Are We There Yet?

As a child, we took many trips around the country for vacation or to visit family members. 12 hours to one set of grandparents and 14 to the other. Doing the trip about twice a year, we got used to it pretty quickly. At some point, I started asking for the map so I could follow where we were in relation to where we were going. I know that didn't make the trip any shorter, but I'm sure it kept me occupied for a few hours every trip and kept me from asking if we were almost to our resting spot for the night. I always knew we were almost to Grandpa and Grandma Daggett's when we turned at that gas station and started on the two lane road over quite a few hills. I always meant to count how many hills we had to pass before we would see their house, but I never could remember how many there were. Either way, once we turned down that road it was time for me to start putting all my toys in my backpack and get ready to unload into my grandparent's house. So on this adoption road, I would say we are almost to that turn at the gas station. We should be licensed in about a week or so at this point. At that time we'll have to lean on God to help us decide which kids we should submit our homestudy for. It's so weird to think about picking kids like you would clothes out of a catalog, but that's what we are preparing ourselves for. We've been told to not fall in love with the first kids you see. Do you realize how hard that is going to be for me? I fall in love with kids I see across the restaurant that I don't even get to hold or talk to and will never see again. I'll always remember this little girl I met in Nicaragua. I haven't actually thought about her in a while. I went there on a mission trip when I was 13. She didn't speak English and I couldn't speak Spanish, but I know she felt safe with me. Her dad, or whoever, was holding her and she was just crying and crying. I went over and reached out my hands to her to see if maybe I could help the situation and she came right to me. She immediately stopped crying and just laid her head on my shoulder. I sang to her a song she had no way to understand, but it brought a smile to her face. And when I would stop, she would look up at me with longing eyes, and I would continue to sing again. I don't know her name or have any idea where she is or what she is doing. I gave her dad my address so he could send me a copy of a picture he took of us, but I never received anything. How do you love a kid you can't communicate with? How do you bond so deeply so quickly? I don't know, but I suppose it has something to do with God's love, so deep and yet so irrational. It doesn't make logical sense to love someone who can offer you nothing, who can't express their feelings to you, and yet I loved her so much. So I anticipate loving our kids will be just like loving that girl. I can't say that I know what they will have been through, but I know that God's love never fails. I won't understand what they are feeling, because I haven't been there. My life has been so simple, so normal, relatively. The classes we have taken have tried to prepare us, but I'm pretty sure its all going to be inadequate. Because love doesn't make sense. You love with your heart, not your head. So I pray for our kids and I pray that God will help us love like he does. I pray that when we see/meet our kids that we'll just know they belong with us. Nope, we aren't there yet, but at least I can look at the map and know where we are in this process. I see how many more hills in the road, and I can see the next chapter of our lives around the corner.

Love Like You'll Never Get Hurt

Here's a quick update on the adoption process. We took our last class today and had the home-study this past Thursday. They told us we should be licensed in 2-3 weeks. This is very exciting and scary at the same time! But we can handle this with God's help, or maybe I should say God can handle it with our help. That's really the way it all works. There is so much new territory coming to us since we will potentially go from zero kids to a house-full. Just so you all know, once we are licensed, the adoption coordinator will send us profiles of kids that meet our requirements and we decide if we want our home-study submitted for those kids. CPS gets home-studies from all the agencies and decides who will be matched with the kids based on that information they have. At that point we just pray that God will match us with our kids and we trust for his perfect will. The home-study went well, I think. There were no questions we didn't kind of anticipate or know were coming. How were we raised, what we would do differently from our parents, what are our strengths, etc. I was able to ask some logistics questions and I feel much better. Mala told us that since we are straight adoption, we will have plenty of time to get the rooms ready once we meet the kids so they can be painted/decorated according to their likes and styles. She also told me we'd have plenty of time to get car seats and that kind of logistical thing. We have two empty rooms, but they are in no way ready for kids at this point. They are basically empty, but we are waiting until we know the genders, ages, etc of kids we are matched with. My dad got a cabinet installed in our laundry room so we could store poisons out of reach and have a place to lock up meds (state requirement). Yippee! Nothing is currently locked, but nothing needs to be at this point and we are ready when that comes. Ok, now to the topic of my post. Many years ago (I don't actually know how long ago) my Pastor/Uncle went on a trip and brought back some small gifts for me and my sister. This time he brought these little marble plaques with sayings on them. Mine said "Love Like You'll Never Get Hurt." I love that saying. When we are hurt, either on purpose or accidentally, we tend to hold those hurts for a long time. We let it change the way we treat the offender and change the way we think about them. We live with more reserve, more caution, afraid that anything we do will cause us to be hurt again. It hinders us from being passionate and giving ourselves fully to many things in our lives. I have always taken this saying to mean forgive and move on past your hurt. I have realized it isn't just about forgiving the person who hurt you, which we need to do, but we have to forgive ourselves for anything we may have done to bring on the hurt. I am not saying it is ever our fault when someone hurts us, but depending on the situation, after we have forgiven the offender, we often look back at the situation and say, "if only I wouldn't have.... then I wouldn't have been so hurt" or "if I would have done....I would have healed faster and moved on." By asking ourselves these questions and re-living the moment time and time again, we haven't forgiven ourselves. There are multiple things going on with me that have initiated me asking myself the question, "Do I love fully? Can I love with every fiber of my being, knowing that I will get hurt again, but not letting those past things hinder my love?" God created us to be people of total abandon, loving without regret and without holding anything back. Am I doing that? My kids, my friends, my family deserve my love. God deserves my all. I refuse to hold myself back, selfishly, in case I may get hurt. I am determined to love completely, to give myself fully to whatever God is calling me. I will put my heart out there, because if I don't, I'm not really living. I'm not really loving as if I'll never get hurt.