Reality of Adoption

Adoption is plan B for these kids.  I need to remind myself of that several times a day.  I haven't been sure about sharing some of my deepest feelings about our journey on social media but know that in writing it may bless someone else in the trenches or who will be someday.   More than anything I don't want to discourage people in stepping out to bring a child a family.  Also I want to state right up front that if God calls us to adopt again I will be first in line saying yes.

So you work your tail off for 12-18 months with paperwork, education, and fundraising to arrive in country exhausted where your journey is only beginning.  I knew this but was somewhat unprepared for the feeling of starting all over again.  In my mind we had been working so hard to make it in time that it felt like a completion instead of a new beginning.  Then we come home and everyone is excited for all of us.   We are excited to learn to cook some food that they may like or learn how to communicate something together.  Lots of new things and everyone is extending lots of grace to each other or as I've heard it spoken as the "honeymoon phase".  Then the honeymoon is over and it's real life.  Sometimes lately this mom doesn't want to do real life.  It's just to real like one step forward and two back.  Sometimes I open my bedroom door in the morning and there's this cute little face saying good morning mom and inside I want to close the door and hide in my bed because of the hugeness of the whole thing.  Then after answering the same questions literally 100 times in 6 hours I do hide for a few minutes in my closet or outside behind the trailer.  And then the 14 year old silent bump on the couch all day long or sleeping for hours can come close to sending me over the edge.  Or a refusal to eat a breakfast that was loved the day before (could we just skip breakfast?).   Then the control issues that make an adult want to start banging their head against the wall.  I don't think I have ever felt this fatigued in all my life.   As the months go by I've had my moments when I wonder why God called us to this or maybe He didn't and we just thought he did.  I know that He did indeed call us to this.  There's to many miracles to question that but yet me being a human I still do.  Some days I long to put all the pieces back together the way they were a few years ago just for a day of normal even through I would miss these two new kiddos so that won't work.  Another thing that is a big monster is loneliness.  If we go out or people come here I pay a price and if I stay home I can start to feel like I live on an island in the middle of no where.  Most of our friends understand this season of our lives but a few others have moved on which makes us sad.   And then there's this great longing to take a vacation but the reasons why it's not good timing to go have probably been covered above. 

So all this being said I've come to the conclusion that adoption is for me.  To surrender everything to Jesus and let Him be everything for me.  Without Him I'm a mess and I mess everything up.  I think this process has been more for me than Shane & Selah.  Continually dying to my desires and then choosing to serve these kids with JOY. 
Isa 40:31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.