The great adoption wrestling...

I am scared to write this post. I am scared for you to see some of my ugly thoughts. I am scared for you to see my wrestlings in writing. It's as if now them being in print makes them real and I can't take them back or deny that I was here on this day...you have been warned- proceed at your own risk of judging me.

Most of you know that Andy and I are pursuing adoption a second time around and some even know we are almost half way through our foster to adopt training. I can honestly say I usually go in every week to training saying "God, I don't know if I can do this" then on the way home "God, here I am...send me". It has been the craziest of wrestlings in my heart.
Some things I don't have a problem with like adding kiddos to our family. I find myself praying, Lord fill this house. If there is an open space you can have it. May you get the glory in all of this. May kids come to know you God through this all. I find myself excited about loud houses, big meals, and all the chaos and deep love that comes in the form of a large family.

So there are some big themes running through this journey where I am today. The first is fear. So the fear, deep down ugly wrestling comes as this- What if God says no? What if God says yes and it completely F's up my life in the ugliest ways. What if I am not as strong as I think I am? What if I'm not actually brave? What if everything I think I know about trauma turns out to be a lie? Does God see that I long for more infants? I'm scared that I will say yes to a "situation" for all the wrong reasons. What if my friends leave me through this? What if all the people say this is a great idea actually leave when it gets hard? I'm scared! Why can't things just be like "Kadence's story" where it is beautiful, restorative, and healing and then I find myself wrestling with myself and asking why can't this be? Does God see that the thought of reunification scares me to my core...like so much so that I can't articulate my thoughts around this idea? He sees all the hairs on my head so I know he knows my heart but why can't he just tell me his plan...

Here enters theme two Control. Andy is the one that has pointed this out to me the most recently. I want control of this journey. I want to check a box that says I want this, this, this and I would like them around May 27th-June 5th. I would like the rights to have already been terminated and a seamless transition. I want them to "fit" in our home and I don't want to get hurt. I want to have the room ready, a plan in place, Kadence prepared, and my marriage ready for the change. The reality is that if I really did get everything "my way" God wouldn't get the glory at that point. And as much as I love everything in Kadence's story the thing I love the most is that without a shadow of a doubt that God wrote her story and placed her in my arms. There was wrestling and fear, man was there fear...and some big alligator tears but He lovingly pulled me in and showed me that Him being in control is better than when I am in control.

The next theme that runs through things this soul is anger. If you didn't think things were ugly yet they are about to get worse. I am angry. I am angry that foster care is even an option. I am angry that people hurt children. I am angry that statistically 75%-95% of kids in care have been sexually abused. That makes me angry! It makes me angry that a question on the home study is what are your thoughts about people that abuse their children? What is the appropriate response you are looking for here? I am angry that for andy and I to add a child to our home it takes roughly upwards of 20,000 to go through an agency for an infant adoption or through foster care it takes us a minimum of 9 weeks of training, four home study visits, a crap ton of paperwork, and then at the end of all of this they are telling us to not be alarmed if we get hotlined because foster kids or birth families hotline their foster families a lot when they get angry. I'm angry that my heart can long so deeply to create forever families for children to provide healing and show them the beauty that comes from a mommy and daddy loving you selflessly and with everything in them... and yet no matter how deeply I long for that statistically they will still choose their birth family and the courts will choose reunification.

The last next theme that runs through all of this is passion.  With all the fear, the control I long to have, and the anger that comes when I sit and think through all of the brokeness of all of this I am incredibly passionate about adoption. I am passionate about children getting to experience family and the love of God through our home. I am passionate about reunification...not so much with the people that hurt them but with their heavenly father. I am passionate about healing. I am passionate about jumping all in...with all of my fear, all of my own brokenness, and all of the things I don't understand and I can't figure out and I am confident that however this story unfolds I will do it with every ounce of passion in me. My whole heart is in...and for all of those "waiting children" that I look through on a consistent basis you are not far from my heart at any time. I pray that your identity will not be known based off of the info on your profile on a waiting child list. I pray that you get the opportunity to be known and loved in the deepest ways. I pray that while you wait you know that you are loved and that there are people all over this country that are wrestling though this and trying to jump through all the red tape to get to add you to their family.

The last theme (or the last I have time to blog about today) is faith. What are all of these other wrestlings if I don't have faith. Faith that God knows my heart, that God knows my home, that God knows my marriage. I have faith that God is writing this story...that He is taking me on my ugly days when I want to throw a temper tantrum because all of this feels "unfair". He's with me when I let my day dreaming get a little out of control and I send Andy sibling sets of like 12 kids and ask him if that's too many. He's with me when I cry, He's with me when I doubt, and He's moving and shaking and preparing me even when I can't see it.

As a disclaimer or if anyone was wondering...if babies just start popping out of the woodwork (what a weird figuratively speaking statement) we will take them too... ;)

So here I am, a girl that has great gobs of a lot on her heart. A lot more than can be summed up when you ask, "How's it going?". Some days it's going really well and I am juggling all the plates of thoughts in this journey and there are other days like today when you would do well to know that I am doing the best I can to juggle all the things I am wrestling with. There are hard days, there are days when I don't understand, but at the end of all my wrestling I keep telling God, "Here I am send me"...

How Ironic that on pandora just came "Take My Life"

Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands, and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.

Take my voice, and let me sing always, only, for my King.
Take my lips, and let them be filled with messages from Thee.
Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect, and use every power as Thou shalt choose.

Take my will, and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee.