Our Adoption Journey pt. 2

Disclaimer:   This is not Anti-Adoption and by no means a reflection of all adoptions or even a majority of them.  Adoption even under these circumstances is a beautiful reflection of restorative love of Christ. This is my journey and I would not trade my journey for the world.
     
       In the past 4 years since we adopted our son we have experienced such a huge range of emotions from wanting to run away kicking and screaming to pure unadulterated unconditional love for him.  Any one of my friends can tell you depending upon the day (or sometimes minute by minute) you never know who you're going to get when speaking with me....you may be speaking to a frazzled, stressed out, shell of a Mom or a strong determined mama-bear Mom or even maybe a heartbroken "how do I reach him?" Mom.  It's enough to make anyone feel absolutely insane.
         For those of you who stick by me and my family; Thank you for not judging us, even though you may not fully understand what we  experience, you stand by us and crack jokes, make us laugh, and allow us to "get out of our heads" for a bit.  I appreciate each and every one of you, although sadly there are far fewer of you in the days since we accepted this crazy calling.   I love and cherish you!!!
         For those of you who have walked away; We forgive you, even understand why you felt the need to walk away. We have sometimes thought about it ourselves.   We aren't "the friends you used to know".  We are much less worried about what you or others think of us and no longer care about most opinions on how we should or should not interact with our son.
         I'm not trying to sound harsh or spiteful, really just the opposite.  There is a great freedom in learning your own value.  We (Jim and I as therapeutic parents) have been trained by some of the best and have come to understand that the very best of parents and professionals alike are sometimes at a complete loss when dealing with children with trauma.
         Jim and I thought when we started out on this calling that we were 'prepared" for whatever this adoption could throw at us. We were wrong, extremely wrong. We never expected that we would be walking on eggshells constantly never knowing what the day ahead holds for us. We certainly did not expect that the bio family that he had been removed from would enter in the picture and work against us in every way possible.  We never expected that we would lose neighbors, friends, and countless others to constant manipulation and splitting.  We never expected that our church (not our current church) would no longer want us when we didn't have anything left to pour out on others.  Finally we did not expect that our child would resent us and reject all our efforts to reach out to him (well maybe we did, but not to such an extreme).
          I don't want or need to share everything on such a public forum, but for those who feel that this is "normal teenage stuff" please be assured it is not.  We have 5 wonderful children, and we know "normal teenage stuff". This is extreme.  I cannot even begin to explain it to someone who has not experienced the rage or anxiety of a child who has endured so much trauma; so again, I am not even going to try, but please do understand that while you see a "great kid" and tell us "he never gave me any problem when he was over here" that he reserves his behaviors for his family.   Sadly this is something I wish more people understood.  Even in settings where he remained for years, these behaviors rarely surfaced because with  Trauma and Reactive Attachment Disorder, the reaction only comes when there is a feeling of permanency.  Casual relationships are his bailiwick.  He IS a wonderful kid and can be charming and very personable.   He can also be so filled with anger and anxiety that he wants us "to hurt as bad as he hurts".   (Those are his words when asked by his therapist why he can accept a "no" from others but not his parents.)   I can tell you after 12 years of abuse and trauma,  he hurts pretty bad and he can inflict every bit of that pain.
     My son is returning home soon after a year of being in a Residential Center.   I like to say we are cautiously optimistic, but truth be told we are overwhelmed and nervous.  I write this in hopes that you reading this will begin to understand and if you see us or any other Adoptive\Foster family with these same issues that you refrain from judgement and instead try reaching out to us.  We are tired, lonely, frazzled, overwhelmed and could really use support.  You don't need to understand, and unless you've been there you will not understand.  Please just listen and accept that we are struggling.
      I can tell you that through all of this We have found our purpose.  I have become stronger, and I have learned so much.   I have learned that pleasing others is overrated and exhausting. I have learned that my husband IS my best friend.  I have learned that God alone can heal my son's hurts and He  alone can save him.  I have learned that I don't have to fix him; I am free to love him unconditionally.  I have learned that listening is far better than offering advise (boy I wish I knew that sooner and I offer a sincere apology to the many I have tried to fix).   I have learned that a cup of coffee (or something stronger, lol) with a friend is one of the best treasures in the world.  I have learned that having a few supportive friends is much better than having many non-committed ones.
         Below I have posted links to three blogs that I have recently read that encouraged me in that we are not alone.  By reading these testimonies I found a sisterhood in these fellow Trauma Mamma's.  I would encourage you if you know and love a family touched by adoption or foster care that you take the time to read these.  Be aware that these are extreme cases and by no means does every adoptive family experience this.  All Adoptive\Foster children experience loss and grief.  Please feel free to extend your love and grace to them but first and foremost support the family as a whole.

       
http://outofshemind.com/2015/01/dear-adoptive-parents-hard-lonely-road/

https://bringinganahome.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/mission-safe-sofija-adoption-is-a-horse/?blogsub=confirmed#blog_subscription-3

https://drgrcevich.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/please-dont-say-all-kids-do-that-to-adoptive-and-foster-families/

An open letter to the woman who approached me in Spencer's.

