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 7th and 8th
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
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