We all wait in life.  Some wait for a cure to cancer/healing.  Some wait for life in a barren womb.  Some wait for a spouse.  Some wait for relief from depression.  Some wait for rest.  Some wait for peace.  Some wait for joy.  Some wait for rehabilitation. 

Some wait for the saving of a child.

That is me.  That is us. Pluralize it to “children.”

We know God is faithful and hears our prayers.  That he is good and loves us.  But lets get real here too – he allows pain, he allows war, sickness, sadness, addictions and so much more. 

When I pray – do I pray for unrealistic expectations?  Because the answers are short on coming.  Oh – there it is, me asking and expecting….not waiting.  Yes, I am an impatient person.  There, I’ve said it and admit it and own it.  But I still BELIEVE and have a strong faith in God – so I don’t mean to be impatient.  But I am.

God delivers in his timing – so my trust needs to remain.  This road is long.  Recently I told a father who watched in awe at all the normal developmental things his child did, “it goes fast – it isn’t a lie.”  So why can’t this road go fast?  I want the ending….the happily ever after ending….

I want to tell God “look, you’ve grown us way more that we thought possible – so let’s just take a remission here, right now.”  I feel like Charlie Brown with Lucy holding the football – we go running up, ready for a life touchdown – but swoosh – God pulls the football away like Lucy and we land on our backs staring at the sky wondering why this happened again.

 

I’ll just say, right now I’m feeling on top for getting to a 50/50 percentage on my kids.  Given one is only 11 – reality is I’m at 33.3%. Of what you ask?  In launching them to responsible, decent adulthood.  Not God serving – yet, but more self sufficient, employed and legal.  Sadness hits me as I realize those words.  But….I have to find my joy where I can, so I’m sticking with it. 

I’m waiting on the Lord, not allowing these trials to seep into a bitterness or hopelessness of life.  I’ll let you know, that isn’t easy. I heard myself actually giving God 4 years to get the job done.  Tought stuff especially when 50% of your kiddos are sitting in jail and it could easily be 75%!  I lived those days of sadness. Some days are still very sad.  Sometimes in the dark walk I’d try bargaining and bribing – but that doesn’t work.  So God lifts me and holds me and continues to help me to rely on his strength, not my own, but His to carry me on this walk.

Some days I marvel that I can even hold my head up in the community I live in (yes I’ve thought about moving!) – but let me tell you – humble pie is my main meal in life these days.  God has taught me things I never wanted to learn for sure and in that is a walk of being able to hear other parents pain.  We are not alone.  Many don’t talk of it, many hide it – but I find freedom with my God in owning it and sharing it.  It isn’t a path I chose – it is the path God leads me on.  When I think it won’t end – and I have said that so many times,  I feel the love of my church family reaching me, lifting me – the deacon that calls, the Pastor who learns about prison visits for the first time, they are walking with me.  It takes courage to keep going, but what choice do I have?  I’m made of strong Mennonite stuff with a faith embedded from the trials of life.  Walk on.  If you are reading this and struggling – know you too can do it. 

Psalm 27:14 “Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart, wait, I say, on the Lord.”

So when you see me next time….know, my odds just got better today – but I’m still waiting on the jackpot. We might have a mudslide again, but we’ll take the hands that hold out to us, pull our selves up and keep waiting on the Lord.

Self Care. It's Time.

My hubby and I have been working on short and long term goals.  We’ve a few.  One other thing as we’ve processed the grief of older teens leaving home and a smaller home base, and our accident and recovery from the drunk driver who hit us back in March with a stolen vehicle…..we need to focus on ourselves a little. 

Parents are notorious (or should be?) for sacrificing oneself for the good of the kids/family all too often.  We in no way plan to neglect our last in the nest, but we do plan to take better care of ourselves physically and emotionally so we can be the best parents to her as well.

In the hustle of raising the first crew that has left the mother ship, we often did sacrifice things for ourselves more than we probably should have.  So now is our time.  Not to embrace selfishness – but to embrace self-love for the health of ALL of us.  Phew, this may be harder than I thought, but also exciting to recover ourselves a little.

So, the lists are being made….cups are going to get filled.  I may have to say “no” still – but for the right reason of self recovery from a long journey that I’m still resting from.  I have to stop the horse from running home, like I did when I was a teen riding with my Dad and he taught me the horses want to run home, but don’t let them….hold them back.  He was right and it was a training thing for life as well.  Sometimes I over-involve because I’m “back” feeling good and ready to put my energy to use all over the place….so I’m going to work on pulling back the reins and going home slower….savor the little moments and find myself in a better place. 

