Adoption

It was one of my favorite days of the year - Secret Church. A time when a group of believers come together to study God's Word for 6 (okay, 7) hours on a Friday night.

I don't think we did school that day. I'm sure I was too excited to sit still for that long. I'm still such a child in so many ways.

The main thing that needed to happen that day was a nap.

I may act like a child a lot of the time, but this body knows what's up. In order to stay up until 3 am (we eat after) I was going to need a nap.

As I snuggled down ready to rest, I got a text. As I reached for my phone, I squelched down the irritation.

Nap. I wanted a nap.

My irritation melted away when I saw who sent the text. My friend who gets all passes. Everything stops for her.

She said, "Can you meet me at the park? Now?"

All thoughts of a nap flew from my head as I unfolded myself from my cocoon. I gathered the kids and scooped up my keys, pressing down the worry that was welling up in me.

She didn't ask for much. Rarely did she step out of her own self to ask for anything. Frustrating as it was at times, I had grown accustomed to asking what she needed, knowing that she would always be reluctant to ask.

We sat across from each other at a picnic table. The cold November wind whipped around us. I still remember its rub on my face and the chill it sent down my spine. I can still hear the kids laughing and yelling across the playground. I looked across the table at the face I loved and cared about so much. I forced myself to be still and wait.

"I need to tell you something," she started.

"Are you pregnant?" I burst out. I couldn't help it.

She laughed the laugh that I love, but had so seldom heard in the previous 7 months. Her eyes sparkled and I reveled in the beauty of her happiness. She's always beautiful, but I had grown accustomed to seeing sadness coloring the beauty. I studied the absence of the grief, the lightness, the shine, committing it to memory, selfishly to help in the next moment when the grief would return.

It's hard to grieve.

It's also hard to watch someone you love grieve.

Not as hard, but hard still.

She said, still laughing, "No!"

Her laugh quieted and her eyes held mine. I shifted a bit on the hard, cold bench.

"Then what?" I thought. I forced myself to be still.

She's calm. Quiet. Thoughtful. Reserved. Patient. Gentle. Qualities that I feel so deficient in. I forced myself to wait - "Be like her. Wait." I said it to myself. Reminded myself.

Her eyes held mine as she slid something across the table to me. It had been in her hand the entire time, in her hap. She'd been holding it. Clutching it, probably.

I peeled my eyes from her face and dropped my gaze.

Looking back at me was the most beautiful pair of chocolate brown eyes. The breath left me and tears sprang to my eyes. The most adorable girl. She looked so much like her oldest son.

Your daughter.

I don't know if I said it or thought it.

I struggled to breathe and a thousand thoughts flooded my head at the same time. I looked up and just shook my head, blinking back the tears.

There were tears in her eyes too. Never would she ever shed a tear that didn't honor her lost daughter. Ever. But these tears had intermingled with them tears of happiness. Again her beauty flooded me.

A mom, stepping out of her grief to rescue a child from the other side of the world. Pushing away everything within her and everything that the world would say that said, "no."

Because He adopted us. Because she loved Him. Because she had His heart. Because she would do what was right even if the world said no, and even if something in her said no too.

I watched her work harder than I've ever seen anyone work the next months. Raising her children, raising money, grieving her lost daughter, maintaining a house, a marriage, friendships, laughing, crying, determined. Stoic.

They decided to adopt a son too. The precious girl's best friend at the orphanage.

She worked even harder. Pushed herself past the point of exhaustion.

In the midst of a tornado, she was working on a fundraiser.

I was in awe. Inspired. Encouraged. Blessed.

She inspired others to adopt. To take up the cause. To help. To care.

I climbed back in the van that chilly November day to head home. The thought of a nap was far from me now. As I thanked God for all that had happened, I felt it. It whirled up in me and I begged God to suppressed it. I didn't want to feel it. I didn't want to be selfish. I didn't want to ask God why. I didn't want to think again about myself. And the desire I had. Or the desire He had given me. I simply didn't want to go there. I just wanted to feel happiness for my sweet friend.

A constant, selfish battle that rages in me, constantly screaming what about me?

And I hate it.

I looked at the face of another sweet friend as we had a much different conversation. A conversation about longing. Desiring until the physical pain almost overwhelmed the emotional pain.

"Is it like a miscarriage?" she asked. "Is that what this feels like?"

I felt the pain on her face. I carried it with me constantly.

"No," I answered. "That's something God gave and then took away. This is a desire that is constantly unfulfilled. It's like infertility."

She nodded.

What a blessing. That this selfish longing and desire has a community of people that understand far beyond the spoken word.

She gets it.

"It can render you a helpless friend. A bad friend. You have to be careful," I added more for my benefit than hers.

My desire can rob me of joy for my friends. The desire can even lead to jealously. Animosity. Division. Distance.

I battle that too.

 I will rejoice in the beauty of adoption. I will thank the Lord for my friends that have and will adopt. I will pray for those traveling the arduous road of getting these children home. I will pray for those who are struggling under the weight of the children they worked so hard to bring home only to realize that was the easy part of the battle. I will step outside of myself and rejoice, celebrate and pray. I will. I will trust Him.

I wil trust Him as I celebrate adoption.

