Time Flies!

I cannot believe it has been three years since the last time I posted here. A season of life began for me where there was barely room to breathe. Half the time I couldn't even find my Bible, let alone sit quietly with God. I spend my days running around, unshowered, wearing stained yoga pants and apologizing to God for all the time that I am not spending with Him. Its just been...busy.

Luke just turned four. FOUR. He graduated from preschool last week which is a little silly to me because back to preschool he goes next year! It's been more of a journey then I ever thought, even with all my research and knowledge on adoptions and kids from hard places. As it turns out we now believe that Luke was probably exposed to substances while in utero. Last year, at my wits end, we reached out to a child find program here locally to help us and to test Luke. His language is much better but his cognition struggles. Many times a lot of what he says doesn't make any sense. And he obsesses over food. Oh my goodness does he obsess over food. I found it ironic that we had done research on kids from third world countries who display food-driven behaviors due to previous starvation. We really didn't see this coming. I had no idea what an impact can be placed on a child just between drug exposure, prematurity, and two months in the NICU. If someone had told me ahead of time what it would be like I may have quietly backed away. Honestly I think that's true about most things in life that are hard but worthwhile. Like moving, marriage, and even having biological children. It's all been much harder than I ever thought, but it's also been more rewarding. Would I trade it for anything? Heck no. I love that little boy and there's no doubt he's my son. Even in the middle of a tantrum my heart can be filled with joy when he looks at me with those huge brown eyes and pouty lips and says "I wuv you". Oh my! I love him, too!

I've learned some valuable things over the past four years. The first is that the celebration of the act of adoption is short-lived. Kind of like a wedding. When the guests have gone home and the honeymoon is over, the real work starts. And it's not always a beautiful pinterest picture. Sometimes it's downright difficult. Sometimes it's subtly sweet. A great quote I recently heard said, "I have four children. Two are adopted. I forget which ones". And it's so true. I forget half the time that Luke didn't come to us in the usual way. Once in a while someone will ask, "Are you babysitting?" and then I remember. But there are times that I am pulled back, even for a brief moment, and think, "Oh yeah, he was an orphan". On his birthday last week I couldn't help but think about his birth mother, whom we've never met and have no name for. "Do you think she even remembers him?" my oldest daughter asked me. My heart twists when she says it. A mother's heart always remembers. "I'm sure she remembers sweetie. Mommies never forget their babies". Sometimes we talk about meeting her in heaven one day when we are all united.

The second thing I've learned is how incredibly broken I am. I'm not a morning person. Come to think of it, I'm not a night person either. I'm an introvert: I like being around people but it's draining and to recharge I need to be alone. Yet I love my large family. I'm tempted to let a random curse word fly sometimes when I've told my 14 year-old for the TENTH time where to put his dirty underwear. I'm a bear when I'm tired or hungry. I'm inherently selfish. Sometimes I just want to stop giving. I get tired of pouring out to others and I just want to sit and pour into myself. I just want to eat food that is hot, and eat it in silence. I want to actually style my hair AND put make up on. Ultimately, my kids have exposed how broken I am and how much I truly need grace. A decade ago I thought that I would work out all those mothering "bugs" in the early years of my first child's life and then I would be a positive, perfect mom from that moment on. I realized earlier this year that I have been beating myself up for a long time because my oldest is now 14 and I haven't worked out all the "bugs". I panic because I'm running out of time and I'm still not a perfect parent! It's only recently become a new idea to me that maybe there will never be that "perfect parent" destination. That I am constantly growing and changing, and trying, and failing, and learning, and moving forward. My kids are teaching me as much, or more, than I am teaching them! We are all refining each other to be better people. I make mistakes, and ask my kids to forgive me, and I move forward with the desire to do better. Of course, because I am human, I will fail again at some point (as hard as that is for me to swallow) but it has made me more grateful for Jesus and God's grace than ever before in my life!

Now that our youngest is two I feel like I'm getting some semblance of myself back. Over the last month I've been able to take a deep breathe, grab a few more winks of sleep, shower more frequently, and enjoy having a toddler. Husband and I are starting to dream about a night away at a hotel somewhere or maybe even starting date nights again. I'm thinking maybe a hair cut and more time to exercise is on my horizon. So what happens? God brings the need of orphans back into my life. And for weeks I've been fighting it. Heck, no, Lord. I'm just getting my body back! I already make four boxes of pasta and 2.5 pounds of meat at each meal! I've done my part. But there it is; that yearning to fill a need. Suddenly we are talking about older child adoptions. I've been doing research- because that's what I do when I want to avoid doing something at all costs-and the truth is painful. Older children age out of a system in most countries at 14 and then they're on their own. I've found lots of different statistics but none of them are good. 21% of Russian orphans who age out are dead by the time they are 21. 38% of Asian girls who age out are caught in human trafficking. The suicide rate hovers between 20-30% for a child from any nationality who ages out without a family. One site I read say most are "simply never heard from again". My heart is breaking and resisting at the same time. Older orphans bring their own challenges. They can be harder in some cases. Frankly, some days, I'm just tired of doing hard stuff. I want to be blind to these children and the needs of the world, because the needs are frankly overwhelming. Most people know that there are 150 million orphans worldwide. I did NOT know that 100 million are from China alone. From my research, two thousand were adopted last year from China. Two thousand out of 100 million. It's not even a dent. I want to do more, and I need to do more, but I'm hung up on my brokenness. How can I be a good mom to an older orphan? Babies grow up with you and grow into awareness. They accept you because they don't know any different. An older child will know that he was abandoned. He will perhaps have waited for a family, and dreamed of a family, and had preconceived notions of what his family would be. There are so many ways I can disappoint.

All of it has brought me back to my knees, back in prayer, because frankly I can't move without Him. I find it ironic that I just got my time back with my Bible and I could potentially face losing it again. If I know it's directed from Him then I can be confident I can handle it. It's gotten me through the worst days with Luke. "I know he's supposed to be here, so God knows what He's doing!" We will see where this all takes us, but for now I am glad to be writing (and showering) again!