I’m ready for this journey now. 

Pain at Graduation

The reception room was cancelled long ago.

The caters cancelled long ago.

The new decorations themed “Oh the Places You’ll Go” are boxed and stored.

The Tervis Dr Suess cup I’d ordered as her gift, I drink from myself with “Oh the Places You’ll Go” on it and I do it to torture myself – sipping my water thinking of all the places she can’t go and won’t go.  Sarcasm seeps into me and I want to cite “Oh the people you’ve screwed” in my best Dr Suess voice.

Clearly this season holds pain for me and my husband as the grad invites rolled in – we are happy for those that we’ll support on this special day – but the pain of it isn’t lost on us. 

Disappointment seeps through me – we can’t force our kids to do anything once they turn 18.  They are free in their choices.  Sucks when they then play the victim and blame others for their choices….no one wins, no one wins.

 

Like the Kindergartners who site their career goals – I hear the memories of dreams not achieved as life goes on.  We tried.  We gave it our best.  God created us to have a will and a choice.  She’s made hers.

So, I’ll watch with some inner agony – it’s just another day….right?  I can make it. 

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~ Dr Suess

It Feels Okay....

I was reading an article, trying to get my brain to grasp onto things and find that peace / healing I need in our adoption journey to date, especially of the older ones.  I think if feels at times for me that we give and give – expecting a positive result that doesn’t and can’t come.  Patterns we desire to break – don’t seem to be breaking but falling to genetics of generations, giving us a sadness that our journey of change didn’t imprint as much as we’d hoped.  Learning to stop at times and find ways to fill our cups and restore ourselves has had to become a priority or we’ll have nothing good left for the last in the nest.

She, little who isn’t little anymore,  is growing up and struggling with her realm of the changed family – siblings gone, she misses them and the activity they brought.  One came to support her in her piano recital – that was so nice.  So I see the bonds there and holding which gives me hope.  Maybe it is taking joy in more baby steps when I want those longer strides and testing my patience to see the smaller miracles.

As we’ve watched with ongoing surprise and not surprise, the phones ring, the problems continue.  But they reach for us – they know we are strong and there.  Collect calls from the prison jail, while they find humorous, saddens me but reassures me they know who to call.  Maybe they needed my voice to know I’m still there, the Mom that raised them and feels she can scold them yet loves them so unconditionally despite it all.  I found a message that said “Dear kids, Sorry I yell.  In my defense, you were acting like a bunch of psychos.”  So true…..

Just in the time of typing this a son called to let me know of more law altercations.  I remind him it might be time to find new friends.   No, I won’t bond out his friends.  **sigh**   And a quick more to a new place with no appliances – not thought out – yah for garage sale season saving the weekend on a fridge and stove score!

Spring is moving quickly to warm summer temps – I’m planting my pots with lovely flowers that give me joy yet make me miss my “Oma” and visiting the home farm to see my Mom’s flowers as well.  My genetics are there too – ones I embrace and am not happy with – we are creatures of history, genetics and patterns that follow us in life.

Hard times are consistently here it seems, but so is Jesus Christ.  I need to hold to my faith and know that this journey is one he walks with us and gives us strength, refills our cups and leads us on into that unknown future. We’ve set some new home short and long term goals.  One day at a time, one journey at a time– meanwhile, the grief of the older ones departing is replacing with a gentle peace breeze and we are settling into our new dynamics of a family of 3 in the house – and it feels okay…..yes, it feels okay. 

Beauty Where Are You?

I sit alone here at my PC and the urge to purge takes over.  Alienated.  I feel so alone. 

Tonight we went to support our daughter in a grade school Bingo event – winning the “grand” prize for The Alley in laser tag and other fun…..winning to the point we shouldn’t have declared BINGO anymore – but to the delight of our 10 year old we made a haul.  Free kids meals and ice cream are in our future.

She is tucked in for the night, my husband goes to get his rest as he rises incredibly too early for me to even ponder getting out of bed, hence I sit here alone.  Feeling the weight of my life.

I thought 16 years of infertility was hard.  That is a joke.  That was the easiest part of our marriage as I look back now.  Parenting isn’t for sissies or the weak – yet I’m feeling very weak right now.

The older three – all making choices that have left us in a kind of SHOCK.  What happened to our family?  We adopted them to SAVE them from their very roots that got them in the foster system – so the pain of feeling them RETURN to those life choices is very real.  We thought with church, family closeness, prayers at meal times around a table  - they were destined for good futures breaking the veins of their history. 

