The Truth About Adoption

Have you adopted? Are you thinking of adopting? If so, read this:

A friend of mine wrote this amazing post about the truth, the "ugly" side of adoption. She has helped me so much to process what we are going through, what we have been through, and what I am feeling as a result of our adoption, and I am so thankful to God for her honesty.

Adoption is a blessing, but it is also very challenging. It is one of the most, if not THE most, difficult things I have ever been through. What has been so hard for me hasn't been adding two children to our family, but it has been being confronted with the sin in my heart. I wasn't prepared for it AT ALL! However, if it took the trials of adoption for God to reveal to me my sin so that He could deal with it, and weed it out, making me more like Christ, sanctifying me, then I welcome these trials as a blessing. I SO want to be more like Christ.

Today, I was driving home from listening to a sermon at Starbuck's. Once a week, a dear woman from church, also a mother of 7 (older) children, has volunteered to come and watch my children so that I can go listen to a sermon on my laptop. Nearly every week since Haven has been born, I have missed the sermon. Recently, my 8 month-old has let me leave her for Sunday school, but by the time church starts, she is hungry and tired and just DONE with being in the nursery. I spend a lot of time nursing and walking her. Being able to get away for just an hour to be fed by God's Word through our pastor's teaching has been such a blessing! Well, on my way home today, I was just praising God. I felt such joy at being in His presence. I thought to myself that I didn't want that joy to end--it was indescribable, amazing. I then thought that I would do whatever God wants me to do, as long as I could have that joy as I was doing it. Being pregnant again? Morning sickness? Sleepless nights? Moving to another country? I will go through whatever He wants me to if I can keep feeling this joy while I go through it. That joy could make anything bearable.

However, I realize that this is precisely the struggle we have: Going through trials and keeping our joy in Christ. I DON'T feel joy when I am going through difficult circumstances. It isn't because God has changed, it is because I have--my sin prevents me from experiencing that joy. It is unbelief that what I am going through is for my good from a good God. I get tired of fighting the good fight, tired of fighting sin. My heart turns cold, I get bitter, and I complain and grumble when things are hard. I saw this in myself just last week as Jerome started to tantrum again. I thought to myself: "I can't go through this again! I don't want to go through this! Can't he just stop? Can't he learn to obey? Why is he doing this to me?" I felt despair, not joy. I felt helpless, hopeless. However, it didn't last as long as before. We had 2 days of "bad" before we saw the "good" again. Jerome, after releasing whatever was pent-up inside of him, has been such a blessing this week. It really is like he isn't the same child from last week. My friend (from the link I posted) called it "circling" when I spoke with her. She said that adopted children, after a time, often "circle" back to a previous negative behavior, for whatever unknown reason. Testing? Maybe. Processing? I don't know. I would LOVE to know why. All I know is that I was not prepared for it and it really threw me for a loop.

Love for our adopted children is often not warm, gushy feelings, as I first expected and then felt guilty about my lack of, but it is often "tough" love. It is drawing the line in the sand and telling them not to cross it and following through with correction when they do. It is teaching right from wrong and pointing them to Christ again and again and again. It is teaching them about their sin, God's forgiveness, and Christ's love and sacrifice for them. This IS love. Love is not described as a feeling in the Bible. In I Corinthians 13:4,5 love is described as being made visible through ACTIONS: Love is patient, Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs." My love is shown toward Jerome in SO many different ways and will change through each season we go through with him, according to what he needs. Right now, he needs to know we love him enough to not let him continue to sin.

Honestly, every time Jerome sins I take him to the cross--I share the gospel with him. I believe that this is the ultimate act of love. In fact, I share the gospel with my children every morning at breakfast and during lunch, as well. I share it in different ways as we read our devotional "Little Visits with God" or we encounter the truth in the Bible. I will continue to share the gospel over and over and over until my children leave our home. I will share it even long past the time when I KNOW each one, Lord willing, is saved, not because I will doubt their salvation, but because I need to hear it, too. I need the gospel preached to me EVERY DAY. I need to be reminded of my sin and God's grace, of Jesus' death and resurrection and how he paid the ransom to set me free. My children need to hear that I sin too, that I need to be forgiven, that I am held accountable for my sin--that I don't get away with it just because there isn't someone correcting me all day. I need to humbly confess to them when I mess up. They need to see that I need God's grace everyday. I need to model repentance. I need to point them to Christ with more than my words--but with my behavior. I show my love not just by being physically affectionate, nor just through discipline and teaching my children THEIR need for a Savior. No, I can demonstrate my love for my children by showing them that I need a Savior, too. Jerome is much more likely to trust me and love me if he sees me not as the tough "taskmaster" when he disobeys, but a humble parent, also one who sins and is in need of grace. He will also hopefully respond in obedience to me, and ultimately hopefully to Christ, if he recognizes the joy in me, even as I discipline him. That's love for my adopted son.

So, as we worked through this "circling" behavior last week, I learned to cling to God more, to trust that THIS IS what He wants me to go through. This is what He called me to--that this IS good for me, not a mistake. I learned more of what it means to love Jerome, and to not feel guilty about where I am at in this process of "attaching" in adoption. God never promised it would be easy, but He did promise that He would never leave nor forsake me. God is good. I am learning to praise Him in good times and in bad. I want to have that joy, that same joy I experienced today, all the time. Even as we may "circle" back again, I want to "consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds," (James 1:2). May God work that in me, by His grace . . . and may I allow Him TO work that in me by accepting the trials that are necessary to produce that joy.


On another note: I am still finishing my post on homeschooling and the curriculums we have used and currently use. It is a little long. I am not sure how interesting, or helpful, it is for me to post my likes and dislikes of what we have used. Homeschooling choices and curriculum is such a personal matter of taste! Actually, this week has been so beautiful that we have done little homeschooling! The weather has been absolutely gorgeous--warm, in the 80's, blue skies and NO humidity. Poor Elyse's curls are flat as a pancake. We call her our little barometer. Her hair tells us the forecast by the tightness of her curls. For awhile, when it was in the 90's and SO humid, her hair was tightly coiled all up above her ears. Today, it hung down long to her shoulders. We are hoping for more straight hair days ahead of us!

In Christ, Laura