Mash-up: Nelson Mandela's life and the Herdman's one-eyed-cat epiphanies

"I could not imagine that the future I was walking toward could compare in any way to the past that I was leaving behind."  Nelson Mandela

This hits me in two separate spaces of my soul.  The first, a void created by my inability to...maybe sacrifice my other children?  ...maybe inability to...I don't know...if I knew...it wouldn't be a void.  There'd be a sixth child still asleep in his bed as I typed.  But there isn't.  And I think of him always.  How can you express that to a child you've failed?  You can't.  You just help the other adults who are picking up the pieces.  I can admit that I did not break this child.  And, by God's grace, I have watched him heal in tremendous ways.  But I have added to some of the pieces on the floor that is his life.  And I wish I could help him to see that the future with his possible new forever family has all the potential in the world to be so much brighter than all the combined safe-happy-moments he experienced with us.  Love.  It's the seed I planted.  Now, it's time for someone else to tend the field and I pray to harvest the crop that should be a life well lived.  

The second breath-holding-realization from that quote has been forming for quite some time.  All the efforts and love and pain and joy and tears and work I have put into the last year and a half to end with yet STILL a disrupted adoption...has left me really questioning.  What big miracle am I really asking for?  A child to heal?  to function in society?  is God really asking me to sacrifice even more of my other children's safety and sanity?  like...really?????  am I depending too much on my own strength??  bc I surely haven't FELT strong.  or wise.  or holy.  or brave.  or heroic.  And if all this is true...and let's add the kicker here...our littles could  be going home in three months despite allllllllllll the reasons everyone, save the main decision maker, can see...has had me truly asking...yelling...threatening...so what if You are real??  Why on Earth would I want to serve a God who allows such things.  I am not asking for massive freedom-of-will miracles to be performed.  I'm asking for one child's heart to settle and accept love...and then for the judge to simply make a wise decision based on ALL the facts and recommendations of EVERYONE involved.  I have done all the hard work, made all the sacrifices, given Him all the credit.  It's a formula...last I checked.  You know....Job loses it all but then gets like more and better in the end...right????????

Hmph.  I've always struggled with the first half of that story.  LOSING IT ALL.  I had a miscarriage.  I didn't want MORE or BETTER...I freaking wanted my baby.  life.  a life I'd had dreamed of since I was 4.  And then one day---I was holding J-bob (after the miscarriage) and I could really look at him and say...it was worth it.  I am thankful...because God's plan was better than mine.  {And I could actually say that without a bitter acid reaching the back of my tightened throat}

Today my five children and I began reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and I was literally crying from laughing so hard at the Herdman's one-eyed cat.  Of course, my belly laugh led to the kid's belly laugh.  And then we did a few days of our advent reading (one kinda loses a week or so when one packs a child up AND has court for the others in the same 7 day stretch...I share the pathetic failings bc it's taken 10 years of actual Motherhood to even make it past day 3 on an advent reading...and who am I kidding...as a very.bad.Christian. I didn't really even know said readings and Jesse Tree things even existed until about 3 years ago...so don't go thinking high of me...oh wait...I just admitted to thinking the book of Job was a magic formula of pain begetting more and better...HA...yeah, no pedal-stools here).  

What was I on about bf that train-wreck of ADD just hit???  OH!  laughing and advent. We prayed over our first-scented-candle-in-like-7-years and tonight was Mermaid's night to blow it out and make a wish (prayer)...throw me a bone...we don't do Santa...I think blowing out candles and trusting those unspoken thoughts are floating up to God in the smoke is a beautiful and magical thing.  And I realized...that "I could not imagine that the future I was walking toward could compare in any way to the past that I was leaving behind," or in my specific case...present...but it can.  And He is good.  And I don't even have to know the future or like what He is saying, not saying, doing, or not doing.  I simply have to just keep clinging to Him (even if I am kicking and screaming) because...I have tried to do this life without Him...I have tried being angry and resentful and pretend I don't want to serve...but.I.can't.  Because I love Him...dearly.  And I trust Him...dearly.  And He knows that terrifies me.  And that trusting that He loves my children (borrowed, middle, or forever) is even more terrifying.  

Sinking Ships

We are reading the book Hero Tales in which several Christian heroes stories are shared.  Now, the funny part is that most of these greats are (apparently) well-known among the Christian community.  Like, especially the really good Christians which (apparently) I have not yet become because at the age of 36, I still can't recognize the how-many-ever-points of this one man's doctrine versus the lack of or total opposite beliefs of the other camp's doctrine MOST LIKELY because the moment people start up about it, my brain takes a vacation, until it all comes back to what I consider the easiest-hard-thing God has commanded us to do:  LOVE.  And before I get peppered by the legalists...if we go to the Bible's definition of "love" then that isn't all warm and fuzzy.  Like.  At All.  At least the slow to anger and long-suffering part is my Achilles heel (again see the fact that I am SO NOT a really good Christian).