Oh, I’ve been deceived and the shock is wearing me down.  My friends and people around me don’t know what to say and they’ve pulled away, I feel it.  I dread the “how are you” because I always feel like being truthful – but people can’t handle the truth usually. 

Drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, vaping, blunts, sex, high school drop out, promiscuity, crimes – it’s all there.  Blatantly in front of me and I’ll be honest, I don’t know what to do.  Nothing obviously because the older three are all 18 plus and owning their lives away from us.  One runs constantly, back and forth like a yo-yo. One moved out – no money, no job – but heh…..   The other is laying low after we asked him to leave – robbing us and wracking up the legal charges in the judicial system.  All three have had court visits since the first of the year.  Fines with little ways to pay it – but heh, the cell phones keep going – can’t lose Snapchat!

So this is what God planned for them?  God – I’m mad at you.  I’m angry and don’t even care to attend church anymore – what is the point?  To listen to sermons and teachings that don’t get lived out?  It just hurts….they ask for sharing – hah.  I’m so tired of the “sorrow” of the angst of these years……I don’t want to be that person who shares this crap life my children are embracing.  It hurts too much.  Ironically I teach 7^th and 8^th graders.  I look at them and think….no one knows the direction they will go – my kids were here too….oh the hope they held at that age.

  

I remember the social worker that declared we were her only success story.  Proud of that – oh, pride has fallen….the “success” is gone and the pain is so real to watch them fall down and down…..two of them joined the church and even got baptized for pete sake……so ridiculous now.  Why I cry out.  I remember the cry to God for “give me just one child!” and the whys of not birthing our children – but the joy in the journey of adoption recognizing God’s plan.  Oh, what a bad joke that I hope is a deep valley with a large climbing hill to come yet….I feel side swiped in this journey.  Disillusionment all the way.  My Mom used to always tell me about adoptions gone wrong – oh, ours wasn’t going to be that way – we’d beat the odds.  Cynicism is creeping in.  I used to look at families who adopted with such great joy – now I look at them and think “hope yours don’t end up on paths like ours!” and I fear for them…..watching and remember the days of diapers and youth sports knowing we had no clue of what was to come and they don’t either. 

So I’ll mark myself late for work and go show up to sit at court – supporting in sadness the choices of one on the run, to see if he’ll do the right thing or whether a warrant for his arrest will be apart of this journey yet.  The trials aren’t over – but the heart doesn’t stop loving despite their poor choices, and thus the pain of this parenting journey goes on. 

How many people are out there, hiding their pain, pretending like they have it together when they don’t?  I’m real – I’m honest.  But it still doesn’t make it any easier. 

The 10 year old sleeps peacefully now – we’ve one more to keep moving with, despite the strains of the older three – keeping it together despite the brokenness that surrounds us – finding beauty in each new day is the challenge I face.  Ironically I’m an optimistic person….but that is getting harder to maintain.

Beauty of life – oh where are you?  I will keep searching…..for the glimpses are what keeps me going.

Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty. ~ Ann Voskamp

It's Late

It’s late, I sit alone at the kitchen table browsing through social media waiting. 

The back door finally opens and in he comes.  My mind glimpses to the 2 year old full of energy now before me as a young handsome man of 20.  Where did the years go? 

He peruses the kitchen looking for food and settles on Life cereal.  As he pours his milk he joins me at the kitchen table that holds the memories of this family born of adoption, smaller now in size with the departure of struggling young teens finding their way to their own.

He’s in a good mood tonight, conversation flows as we talk – he is rude, funny and we agree and argue.  A low rumble comes down the hall and he asks “is that dad snoring?”  I reply, “yes.”  We chuckle softly together.  He teases me that I’m his decaying parent.  He is right – life is moving on quickly.  He talks of goals and history past.  His social media buzzes while he downs a second bowl of Life cereal, then gets up to find more snacks.  A leftover garlic biscuit, three small fruit snacks from his sister’s school stash.  He sits down with them and says “I love these things” and organizes them by color offering me a blue one.  

As he heads off for bed, I can hear him below chatting with his friends yet…..he’ll do this awhile. 

As I sit and analyze this time we shared, I realize he is slowly finding maturity….and yet I will always see that 2 year old grin of a child long gone whom I yearn for some do-overs for.  Mourning and sadness wash over me.  

Then peace comes slowly as I embrace the cycle of life and wonder what adulthood will look like for him and pray we’ll be around to see it.