Dear Miss,
    Thank you so much for offering to pray with me and I sincerely thank you for your heart for evangelism. There are, however, a couple of things I would like to point out:  I'm not sure that you know me well enough to pray that I "make better choices" or that I "become more concerned with the example I set" or that you should be so shocked that I said I DID in fact know Jesus as my Lord and Savior.  You have no idea that I was just picking up a small 60th birthday gag gift for my boss or that I had passed over the less appropriate gifts in favor of one more tasteful.  You also do not know that I used this experience to have a discussion with my adult daughter about how calling ourselves by demeaning names shows a lack of respect for ourselves and that we are princesses of the Most High.  You seemed more concerned that I would have my daughter in such a place as "gasp" Spencer's.
   Instead of casting your judgement upon me based upon your 5 seconds of getting to know me, might I suggest you pray about what you DO know about me.  I am wholly loved by a glorious God!!  I am no longer under condemnation but I have been set FREE by a Savior who gave His very life for ME!  That I am chosen and accepted.  This you know for sure yet you made no mention.
    What you also may not know is that the sales clerk who cheerfully greeted me as I walked in the store witnessed this whole exchange. I can only assume that her subsequent brush off and indignant behavior towards me was as a result of what she saw.  At this point if I had discovered she did not know God, any chance I may have had to witness to her about the AMAZING love God has for her was quickly extinguished. She witnessed your condemnation of my choice of stores and her place of employment.   If I am to be condemned for shopping there what did that say about her?   She will not know that God cares more about her than she can ever imagine.  She would not hear of His great love for her.  She may even believe that there is no place for her in His kingdom.  Instead she may harden her heart just a little more, dig in a little deeper, and continue to live her life as one who does not know the restorative unconditional love of God.
    Next time I hope you would consider praying Gods love over someone rather than your condemnation. "For God so loved THE WORLD!!!!!" - this means YOU!  I pray you experience to the fullest His love for you and that it overflows onto everyone you meet!
  God bless you!  Sincerely!!!!
 

  ****Disclaimer*****
My comments regarding the ability to witness to someone after they've experienced condemnation was a blanket statement and not a statement on any particular persons beliefs.

Is love enough?

Last week on my 25^th anniversary Jim and I had the opportunity once again to speak on our adoption and therapeutic parenting techniques we have learned at the MAP Class panel night.    I had someone in the adoption community upon hearing that it was our anniversary ask me "What is the secret to a successful marriage?"  After reflecting for a moment on the conversations that had just taken place, I answered “the same thing it takes to have a successful adoption.”  I have been reflecting upon that a lot since. 

We marry, we adopt, we have children….all because we love and feel we have enough love to share but what happens when that love is not enough?  What about those times when you still love, but you hurt even more?   What about when our love is not returned?  How do we continue?

My husband and I are blessed to have each other, but it would be a complete lie to say that our love conquers all our insecurities, faults, and hurts.   There are times I liken it to two porcupines trying to hug.  The love is there, but we just poke holes all through each other.  Our hurts get in the way, they cause more hurts, they can even cause complete devastation if we allow them to fester. 

My son came to us after 11 years of hurts.  Much like an infant, his every thought is self-motivated.   His thoughts, his actions, and his conversations are all about how he can get what it is he wants.  He manipulates….It’s how he learned to survive.  He does not know how to properly express how he is feeling and many times it comes out in surliness, sometimes anger and sometimes even rage.  It can be hard with a baby and sometimes we feel overwhelmed trying to meet their needs, be understanding but firm with their wants and dealing with their frustration when we don’t know why they're crying.  It becomes even harder with a child who can speak and “should know better”.   The fact is…he doesn’t.  I’m not even sure how aware he is about how self-centered or manipulative he is.   It is just something he has always done.   He is getting better, but for the most part, he is incapable of caring for others outside of himself because he is so used to having to be his complete support system all by himself.   He needed to learn how to self soothe from infancy.  He needed to learn how to detach his emotions from others and focus on the only person he felt he could really depend on. He needed to learn techniques to get the things that he needed or wanted out of others when they did not choose to provide for him.

 “You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely, O Lord.” Psalm 139:2-4 

Knowing my sons past, makes it possible to understand why he does the things he does.  I can separate my emotion from his actions and choose not take it personally.  I know his hurts cause his behavior and I can be supportive instead of angry. I’m not saying that this is easy. It’s not….It is HARD, especially on the days he is especially moody and angry, and darn near impossible on those days his anger turns to full blown rage.  I have to remind myself of where this is coming from.  I have to forcefully separate my emotion.   I need to rely on other sources to fill any of my needs to be loved and accepted, because he is just not capable.  This keeps me sustained while dealing with his hurts

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”  - Romans 5:8

God’s Love and Ours

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us”  - 1 John 4:7-12

This brings me back to marriage….in my marriage, I do not have the privilege of knowing all of my husband’s past.   I do know that he has a loving family.  I guess that makes it harder sometimes to understand his behavior and I am sure he has a hard time understanding mine.  The principals are the same though.  His hang ups are his….mine are mine.  We try not to take it personally when we lash out at each other and instead give each other “space and grace” until we can come together and talk it out.   I need to depend on God to fulfill my need to be loved and accepted (easy to say…hard to do!).   My husband can help to fulfill those needs but he cannot be the sole or even main provider.  He cannot possibly meet those needs within me that are designed for God Himself.   What I receive from my husband is bonus!  The love and grace I give to my husband and children then is not dependent upon what my husband or child is able to provide me but from what God provides me. Jesus’s example for his bride is a sacrificial love; the kind of love we are to have for our one another.  

So as for the question….Is love enough?  Human love is imperfect; conditional…God’s love is perfect, absolute and unconditional!   If we count upon each other for our source of love, happiness, and acceptance, we are sadly lacking…We can always count upon God’s sustaining grace, love and acceptance!

Cast your cares on the Lord
    and he will sustain you;
he will never let
    the righteous be shaken. -  Psalm 55:22

Powerless

I am the clay and You are the potter. I want You to mold me, to conform to Your hand and yet I continue to stiffen, struggling to maintain shape. It is hard, too hard to keep it all together....I am pushed and pulled in many directions. My desires, thoughts, and fears overtake and manipulate me. I get scared; If I give myself completely over, what will you make of me Lord? Trust does not come easily to me. I believe that You are good and want good things for me...so why Lord, why do I struggle with trusting You? I have no real power...not even to control my own thoughts and actions, yet I continue to pursue You in my own strength - “If I get this right...If I dot all my i's and cross all my t's, I can be close to You.” I continue to believe that my actions have power. Sin separates us...this is true, but in my own strength I do not even have the ability to accomplish my own will much less Yours. I cannot save myself from sin or death. You alone are my Savior! Salvation is your gift to me. Please Father help me to trust. Help me to give my life to You....as You gave Your life for me.

Psalm 40:11-12 (VOICE)

Please, Eternal One, don’t hold back
Your kind ways from me.
I need Your strong love and truth
to stand watch over me and keep me from harm.
Right now I can’t see because I am surrounded by troubles;
my sins and shortcomings have caught up to me,
so I am swimming in darkness.
Like the hairs on my head, there are too many to count,
so my heart deserts me.

Forgiveness

Luke 6:37-38 ^“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.  Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

I must have heard this passage a hundred times and yet somehow I did not allow it to reach me in its entirety until recently.  Oh, I know that I needed to be loving and kind, giving and forgiving, but how about my recent hurts, or those who keep hurting me…over and over?  What about them?

Luke 17:3-4 “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”

So how about the unrepentant?

Matthew 6:14-15 ^“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Whoah!!!

Mark 11:24-25 “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.  And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

Forgiveness is a big deal. These are the words of Jesus Himself.  He calls us to forgiveness; but why?  Is it so that those that we forgive can continue to hurt us or others?  Is it so that they can be relieved of our unforgiveness?   Think about it, who are we hurting with our withholding of forgiveness?  Does the offender lose sleep at nights thinking of how we won’t let go of what has transpired?  In most cases, no…they don’t.  Holding on to unforgiveness hardens your heart.  It brings bitterness and it festers.  It hinders our prayers and our relationship with God.   Jesus commands us to forgive, not only for what it does for others but for what it does for us.  It frees us.

