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"It is a safe thing to trust Him to fulfill the desires which he creates." ~Amy Carmichael

Monday, December 25, 2017

First Christmas

A year ago yesterday I was up late getting ready for Christmas, to be celebrated on Christmas Eve. We were to have one hour with the kids who might become ours. Baking and wrapping and setting things out, a million emotions running through my heart and mind. Would this be our last quiet Christmas with two young children? Would we have several more children next year? What if we don’t? Was I hoping and wishing for what life might hold...or grieving for what might no longer be? Or both and all and everything in between. 

One hour, sandwiched between our traditional Christmas morning at home and celebrating with my family. An hour which ended with this sweet little girl who I knew in my heart to be mine having to be literally pried off of me, begging to stay with me. Walking away listening to the shrieks, leaving my children in a facility instead of being in our home, a part of our family - or any family - for Christmas. Everything out of my hands at that point, unable to even promise a next visit. It was easily one of the hardest days of my life. Filled with uncertainty and emotions and tears.


That was last year. Tonight I kissed my little girls goodnight. All of them. Tonight we set out seven place settings for breakfast and filled seven stockings. There are still plenty of emotions to go around, but the uncertainty is no more. Tomorrow we celebrate Christmas as a family of seven. And it feels just right. ❤️


Saturday, December 16, 2017

What it takes

Right now I have a pulled muscle (again), a bruised hand, aching knee, I’m sore all over, and I am on day five of a headache. I am weary of being kicked at and screamed at and yelled at and hit at. Of things being thrown constantly, kicked, torn apart and damaged. Of being told how I care only about myself - by the one for whom I chose to spend my past 12 months wrecked. Having hatred and rage and anger spewed directly at me. Only at me. Only because I am mom.

My days are spent in a fog. Either I am spending hours managing an irrational and escalating child...or recovering from the adrenaline surges of it all. I can’t just walk away from it and continue my day where I left off either. My brain simply can’t think straight and my energy is sapped. Possibly sustaining an injury or two. Always scrambling to think through how to respond next. Or how to avoid the need for me to respond because my calm responses are all used up.

I love everything about Christmas. This year I am wondering if we will make it to Christmas Day with our family intact. Nine days left. Nine days of a child trying to cut her losses and get her Christmas taken away already so she can quit dreading losing it, in spite of anything we say. Indefinite more days of a child trying desperately to break me. To prove that we were going to give up on her at some point anyway. 

It feels impossible to see her as she is through what she does. We haven’t settled down in four months. I am weary, my other children need me, and I cannot continue functioning like this. Yet there is no other solution. In the end, no matter what we do, it will always come down to me and this child. Either she breaks me or she does not. I do not have it in me to love her through this. I do not have it in me to hold on through the hurricanes. I do not have the patience or the fortitude or even the love to get us through. Only God can do in me what needs to be done to get her through. If I can stick it out just long enough, she will stop trying so hard to push me away; I’ve seen it in her and I know this to be true. If I can be the safe mother she’s never had, she might one day believe that a mother can be safe. If I can love her right through the storm of hate, she may finally, eventually recognize love for what it is instead of all the things it has masqueraded as in her life. I do not have that kind of love. It isn’t there. It does not exist in me. Yet it does exist in Christ. It is the love that gave us Christmas. The love that drove him to the cross - while we were yet sinners. The love that whispers grace to our hearts in the very moments of our darkest sins. That which ignites hope in the midst of hopelessness. The love that gave himself for the very ones who rejected, abandoned, mocked and killed. This is the kind of love he calls each of us to walk in. Not just me with my child, but you in your own life. And he does not ask of us what he does not promise to supply. It is not in me. It is not in you. It is all from him. 

I can stand on that truth, even while everything else falls away. His love IS strong enough to hold us together. I know this because it is his strong love that has held me to himself right through the rages of my own life. If his love can keep my wayward heart in his, then it can certainly teach my heart to love like his.


This is the very essence of both Christmas and adoption, is it not? To take the love given to us by a Savior who took us at our very worst and loved us to himself - to take that love and offer it to another in the very same way. He offered his very life for us, to the point of death. No exceptions, no limits, his love and unending grace stands open to any who will accept it. May we, by his great power, learn to love as he does in order that those who we love will see the love greater than ourselves.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

A Year Ago

A year ago I posted the song below on Facebook. I posted it in between nerve-wracking emails that were leaving me an absolute emotional wreck all day. 

Those emails led to an outing that evening. The evening one year ago today when we met three of our children for the first time. We drove away from that first visit utterly overwhelmed. The VOLUME and ENERGY level was overwhelming. The obviously high level of needs were overwhelming. The thought of the drastic changes we were contemplating for our family. The weight of the decision that had the potential to change everything. Forever. The sheer insanity of the idea. 

We met four strangers that night. Within a matter of weeks, three of those strangers were living in my home and calling me Mom. We could have walked away and said it was too much for us. Because it was. But we both knew. We couldn’t actually walk away. It was too late. We had seen their beautiful faces, heard their anxiously chattering voices, looked into their eyes as they studied us wondering if we might be kind - sure we couldn’t be trusted. That night God was asking of us the impossible. They were not the first children we had met. We had said no before when we were not the right home. That night, however, we knew that walking away would not be an option this time. No matter how crazy it seemed.  Because these children were our children.

Last week we went on a wedding anniversary trip for a few days without the kids. Since getting home I have done little beyond managing the self-sabotaging behavior of one of our children who struggled with us being gone and is trying her hardest to prove that she doesn’t really need me by pushing me away. It is exhausting. These past months, particularly since finalization, have been even harder than I dreamed. To be honest, I wondered what to even write about today’s anniversary. What does one say after literally hours of managing a grieving, conflicted child who masks fear as rage, spewing hatred at you, and trying desperately to break you? “One year today! To celebrate, I spent nearly the entire day battling a child. I’m so glad we are here!” Not exactly the feeling that comes to mind. 

Yet here we are. A year ago we had two beautiful children. Today we have five. Five little people (one not so little!) who, without hesitation, call me Mama...Mommy, Meemee, Ma, Madre, Moooooom. Who make me get well cards when I am sick and hug me every day and trust me enough to cry their tears. There is a light in their eyes that wasn’t there a year ago. We have watched confidence grow in beautiful ways. I have grown myself in leaps and bounds. They are making me become a better person - albeit slowly and as a result of shining bright spotlights on my weaknesses. We share a name; we share our home; we share our struggles. It might take 20 years for our one daughter to believe we won’t leave and we won’t abandon and we won’t throw her out...but like I told her today, at the end of those 20 years we will still be there. Possibly haggard and worn. Definitely stronger and more patient and with a far greater understanding of our Father’s grace.

A year ago I awkwardly, nervously met anxious strangers. Tonight I kissed my daughters goodnight.

Letting go of every single dream
I lay each one down at your feet
Every moment of my wondering
Never changes what you see
I’ve tried to win this war, I confess
My hands are weary, I need your rest
Mighty warrior, King of the fight
No matter what I face
You’re by my side

When you don’t move the mountains
I needed you to move
When you don’t part the waters
I wish I could walk through
When you don’t give the answers
As I cry out to you
I will trust, I will trust
I will trust in you.

Truth is you know what tomorrow brings
There’s not a day ahead you have not seen
So in all things be my life and breath
I want what you want, Lord,
And nothing less

…I will trust, I will trust,
I will trust in you.”