Permanency

Today Spider-man and I counted down the days to the long anticipated "ADOPTION DAY".

13...thirteen days.

The fact that he threw his arms around my waist and breathed a heavy sigh of relief illustrates the tremendous change that has overcome our Little Man since the termination hearing. I am still baffled by his reaction that day. He promptly burst into tears and after several minutes of all of us crying with him he exclaims through spit and snot, "Now I can't marry Mermaid". I don't know if any of us have ever laughed so hard? He's been fine ever since he has realized this means a lifetime of sibling connectedness to his "love". Permanency looks and feels good on all of us.

Normally, just as I had with past court dates, I'd be breathing deep, making mental notes, preparing for things that are always subject to change. But this month I have a different date circled on my calendar.

7...seven days.

In seven days I go back to the dermatologist to have a lovely little tumor in my leg removed. A few weeks ago, after a big fit on my husband's part I went to my PCP. She got me into a dermatologist by the end of the week. That kinda freaked me out, but I didn't really give much thought until the day of the visit. They cut it off and sent me on my way saying don't worry unless my phone rings from them in a week.

My phone rang in one week and one day.

So I'm going in seven days to have a wide excision; I'm praying they can get it all and have some answers sooner than my two week follow up stitch-removal.

Pre-Adoption, Pre-Foster, Pre-Failed-Adoption Heather would have seen this coming a million miles away. All happiness and good things in life are rewarded with loss, pain, suffering. I had conditioned myself (I guess?) to associate good times with rug-ripping bad to follow. But these last two years, I have lost that person somewhere along the way? She drowned in the intensity of all that is required to just-survive-today.

Then she started training for a 100M trail run. And she learned real fast about the importance of "staying in the now". Otherwise it's miserable. Too much. Overwhelming. And then there's the beauty of the pain that is learning to be danced with, the running alongside astounding views, and the breathing it all in beside incredible people (ain't no peeps like my trail peeps).

And something clicked.

Or maybe it was the huge throw-down that I had with God? And He has revealed Himself and proven His goodness---despite it all---to me over, over, over, over.

But something has definitely clicked.

So now I am anticipating good news? Not living in constant fear? Barely even having to push negative thoughts aside? But that kind of scares me. It makes me feel as if I am not being humble enough? Maybe too assumptive? I have the same struggle with *knowing* I can complete my first 100M without ever having toed one step beyond 32M.

I won't be completing the 100M that I've been training for. I will still have stitches. I can't even start. It kind of makes me sick. A DNS (did not start) is so much worse in my mind that a DNF (did not finish). Explains a lot about my personality. Ugh. Anyhow...what I CAN do is go serve the others who can start it and hopefully pace my dear friend in for her last 16 miles.

No matter what happens in seven days...I know that UNEXPLAINABLE MOUNTAINS were moved for the two children who will legally become ours in thirteen days to have even graced our doorstep. And then to have remained. And then...despite it all...it all ended up just as it should.

So, I guess I just have Faith. The kind that's had to walk through fire. I can say that trusting Him with my life is much easier than trusting Him with my babies. If I'm being honest, that's the only time I find myself in a dark hole. I don't want them to worry, to see me weak, or to lose feelings of safety and permanence.

Because let me tell ya, permanency looks and feels good on all of us.

"I have loved you with an everlasting love." Jeremiah 31:3

Ain't nothing more permanent than that...

God is moving...

One night long before we went to training, MY HUSBAND (the man who said we'd NEVER adopt...yeah...that one) prayed that God would soften our hearts toward His Complete Will, even if that meant adopting an older child. 

I have to be completely honest.  I dreamed of cloth diapering, wooden nesting blocks, making my own baby food, and enjoying all of the precious moments of infancy and toddler hood that autism robbed from my family.  I wasn't exactly sure if I wanted to throw my arms around this man's neck or strangle him.  He just opened THAT door...a door I had my foot lightly in front of...because...I wanted a baby.

Several weeks later during our 30 hour state training, that same man, MY HUSBAND (yes, still same the man who said we'd NEVER adopt) was whispering in my ear that he was thinking we needed to consider adopting kids aged 6-11.  I nodded my head in agreement and at the same time picked my jaw up off the floor and figured maybe he was actually SERIOUS about this??? 

At one point during above mentioned training in reference to a sibling group, I literally blurted out:  oh my goodness, please just give those precious babies to me?!?!?!  The trainer held my gaze for a moment, but I had a million reasons (fears/arguments/etc) why we couldn't actually adopt those specific kiddos.  The eldest child's age for one did not fit neatly into my Hero's 6-11 category...and a female???

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I have learned:  don't ask God to lead and then try to tell Him where that destination should be.  And can I just tell you how beautiful it is to walk in obedience behind Him?  All those fears that crippled us in the beginning have just melted away.  I can barely breathe with how much love I have for children I have never met and know almost nothing about.  It's so much like pregnancy...God starts them out as a tiny seed and they grow and grow and time, love, patience, and faith allows all that naturally follows to manifest into a beautiful relationship between parents and children.  They are born of His love spilling into our lives and the overflow from all that He is beckons us to so much more than we could ever hope for or imagine for ourselves.

My prayer is that in time (note all the waiting I have been lamenting...it's a never ending wait...adoption pregnancies) we will be introducing the newest members of our family.  I have no answers right now just faith, love, hope, a whole lot of thankfulness, and a stack of s-l-o-w-l-y learned patience.

 

Waiting

I'm knee deep in adoption books.  Reading about the "trials" of adopting an older child leave my mind spinning.  The OA and I looked at each other in the middle of our 30 hour training and literally thanked God for autism.  I cannot imagine a better boot camp for laying aside all parental expectations and living each moment both good and bad to it's fullest knowing that life is but a series of moments and as fast as one comes on it is soon to be replaced with another.

