Isabel Faith: One Year Home.

Exactly one year ago today, Tom and I met Isabel for the first time. 

 

I have spent a lot of time going through all of the photos from the past year, re-living our adoption trip and appreciating afresh all the wonderful new friends that shared a momentous life event with us.

 

If you have a few extra minutes in your day today, we invite you to experience a recap of Isabel's adoption and first year of grafting into our family.

 

We thank God for her--for preserving her life, for allowing us to be a part of her story, and for the chance to love her and be loved by her.

 

 

 

 

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;

I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

Psalm 9:1-3

 

Praise the Lord with us.

 

 

Adoption: What Difference Does it Make?

The answer to this question might seem pretty obvious.

A child from outside a family becomes a part of a family.  Forever. 

The circumstances from which that child comes can vary immensely from one child to another.  The essence, however, is the same in every case: the presence of both extreme loss and need.  Loss of a birth family.  Need for a stable, secure, loving, and warm forever family.

So the impact of adoption on the adopted child seems, clearly, good.  Very good. 

Many people advocate for children who need families, many people advocate for the cause of adoption and encourage other families to consider bringing these precious children into stable, loving homes.  And I heartily encourage all of us to stretch our thinking, evaluate our families, and prayerfully consider this avenue for sharing our love, our home, our resources, our energy, our very lives with those who desperately need it.

But what I really want to talk about in this blog post is not the difference that adoption makes for the adopted child.

(Hope you don't stop reading here...)

What I DO want to highlight is the difference it makes to the adoptive family.

My, oh, my, where to start?

When we began our first adoption journey over 5 years ago, I knew we would be blessed by the addition of a child.  I knew we could make a difference to that child.  But I had no idea how our adoptions would completely transform me, transform my marriage, transform each of my children, expand my thinking, and--most of all--thoroughly enrich my understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

A major component of this transformation, however, has also involved loss and need.  Not for our new child, but for the rest of us, for me.

Loss...of self-centered thinking. 
Need...for extra measures of patience and grace.

Loss...of protective control over more of "my" time.
Need...to recognize that time is God's gift to be invested in those most needful of it.

Loss...of dignity when a new child acts in ways that are less-than-desirable, especially in public.
Need...to give grace to said child and to any other parent seen in public struggling with behaviorally challenging children.

Loss...of any semblance of prideful self-sufficiency.
Need...to humbly ask for help when needed and accept it when graciously offered.

Loss...of control over the health and welfare of my children when facing serious medical trials. Need...to place my trust firmly in The Lord--whose ways are higher than my ways and who is able to do immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine.

Loss...of fears that I'm failing at this task of parenting, compounded with each additional child.
Need...to recognize that success and failure in parenting is not measurable except to judge the state of my heart as I nurture and love.

There is now a richness to our family that would never have developed without the miracle of adoption.

• A husband and wife who face each other wide-eyed in awe of the responsiblity before them, yet strong in the knowledge that they're in this together, standing on a firm foundation that is bigger than either or both of them.
• A wife who sees in her husband a previously unnoticed tenderness and a generous heart willing to stretch his love.
• Older children who have taken on a new level of maturity in selflessly looking to the needs of younger siblings.
• A teenaged son who steps away from video games occasionally because he loves to make his littlest sisters giggle and shriek.
• A pre-teen daughter who has learned to open her heart, bucking her inwardly-focused nature. 
• A family where dual language sentences are common and we have twice as many reasons to laugh at silly verbal expressions.
• A mother whose grasp of the depth of God's love has deepened by considering the unfathomable gospel of Jesus Christ--that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, so that we might be adopted as God's children.

Adoption. It is good. The difference it makes is immeasurable.

Dying to Self

To continue a previous blog post...how is Amy doing with all the transitions?

It's a question with a variety of answers, again depending on the day, hour, and moment you ask.  And even though I left you hanging after that previous post because I didn't even know where to start, these extra few days haven't really made it any easier to write this post tonight.

And so I'll just say...goodnight!  That's all for now, folks!
Ahem.  Sorry. 

I will seriously get on this now. 

I'm doing great.  Really.  It's all good.  And sometimes hard.

Let me start by saying simply this:  adoption is not for the faint of heart.  As I mentioned in my previous post, bringing a new child into your home--whether through birth or adoption--is a major life transition. I have found with both of our adoptions that there is a period of time post-adoption where I experience this very ugly (and also probably very normal) feeling of regret that we brought a new child home and turned everyone's lives upside down and then I get slapped in the face almost immediately with wrenching guilt for having such an ugly feeling as regret.