I'll never forget that beautiful November day when I got to witness the beauty of adoption.

This so hard. And good.

Worth It

Read that. Just read it.

A different kind of infertility?

I will never forget it. My friend Jamie faced the possibility of sending back to his biological mother the child she had cared for nearly since birth and wanted desperately to adopt. I sat in the floor of my living room and as he crawled to me, I sobbed. I had just found out that I was pregnant with my fourth child, after having lost the third, and enduring a small period of time where I didn't know if I would get this child. I was awash in emotions. It was too much, this entire journey of parenthood and all its beautiful, amazing and horrific ways.

It was through my friend Jamie that I first saw the joys and terrible agony of adoption. It was in the floor that day as I looked at her son through a wall of tears that I felt the twist in my heart. I confessed to God that even as I carried a child, I wanted to adopt one. I didn't even understand the desire or longing in my heart, but I felt it. Was God planting a seed of longing? Yes. It seemed He was.  

(Jamie, after a long and arduous road that was traveled with only a firm faith in Christ, now has forever her son. He joins another adopted son who is loved well by two amazing parents. I am thankful that I was there to see that adoption journey. It was truly a testament to how God cares for His own and carries His through even the most difficult days.)

I've put off writing this post for a long time. It's one of those I really don't even want to write this posts and can't see even now, as I press these keys, how it could have any positive effect. It's too hard to expose this part of my heart. Even now I pause to check email. Or scratch my nose. Or stare out the window. I'm thinking of how to pare it down until it's just a sketchy outline of what really wants to pour out.

I don't know why I do this to myself. Really. Except every time I do, God blesses the obedience.

Okay, so I was having lunch with a friend not too long ago. I was holding her foster son. Soon I found the words tumbling out. I told her I felt like I was experiencing my own brand of infertility. I surprised myself. Although I experienced a loss of an unborn baby and for 3 months didn't know if I'd get another baby, I would never ever even suggest that I know the heartache of a woman who desperately longs for a child. I honestly can't fathom that sadness. I walked that road in part with sweet friends, and I saw a minuscule portion of how hard that is.

So I want to be careful here. I'm not equating this with that.

I hear people say, though, "God, why did you give me the desire for a child and then seemingly not provide a way for me to receive a child? Take away the desire or give me a child."

Now that I can relate to. God stirred up in me a desire to have a child that I didn't give birth to.

So. You just wait. Right?

Yes. And I am fabulous in waiting. Fabulous.

I love the passion I see all around me in the awakening about adoption. Maybe it's just the church I go to. Maybe it's the friends I have. Maybe it's just part of my sanctification. Adoption is everywhere. And I am thankful. I am so so thankful. 

(And for a long time I tested my heart in front of God, making sure I didn't want to adopt just because it was trendy. Or just because "everyone" else was doing it. Or for any other reason that would not please God.) 

Every time I see a picture of a newly adopted child, my heart cries. Every time I see a friend's blog post about their journey in adoption, I feel the sweet sadness. And if you hand me a picture of the child you are in the process of adopting, chances are, I'll cry. Out of happiness and joy and thankfulness for your family and for that child and the future that child is rescued from. (Thank you, Lord, for adopting me into Your family to rescue me from my own destructive future.) Yes. And out of selfish longing too.

Because I'm selfish that way. Horribly and cruelly selfish. Something in me screams every time I see these things, "Lord, what about my child?" 

Because I'm selfish that way. 

It feels like another one of those open ended promises God gave me. "Here you go. Now trust me."

I wish He'd stop doing that. 

I think my kids already know. We'll pull up by a passenger van and Jude will say, "We're going to need that kind of van for all the kids we'll have..." 

What? I don't talk about this with them. How does he know? Why is it so much easier for him to believe.

I'll find pieces of paper where Laney has written things about the sister she's praying for. She'll get teary about it from time to time and will ask me straight out, "When will we get her?" I just whisper in her ear that we are trusting God. We take this to Him in prayer. I pray that He is caring for and teaching her in all this too.

So I wait. And try so hard to sort all of this out in a way that will in the end make me look more like His Son, please Him and teach me lessons that I won't ever forget. I see God demanding me to hand Him my trust issues. I feel Him pruning-always pruning. I cry at the pain and praise Him all at the same. 

Again. I'm thankful for those adopting and for those working so passionately to spread the word about adoption. It's such a beautiful picture of what God did for us and that in and of itself is a reason to involve ourselves in this amazing thing. 

(But I will stop short of saying that everyone should adopt. God said to care for the orphans, and I'm not sure that meant that you had to adopt one to do that. I will test my heart to see if I am caring for orphans in any and every way I can. Adoption is not the only way to do that. There are things we are all capable of doing outside of adoption and we are commanded to do that. James 1:27  Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.)

And I know it's not easy. I've seen that first hand in more than one family. I see the hard. Even with a sweet family still in the birth country of their new family members right now, there is difficulty. I haven't romanticized this. It's hard. I know.

I doubt I did this issue justice, but I'm just glad to have this out of my head. It's still in my heart, but that's ok. That's where God put it. Pray that I'll trust Him. Pray that I'll wait well. Pray that no matter if I have 3 or 7 or 400 children, that I'll be content. Peaceful right where I am.