I stir – barely. Two dark eyes stare at me and a little voice whimpers – Mommy, I had a bad dream that I lost my family. I lift him up, pull him close and in a moment, back to sleep.
It’s morning, but dark. I’m aware that there’s a child next to me, sleeping deeply, body twitching. I don’t even remember who it is. So I reach over and find the head – oh, that coarse hair belongs to no one but him. And I stay in bed, hand on him, bodies close, hearing our inhales and exhales.
A while later and I’m looking at him, that dark brown back, shoulders incredibly broad and strong, made for throwing and catching. And my thoughts catch up to me, and I’m taken back by my feelings, because I realize I’m madly in love.
Madly in love? See, love is a verb – and for nearly two years, two LONG years, I’ve been doing agape love. DOING love, and feeling grief. Doing love, and feeling exhaustion. DOING love and feeling hopelessness.
Agape love may be a verb, but madly in love, storge, is a feeling. And I was feeling it.
It’s that feeling I’ve felt with my infants, when I wanted to drench myself in their beauty and sweet scent, when I couldn’t snap enough pictures or share enough stories. But when rocking, a hug and a good-night kiss is met with snarls of THAT WAS TOO SHORT and then an hour of mad screaming, love is negate of feeling but instead pure obedience, unconditional, agape, following Christ, attempting to love as He loved, and and feeling my deep ineptitude the entire time.
I’ve wanted to adopt all my life, and I naively thought I would be able to mother children not born to me because of the affection I felt towards children who weren’t mine, how I could agape difficult campers during my many years at Royal Family Kids Camp. And I felt affection for him from the moment I met him, how could I not? But initial affection is not enough to carry a Mother through when it’s your son’s birthday and you wake up excited to celebrate him and he wakes up spitting in your face.
But it was that day, a month or two ago where I tenderly responded to defiance with You act so tough all the time but you’re just a little boy who needs his Mommy. His body softened, face perplexed, not knowing what to think. Up until now his Mom had felt threatened by those torrents of anger, by the non-stop arguing.
And then that night after an hour of non-stop arguing and I found those dark steeled eyes and I ask a sincere question: I wonder if right now you just need a bottle? He melts, literally collapses his body into mine, walls down now.
And in this past month he has come more and more to me – for affection, for hugs. Even when he’s angry I’ve noticed that he is willing to melt into my arms to calm himself down. Our nap time snuggles are long and sincere. And one nap as he fell into REM twitching I thought about my infants and how I would peel away from them once they were in REM sleep. And I realize we are both experiencing redemption – I am experiencing delight and joy in my son and he is feeling safe in his mothers’ arms – something we both had lost.
Joe comments how much this son loves me. And I realize – madly in love takes two – WE are madly in love. He storges me, and I storge him. Now as lovers do, madly in love is a feeling that ebbs and flows. He’s still a difficult child. I still lose my my patience.
I think these stories are crucial for adoptive parents to share. I think there is a great deal of pressure to have a “positive adoption story.” But the pain must be shared to give parents hope who are experiencing homelessness. And there are many, many more despairing adoptive parents than most people could ever imagine. But redemption is real, and praise God, it happens.
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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