When Jesus offered His life for us, it was for the forgiveness of our sins, while we were still sinners.

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

He did not withhold His forgiveness from us. He did not condemn us.  He set us free.  As He forgave us…so should we forgive others. 

John 20:21-23 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”  And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

He gave us the authority and power to forgive as He forgave.  Now none of these are new concepts to me, but what was new was the realization of my own unforgiveness and the condition of my heart. When I truly examined myself, and asked for God’s help in revealing what I might be holding on to…I was surprised.  I had thought…oh, I forgave that person long ago, and truly I thought that I had, but whenever something would happen that would trigger thoughts of this person and that particular situation, that old wound would rip right open again.   Holding an account of the wrongs committed against us keeps us from focusing on letting go of the past and moving forward.  The example Jesus gave to us is to forgive, freely, and without keeping track of past wrongs. 

So how does this work when I am so hurt?  How can I forgive someone who hurt me so badly, and if given the chance would do it again? Start small, say the words “I forgive ______.” Pray for them. You may not even mean it at first, but keep trying and don’t give up. Saying I forgive them does not mean that I need to pick up our relationship where we left off.  It does not mean that I drop all my boundaries in regards to that person.  What it means is that I let go of the past.  I let go of my hurt.  When I think of this person and that particular hurt, I think of them with compassion and wish them the same forgiveness that God has shown me.  I pray that they receive healing and deliverance, I pray for God’s mercy upon them.

When hurt comes again…and it will, for we live in a broken world with broken people, I guard my heart.  I choose compassion instead of offense.   I choose love over hate.  I try to picture them as God sees them.  I realize that the true enemy is not the flesh and blood person I see before me, but “the prince of the power of the air”, “the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.”  I will obey and I will forgive.

Colossians 3:12-14 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Finishing Strong

   This week I have to say goodbye (for now) to a truly amazing family.  I first met Amy through a class at church where Jim and I were table leaders.   She explained that her husband (Tom) was in the military and was serving in Iraq. Her 5 boys were in various youth and children's ministries in the church. She had stepped up to be a youth leader in our church and to lead youth life groups.
    In the two years since then Tom  Amy and their children have served in so many ways.  They came like a whirlwind, serving and teaching everyone they met.  They ministered to military families and non-military families.  They gave of themselves to the point of stretching and they grew in those stretches.
    Jim and I had the privilege of getting to know them a bit better more recently.  We were struggling with a few things and felt we needed to be "poured into" by some other couples.  We asked Tom and Amy if we could join their group for a little while.   They gladly agreed.   We got to know them and their amazing heart for God's people.  We watched as they made it all look effortless.
     A few weeks into our joining them, they received word from the Army that Tom was getting transferred.  Tom and Amy immediately formulated their "exit strategy".  Jim and I were proud to be a small part of that.   I remember their concerns about "finishing strong".  They wanted to continue to serve and reach out right up until the day they had to pack up.  They prayed for their boys to adopt the same attitude.
     This past Sunday was their last in our church.  The childrens ministry honored their whole family with a tribute, one that I have not seen the likes of before in our church. Their little Zack led the worship with his favorite worship song and they had all the ministry leaders and youth and children that their family touched say a few words.  They were humbled.  Zack was baptized that day!  Their son Andy was serving.
      Tomorrow they will attend our lifegroup for the last time (which is also partly their old lifegroup).   They will move out on Saturday morning.   As they are packing, they are saying goodbye to friends and still ministering and serving those around them.  They are concerned for their friends they are leaving and even now are making arrangements to see that needs are met.
      I am honored to know such a family and inspired by their commitment to finishing strong!  May we all serve God so completely that we do our very best right up until we "move on".   Tom, Amy, Mitch, Andy, Tim, Zack and Josh, we will miss you and we hope to be able to see you again very soon!

Journey's

So yesterday's lesson was on patience. It really has me thinking today about our journeys. How often have we heard from our kids..."are we there yet?" as we pass mountains and streams and all sorts of beauty. Our children are focused on the destination and get annoyed with the journey. When on foot children often run on ahead to the destination ahead of us missing the trees and flowers along the way. Could this be why God does not often reveal the entire plan He has for us?....He wants us to slow down and take in the beauty of the journey along the way?  He wants us to walk with Him step by step through the journey and take in all He has for us along the path. There is such beauty in the journey, trust God in each step. He is not just at the starting line or waiting at the destination. God walks with us in each moment. Learn to enjoy each moment with God.