How He Loves......

I got a request today to blog on a particular subject. A friend of mine and a mom of several bios wanted to know how we dealt with the fear of not loving our adopted kids as our own. Her family has considered adoption but this question haunts her. Her raw question hit on a layer that I have been avoiding visiting in this adoption story-but I am thankful that the Lord used her question for me to peel the layers of this stinky onion down to the core.

 

Our homestudy had us read books on connecting with your adopted child ( Dr Purvis is the go-to on the subject-if your agency or homestudy does not require this reading...Do. It. Anyway. It is one level~maybe two~ below Holy Scripture to adoptive fams). It is a very common issue/concern. But we now find ourselves in the middle of reality.  We have two kids that look like us, that I rocked and bottle fed(no I did not breast feed-haters gonna hate)...that I have driven to ball practice for umpteen years. We have two kids that grew up on the other side of the world...their eating and personal hygiene habits are foreign-they dress differently(given the opportunity...which is becoming fewer and far between), they have coping mechanisms developed from living in an orphanage that kinda grate on your nerves. We constantly need to make sure we are not putting too much pressure on our bios with the ways they cope with these two new additions-while at the same time not letting the two new ones rule the roost and get everything they want. It is definitely a circus balancing act. I would venture to say that our bios may be feeling a little second class right now-while the whole family dynamic is adjusting and settling in to the new norm. While I would have told you the training portion of our homestudy and adoption was bogus 3 months ago-I am glad we have that under our belts now. It is a good thing. I will return to those books and notes.

 

A couple of months ago, a friend and I started a "secret" Facebook group that we moderate called Christ-Centered Ethiopian adoptions. We saw a need for a page that honored the Lord appropriately in our adoptions-and was also an honest and "real" discussion zone. It is a safe place where no agency employees are allowed...people are "vetted" before they are allowed to join to protect the members who are participants. People can ask raw questions about the process, ethics, agencies, anything.  Another member organizes a virtual prayer vigil every week at a certain time for anyone who has requests(lots of requests mind you-adoption is tough....bathing it in prayer is the only way to go). This group has been a huge blessing to our adoption journey and there are families there who have adopted numerous times-there are adult Ethiopian adoptees, and there are families still waiting on referrals. The Lord uses Facebook-don't care watchya say. I mean how cool is it to connect on the internet...and then actually MEET someone on the other side of the planet- who is actually from your side of the planet --but they are adopting from the same country as you-- at the same time as you? That has goosebumps written all over it. This was the perfect place to "float" my friend's question.

 

My first reaction was to answer her with this morning was "the Lord makes it work"...in fact, I did. I know without a doubt that I love the Lord and the Lord made this possible and that He has "got this".  What I didn't tell her is one of the most common phrases in adoptive circles is "fake it till you make it". I'm telling her now behind the safety of my keyboard. I am not going to lie...we have dug in and will fake it till we make it. Sometimes the Lord blesses us with that mentality-the ability to ride it out. Fake it till you make it isn't giving up on the Lord.  I fully believe it is a strategy..a  tool that He gives us. If we weren't faking it some days...we would not be too God-honoring. There, I said it.

 

This is not to say that we do not love our two new children. I love them enough that I will go all momma-bear on someone else who picks on their inability to understand a game under their breath among other youth. I love them enough that I have an intense need to protect them(particularly in Wal Mart parking lots). I love them enough that I understand the need for the fine ratio of discipline vs. compassion in their young broken lives.  I love them enough that I cry for them.  I cry about their stories and I cry with their stories. I love them differently. But I do not love them any less. I love them differently. Just as in a marriage-sometimes you have to work at it. Love takes work. Can we all agree?

 

This is one of those subjects that the writer in me is having difficulty finding the words to describe. I don't want to take away from the love that is there-but I don't want to sugar coat it and tell a potential adoptive parent it is all rainbows and unicorns. Adoption is hard. Ain't nothing about it easy.

 

A quote from a good friend of mine sums it up: "A lot of adoptive moms that I have talked with have been afraid to be honest about this topic for fear of judgment. Sometimes it's just a different kind of love".

