is processing when she is told to complete a picture appropriate for the title ABOUT ME. This little moment just blended into the energy of the room and class went on without a notice of another step in the journey of a little girl and the woman who is her second mother.

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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.

April 30, 2014May 4, 2014

The Beauty and Brokenness of Foster Care

It was a Wednesday. We received a call from our foster care agency at 3:30 in the afternoon – a newborn baby girl had been taken into custody by Child Protective Services at the hospital and was in need of placement. “Are you interested?”, they asked. Of course we are.

By 7:30 that evening they were at our front door, holding a tragically fragile little girl who needed a home to live in and a family to love her.

It was the best and worst day of her life.

She was wholly unaware of all that had transpired in her short 3-day life. Tragedy, abuse and brokenness brought her to our front door. Hope, love and healing welcomed her in. While we celebrated the opportunity to care for her, we also ached over the reality that someone had put her in a position of needing to be protected in the first place. Two years later, it’s now our joy to call her our daughter and to hear her call us her Momma and Dadda; it’s also our heartache that any of this ever had to happen in the first place.

EQUAL PARTS GOOD AND BAD

Everything…everything about foster care is equal parts good and bad, joy and sorrow, beauty and brokenness. It’s a good day when a child is placed in your home. It represents safety, security and an opportunity for a child to be loved and cared for in a way they likely would not have had available to them otherwise. It’s indeed a good day when a child is placed in your home – it’s also a really bad day. It’s a day marked by hurt and brokenness, that while so much gain has been made available to a child, it’s ultimately loss that has led them to that point. Generational cycles of brokenness within families have perpetuated themselves now into the lives of the next generation – abuse, neglect and abandonment have become a part of their stories. They didn’t ask for this, it was unjustly handed to them by those who were most responsible to protect them from the very things they’ve now been harmed by.

While the opportunity to love these kids is good, no doubt the circumstances that brought them to us are probably very, very bad. This is where the call to foster care begins, what it exposes us to and the perspective it demands we keep in order to rightly and lovingly care for vulnerable kids.

THEIR TRAGEDY OVER OUR EAGERNESS

As excited as we may be about fostering kids, they certainly aren’t excited about being foster kids. Our personal sense of excitement does not drive our efforts. Their personal tragedy does. Heartache does. A desire to see good come out of bad does. A willingness to embrace what is broken and do whatever it takes to bring healing does.

Celebrate the opportunity to open your homes to kids in need, knowing that if it be for just a few days or an entire lifetime, you’ve been given the unique opportunity to offer them something special – love. Yet at the same time, never let your excitement about being involved in foster care be separated from the heartache you feel over the tragic reality that something like foster care even has to exist in the first place.

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Jason Johnson is the husband to Emily, a dad to four girls (youngest adopted in 2013), a pastor for 13 years, a former church planter and now the Church Engagement Officer and creator of the ALL IN Orphan Care Church & Ministry Campaign with the Arrow Foundation—an organization committed to equipping, resourcing, and mobilizing the Church to help kids and strengthen families around the country. You can follow his ministry at Jasonjohnsonblog.com and find this post originally published on that blog here.

April 23, 2014April 23, 2014

The Blessings of Adoption

As adoptive parents, we partake in so many blessings along the adoption journey. There are also many times of trial, heartache, and grief, but wouldn’t you say that the blessings out weigh all this. Over the past few days, God reminded me again of the many blessings that enter our life through His amazing plan of adoption.

At our Good Friday service, I witnessed our precious son, who last year was struggling to understand English, our love for him and his place in our family, lift his hand in praise to the Lord. We were singing “Amazing love” and I looked over at him to discover this sweet boy singing his heart out to God. His little hand went up in praise even though no one else had their hands up. He then told me later that that was the first church service where he had really focused on God. AMAZING! HIS AMAZING LOVE!

Then, on this very afternoon that I am typing these words, my son, after giving me a big hug, proclaimed, “I like this family. I am so glad you are my family, my new family!” That’s right, precious boy, we are your Forever Family!

My heart is filled with immeasurable gratefulness and love for our Father who brought my boy from China into our family and held him tightly until he began to understand the depth of His love for us.

One little hand
One little hand raised in praise
One little hand where there were none
One little hand signifying love
Love for the Savior.

One little heart
One little heart filled with understanding
One little heart praising God
One little heart full of love
Love for the One who saved him.

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