Since OA and I have decided to adopt, I have stress fractured my foot causing me to be still for over 6 weeks and then to take things VERY slowly as I regain my foot's strength, and I am now under the influence of 3 prescriptions for a wicked kidney infection that has stalled all of my plans to ready my home while I continue to wait for news or at least a call saying our Home Study can be scheduled.  I cannot decide if Satan is trying to bind that which God has planned for good OR if God is trying to bind my incessant need to know what's next and teach me once again to wait for His perfect timing.

And the series of moments continues.

How on earth do I sit still and wait patiently for children who have been waiting for only God knows how long to simply have a forever family?? 

With every second of the clock that ticks away, I feel like it's one more second that has gone by that I haven't been able to let them know that they are so loved and so desired and so being fought for (even if it is "only" on my knees through prayer).  That they have a Dad, a Mom, a brother, and a sister who cannot wait to share their lives and that from this day forward they will never ever have to do this life and it's endless series of moments alone again.  EVER.

I can't wait for them to build trust in us so that we can subsequently introduce them to their Real and Living Father...may they be able to see Him for who He really is...a God who promises GOOD even to THEM.  

So with every single ticking moment I surrender all my hope, fear, frustrations, and impatience to He who also promises to restore all that the locusts have devoured.  I know that my wait, the kind I can only do flat on my face, is not in vain because He is busy fighting the battles for our family.

How can my heart be so committed to something that it has never met or even knows about??

My only explanation is:  FAITH.  And my oh my have I learned so much about His Heart for His Children in this time of wait.

Sigh

They that wait...

...shall go insane?

...shall grow impatient and take the "bull by the horns"

...shall fill their time with other distractions in an effort to make time pass more quickly

...shall renew their strength????

Really, waiting is supposed to be renewing?  What's the catch??

The other day the OA and I gathered up our sweet kiddos and our stack of DHS paperwork on his very first day off in many and very last day off for seven after...a now or never kind of mentality pushing us out the door.  I offered to continue to wait (they only do finger printing one day a week from 8am to noon) but his schedule has taken an off-road-crazy-kinda-turn and he felt if we waited again, it may never happen.

We went to two wrong places before locating the right place (County jail #2...yowza...note to self...don't bring kids with you to get your FP's taken) and then we didn't have exact change and subsequently had to go up the road to a gas station which (of course) we passed and had to turn around...feeling my pain yet?

Exhausted, angry, and completely void of all "warm & fuzzies" one would envision that a day of humbly following God's plan should provide (HA!), I looked at my Hero and said:  it sure is a lot more fun MAKING a baby than it is trying to foster or adopt one.

He only half chuckled...this was the third time we'd gotten into the truck already...and was not even close to being the last.

OA went in first.  I sat in the County jail's waiting room with my children and watched jaw-on-lap-eyes-wide-open as a man scraped an almost empty (yeah the glass was NOT half full that day) jar of peanut butter with a FORK????  His baby watched his father with the same expression as I.  Of course J-bob is allergic to peanuts and I didn't want the man to think me rude, but all I could think of was as many ways to put as much room in between my son and that man.  He finally put the jar away and I was able to relax enough to see him as a human.  I wondered who he was waiting for; I think it was the baby's Mom who was being released from jail.

After half an hour, the OA comes out and it's my turn to go back.  I couldn't take my cell phone.  I had to wait for what felt like FOREVER with absolutely nothing to do.  It's been 7 weeks since my last run (stress fracture and that's an important aside as any who know me well enough understands what running does for my mental well-being) and my "dream" of finally beginning the adoption process was being shattered by wrong turns, wrong change, fork-eaten-peanut-butter, and murmured discussion by the jail officers detailing the rape of an 87 year old woman.  I wanted to run on my broken foot through the shatter-proof windowed security locked doors and scream:  NEVER MIND...this isn't worth it.  It's already too painful.  I want my now-happy world where my worst fears for my children are food allergies, autism, and staying away from bullies on the playground.  I simply cannot do THIS.  So I prayed and confessed and waited some more.

Finally, I was escorted through more doors.  I had to walk on a certain side of a red line.  It was cold, bare, and eerily silent save the rape conversation still pulsing through my mind.  My officer was extremely serious and didn't even make eye contact.  After a few minutes, I managed to make her laugh.  I know she loves Coke and has a 15 month old.  I love watching someone go through the motions of their job and then the surprise on their face as I inevitably say something that disarms them...if even just for the moment.  A friend of mine calls it my "gift".   I think it's more of a curse...my constant weirdness spilling onto those around me allowing them to feel quite-comfortable as themselves knowing full well they are not as odd as I.  Either way, it's fun touching a life.  It makes that one eternal moment of waiting worth it when I finally get to connect again.  I'm so glad our God is a personal God.

It took us over an hour just to get our fingerprints made...a ten minute process at best.  We left there and got our paperwork notarized.  It all still sits on my counter...another day just to find an appropriate envelope and now two more has passed while I try to remember to copy the BACK of my husband's driver's license.  More waiting.

All of my urgency...my need to get things done...it's waiting, too.  My personality's biggest flaw (well, one of many) is rushing.  I realized about the time my children reached "childhood" stage that I desperately need to slow things down...breathe them in...because as soon as I exhale...it will all be passed.  I am learning the value of TODAY.  I don't want to miss out on a second of what is in front of me TODAY, who He wants me to love TODAY, what He wants me to learn TODAY...not one single bit.

There's a bit more to this story of waiting...some big decisions that have been made that I will share later...in the mean time...I must rest in the promise that "they who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength".  If I  only allow it to be so.

Isaiah 40:31

King James Version (KJV)

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.