 

She is in a tough place with kids that she adopted several years ago. For lack of a better word, they  may not have "attached" yet. This is real.  This happens-more than we care to discuss. Adoptions do fail by the way. There are sites that exist to re-adopt/re-home children from failed adoptions. But guess what-my friend is in it for the long haul. She has bios, she has another adopted child that is not so "hard to love".  The saddest thing I grieve for in this friend's situation is that she currently does not have a church family to help her with this part of her journey. My prayer for her is that the Lord will send her support in the form of a church family, one that will come along side her in the trenches and offer her some respite  ....believe me-it makes a BIG difference. I really want her to come park an RV on our property and live here( I am not kidding)...but an RV would be hard with 6 kids and a hubby-especially when his commute to work was 18 hours one way.  

This is one thing I would say to my friend who posed this question today....surround yourself BEFORE you start the process with God-fearing, Jesus-loving, not-gonna-dump-you- if- your-are- honest friends that can help. Adoptive mommas get it. Special needs mommas get it. Keeping up with the Jones,' gotta get my kid on the varsity team and in the latest fashions, and into a good college mommas don't always get it. Get you some mommas who "get it" in your circle now. Mommas that don't care if your 10 year old adopted daughter wears a Christmas sweater out to dinner in July in 90 degree heat because it is "prutty'.  The Lord uses these wise women in HUGE ways in adoption. Their wisdom is like a soothing teething ring in the early stages....a warm blankey in the stages to follow. Get you some. And you are welcome to move your RV to Easter Creek Farms anytime. I am honestly thinking about starting a commune.

 

 

 " I always knew I would love my daughter as my child...it just wasn't immediate. And I will try to explain better: I loved her from the beginning: I loved her sweet face and her story, I loved that a long journey was coming to an end, I loved her eating Cheerios from my hand the first morning she stayed with us. But she was a stranger and that's just the truth with adoption."

 

and more from David-

"With adoption, you have photos, you have reports...but the reality is one day you don't have a kid and then the next you do. So it takes a while before that becomes a normal part of your life. I just don't think there is a way to process it that is similar to pregnancy and birth. It's different.

For me, about three weeks after we got home our 13 month old was getting blood drawn, and the nurse kept missing her veins and she was screaming bloody murder. I wanted to punch the nurse in her throat and that's when I realized...oh yeah...she's my kid! I'm about to punch a stranger (a woman even!) in the throat because of what's she's doing to my kid!"   

On the other end of the spectrum, an adult adoptee friend said this "It doesn't matter what anybody says. Any child who is adopted into a family that has a biological siblings ALWAYS feels second."

This makes me sad. I honestly shed tears over this. The only response I can generate is this-this child  probably also felt second when one of their siblings got to stay with their bio family but they got dumped at the orphanage. They probably felt second when other kids got adopted from the orphanage before they did. Even in  a family of no bio kids...this child will have feelings of being second, unworthy, unloved because they are "different". This is the broken, fallen world that creates the need for orphanages and adoption in the first place. This is just a clearer picture to me of the need of a Savior-the desperate need for a redeemer in all of this. How do non-believers even deal with this process? Insert the obligatory "smh' here.  Once again I will defer to the Holy Father to heal those wounds.  Nothing I can do will be sufficient...whether I have zero bio kids or 30 when I adopt. My prayer is that I am able to do precisely what the will of the Father is in this child's life for His greater glory. I will leave the child's feelings of being second to the Creator, the Healer, the Father. He can deal. He can work masterpieces out of torn apart hearts and weeping souls-He can take a second place citizen and make them a King or a Queen. I defer.

 

And perhaps the most poignant response to the question I posed to the group was this:

 

" Our fears are what stand in the way of loving an adopted child...not our capacity to do so. It is there. God put it there" Clairissa

 

Thank you wise-adoptive momma that "gets it".

 

And it is with this attitude I move forward. This same friend reminded me that humans are such creatures of comparison. What difference does it make if we love them differently?  God put the ability for me to love that child there. I love each of my bios differently don't I? So-whether it is a different type of love than I have for my bios or the same...it was put there by my God-which means I have no right to question it. The same Father who adopted me in to His own family although I was unlovable, unworthy, and undeserving put the ability in me through His Holy Spirit to give this child the type of love required. If it is not the same as my bio children-so be it. It is of Him and that is all that matters.