So, I have heard of Moody Institute...but much like it took me years to comprehend Pets Mart is a play on words and could also be Pet's Mart...yeah...I.am.special.  I really only recently learned of who this said Moody man was.   I sure do love his passion.  And quite frankly, stubbornness.  Because he even had a medical doctor caution him to stop doing what he felt God was asking him to do because it was gonna kill him...and he really just didn't care.  Gotta love that in a person. 

So he was on a sinking ship.  And found himself a tad bit scared along with the rest of the people.  Not scared of death...scared of loss.  The loss of him in his wife and kiddo's lives.  The reality that he was leaving so much work left to be done.  He was quoted as saying, "It was the darkest hour of my life!"  I can get behind a man willing to admit that.  Especially a super-Christian.  Transparency goes a long way with me because lately I have felt like I was on a sinking ship.  And I have been scared.  And dare I admit this?  I have questioned God and even His existence.  I won't go into why.  I will share that in all His Love He made it really clear, really quick that He does exist.  And He does care.  And while my ship has been sinking, He hasn't let go.  Not once.  {And can I pause a moment to say that most of that happened via random Face book emails, letters, and posts?  Dear Friends...thank you.} 

So on said sinking ship, he gets clearance to read some verses.  I was reading this story out loud after a heinous night of our "one" {he had been visiting for one weekend a month for the last four months and then was placed for what many of us believed the *very last time* last month} flipping out compromised severely by my total and complete inability to not flip out right along with him.  I can say this with a whole lot of confidence.  My childhood baggage and broken parts are not conducive to the healing of my precious borrowed son's baggage and broken parts.

So we get to this verse in the story:  Others went out to sea in ships...In their misery they cried out to the LORD, and he saved them from their troubles.  (Psalm 107: 23-28) and then this:  He has put his angels in charge of you to watch over you wherever you go.  (Psalm 91:11)

I could hardly finish reading them the story through my tears because I knew by that time that another placement was being looked into for our "one".  And I truly believe, it is for the best...his best...our best...and God's best.  So many people give me too much credit.  And I am one stubborn, feisty, not-so-young-not-so-lady young lady.  But I also know several people who have seen me at my absolute worst (ummm...my kids and husband and dear friend and child's CASA) who can testify that for-the-love-stop-saying-good-things-about-this-woman-because-she-is-broken-and-OH-SO-flawed (my God, thank you for loving me anyway) and the only good I've given anyone is not any part of me...it's that pesky easiest-to-do-hardest-to-do love thing I was talking about earlier. 

Today we will celebrate this "one's" birthday.  And we will most likely also be packing his things.  And I am not sure what to expect emotionally for him or myself or how to reconcile it all for either of us.  I am sure that the family to which he is going seems perfect for him...oh my word...how I have fallen in love over the phone in one conversation.  Oh my word how I can see SO MANY GOOD THINGS for ALL OF THEM.  My heart rejoices that maybe, just maybe...I was just a tiny role in what will be his "happily ever after".  Maybe?  I really don't know.  And for Dwight Moody's sinking ship...it so happens that another boat came to their rescue.  It took eight days of being towed to get to safety. I can't put into words how metaphorical that is for my life in.this.moment.

And I know that no matter what, "He has put his angels in charge of you to watch over you wherever you go.  (Psalm 91:11) 

So while I may be too broken to get him safely to shore, I know that God will bring along someone whose boat doesn't have a huge hole in it and tow him there for me.  And there simply aren't words that can articulate my love for this family and my prayers that this really is the beginning of his "happily ever after".

Total side-note:  God has healed the wounds from my childhood in ways that I can probably never fully articulate.  The simple evolution in my marriage and comprehension that my husband actually DOES love me...like...a whole lot...and isn't going to abandon me...BAM...that's a big ole bag of healing that God has done in the last 14 years of my life...but...I can't explain the way living with someone who is unpredictable (even just in childhood explosions) is for me and subsequently my family.  It goes well beyond just "not giving up".  I can't patch this hole in my brain that needs order and peace.  I can't undo my anxiety or PTSD that has been re-established by the last year of living without.  I even had a doctor angry at me because he was having to medicate me solely based on my unwillingness to walk away from our "one".  I share that because I don't want people to think that they can't overcome their past and become incredible parents BUT ALSO because I think it is imperative that we as adoptive parents let the PROFESSIONALS DO THEIR JOBS...get matched.  Trust the words of those who truly know these kids long before our good intentions met them.  Fight like hell but also acknowledge when you or your family...isn't the right one to help a certain child heal.  My pride??  it's wounded;  but not nearly as wounded as trying to force a child to fit into the mold of a family they do not belong would become.