Let me follow that statement closely with this one:  what a privilege it is to be called to adopt, and to be adopted as a child of God myself.  Even though adoption (or any major life transition, really) is not easy, it is, indeed, a holy calling and brings with it abundant joy. It is when I get past the burden of "self" and think through the wonder of God's love that I experience the joy.  

Those two statements side by side actually help me to see why my response to the question "how are you doing with the transitions?" is ambiguous.  I find myself challenged in so many ways (and perhaps, "pruned" to make me more fruitful) through this process of transition.  Indeed, it is really about dying to self.  Loving in a truer, more sacrificial, way. 

For example, old comfortable routines can be disrupted and a new little being demands your attention, time, energy, patience, and love.  In my case, I am an early morning riser.  I love my mornings.  Note the word "my."  I had grown very accustomed to thinking of those wee hours as belonging only to me to do as I pleased with my time.  I would, generally, have at least 2 hours to myself before I had to get my girls up for school. Jared is a teenager so a) he's pretty nonverbal in the morning and b) he's not usually in the mood for a full up cooked breakfast so he doesn't mind at all if I exercise rather than sit and chat with him over french toast.

So typically my mornings would start with a few of my favorite things:

My daily non-fat latte...

My daily time of Bible study and prayer...

And then perhaps one or more of these:

My spin bike (and OH, how I miss my Body D spin friends and teaching spin classes!)

My running shoes

For our first few weeks with Isabel home, however, I was able to do very few of my favorite things in those wee hours.  She was rising much earlier than my other kiddos.  So, instead of my favorite things, I saw a lot of this:

A pretty cute face to see first thing in the morning, don't ya' think?

Yes, she is one of my most favorite things, too, but those other things are what keep me grounded.  And finding another time to do them while she was awake was extra challenging.  Thankfully, she seems to like the jogging stroller, and sometimes she even says "don't you want to exercise downstairs?  Then I can watch TV!"  My preference, however, is still for those things to happen in the wee hours, all by myself (and I really don't want her watching much TV).  Dying to self...learning to be more flexible in my agenda and time.

Aside from the relatively petty issue of relinquishing familiar routines, bringing a roughly 5-year-old child into your life brings with it the added challenge of parenting a child whose behaviors you have played no part whatsoever up to this point in shaping and molding.  Those early weeks I found myself growing irritated at things Bella did (poor girl!) simply because I had no idea why she did them.  Like bringing me things that I didn't need at that very moment all the time.  And asking me constantly "Whose is this?  Whose is that?" as she tried to get a sense for just what in this house might belong to her.  And asking me constantly "what are you doing Mama?" as she tried to understand my daily routines and activities around the house.  And repeating things over and over, seeking my affirmation that she had it all right, as she ran through each family member's daily schedule.  And using a very whiney tone of voice any time she needed to convey her need to use the restroom.  Dying to self...learning to tolerate undesirable behaviors and beginning to slowly and gently peel back those that need to change.

Creating a virtual twinship (is that a word? or would it be "twinhood?") with Lilly also creates unique parenting moments...as in almost every single moment, every day.  Simply helping them both get used to the other, communicate, and learn to share most everything takes much time and energy.  The girls have come a very VERY long way in the few short weeks Bella has been home, and it warms my heart to see them playing together.  But I see much subtle jockeying for position and possession happening constantly.  Not having parented "multiples" before, I find myself not only second guessing my responses to them, but feeling utterly drained by the end of each day simply trying to love and help them both to the extent that they need.  Dying to self...drawing on wisdom beyond my own, loving beyond my own reserve, and giving beyond my own capacity.

Two other ugly emotions frequently arising through this experience are feelings of guilt and feelings of failure.  They are big ones...to be the subject of another post, another day. 

Beyond the many emotional issues above, logistical issues also abound, especially with such a broad range of ages under one roof. We still want Jared and Anna to be able to do the activities they enjoy, but transportation (with two to buckle into 5-point-harness carseats) and coordinating schedules is not always easy. Thankfully, Tom is great at arranging his schedule to help with some of the driving (which, especially in metro DC traffic, makes a huge difference).  Keeping up with each kids' school assignments and progress and projects is nearly impossible.  Keeping enough clean underwear in the house is nearly as hard.  Each week sort of has the feel of a marathon--and by Friday we are all ready for the post-race massage and recovery.

It's really easy (and tempting) to look out my windows at other houses and other families, and envy the fact that their lives are still "normal" and their "well-adjusted happy" children are not having to cope with major life upheaval and deal with parents who are frazzled and weary.  I know, however, that such thinking is foolish, as every single human being faces challenges and stress and friction. 

On the whole, I am beyond grateful for these challenges and the changes in our lives that have brought them.  My joy is to love with God's crazy love and to enjoy moments like these: