Category Archives: post adoption

all things for good

Posted on by October 20, 2014

Last night, for the first time in two years, I stood during worship and enjoyed the full benefit of our childcare ministry. All the little kids were in their classes, and as we sang “I will fear no evil for my God is with me” my biggest distraction was trying to live that out in the moment, and not freak out about all of the potential fallout from this experiment.

all things for good: risking failure without fear

With only one exception, Andrey and Reagan have sat with us in church for two years. We attempted Sunday School classes for them when we first brought them home, quickly realized the error of our ways, and have kept them with us ever since. This, from an amazing pro-adoption church that has an incredible special needs ministry already in place. It wasn’t their fault; we just weren’t ready. But we’ve spent the last two years learning and communicating, and the last several weeks training and doing more communicating, and lo and behold: Reagan has joined class again at church. So far, so good – no fallout, no backlash. This is a huge victory.

So we went all crazy radical and let Andrey go to class, too – which leads me to the verse of the day, friends:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 

– Romans 8:28

How did it go? Let’s just say…it wasn’t a victory for him. But last night was a wonderful, safe opportunity for failure. And we learned, the staff learned, and grace abounds for each of us as we navigate the details of care and communication. Andrey learned, and consequences are swiftly applied. No class anytime in the near future, because class is for big kids who don’t use their bodily fluids to manipulate the attention and time of others.

And we’re calling it good. It works together for his good, for our good, for our church’s good, because God doesn’t waste a thing.

Not our past, not our mistakes, not our ignorance and not the sins of others – nothing is wasted. In the stewardship of heaven, it is used for good, and turned in our favor.

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We see it in Joshua. A grave mistake was made in the first battle after Jericho – one man sinned, the entire nation lost the battle of Ai, and it was a devastating follow-up to what had looked so promising after the victory at Jericho.

And yet…God. They dealt with the sin, and God sent them back to Ai. He turned the failure on its head and used it for good:

And I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. And when they come out against us just as before, we shall flee before them. And they will come out after us, until we have drawn them away from the city. For they will say, ‘They are fleeing from us, just as before.’ So we will flee before them. Then you shall rise up from the ambush and seize the city, for the Lord your God will give it into your hand.

– Joshua 8:5-7

They won the city. And the next one, and the next one, and then one king came to try to help another city against Joshua and the Israelites, but that was a bad idea because they beat him, too. On and on, until they cleared Canaan, north and south. They wiped the giants from the land.

In our lives, even small setbacks and seemingly simple errands – a missed appointment, wasting time stuck in traffic, or just dropping off a movie at the Redbox kiosk – these are details that are divinely appointed, orchestrating time and events like notes in a song that come to play in just the right moment.

His timing is perfect; He doesn’t sway His plans due to our opinion of dissonance.

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I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.

What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance.

Phil. 1:12-13, 18-19

We know that big leaps in progress with Andrey and Reagan are often met with significant regressions in other areas – for some reason they come hand in hand, like a baby crying during a growth spurt. But in order for them to grow and experience victory, we have to risk failure, even though we will all live with the consequences from it. And He will use it for good. Shout, for the Lord has given you the city…

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For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

– Romans 8:29-30

God, tonight I’m praying for these Called Ones, that they would know the mighty vision you have for each of them and that they would step boldly out there into it, unflinching and unafraid of failure because victory is at hand.

We must risk failure without fear, knowing that dissonance is covered with the grace of a brilliant God who can handle both our mistakes and those of others. We were meant to clear the giants from the land. We were made to win the cities.

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This is day 20 of Without Ceasing: 31 Days of Relentless Prayer. Find the other posts here. To get new posts right in your inbox, subscribe here.

a path which few can tell

Posted on by August 25, 2023

She says, “I ya you, mama,” and I’m not sure if she means it, or if she even knows what it means yet, but she hears it from us and feels safe to repeat it back, finally. It has taken two years.

And him…he waves. He smiles. I give him thumbs-up, and he gives thumbs-up back, instead of any equivalent to the middle finger, which is what we’re used to. He also has recently started saying “I love you” – and it was heart-meltingly sweet at first, but then we realized that aggressive or defiant behavior follows it every time. Now, it just puts us on alert.

a path which few can tell: praying for families on the front lines

So there is progress, but we are hard to please because we want it to be faster than two steps forward, 1.9 steps back. We are past the stage of not recognizing our home anymore, but not yet to the point of getting to go out of the house for dates yet. I have vague memories about our life before adoption, including certain things that made it possible for us to leave the house without children. Maybe you’ve heard of them – I think they’re called “babysitters?” – but I don’t think they exist anymore.

Yes, it’s still hard around here. But most days, we see light at the end of the tunnel and we’re pretty confident that it’s not an oncoming freight train. We’re starting to make headway, and the emotional trauma involved in fighting our childrens’ past no longer slays me like it used to. This was not always the case.

So Perseus started on his journey…and away through the moors and fens, day and night toward the bleak north-west, turning neither to the right hand nor the left, till he came to the Unshapen Land, and the place which has no name.

And seven days he walked through it, on a path which few can tell; for those who go there again in dreams are glad enough when they awake; till he came to the edge of the everlasting night, where the air was full of feathers, and the soil was hard with ice; and there at last he found the three Gray Sisters, by the shore of the freezing sea, nodding upon a white log of drift-wood, beneath the cold white winter moon; and they chanted a low song together, “Why the old times were better than the new.”

There was no living thing around them, not a fly, not a moss upon the rocks.

– Charles Kingsley, The Heroes

The journey often feels like the place which has no name.

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A dear friend of mine said this:

I told my husband just yesterday, “Adoption is the loneliest thing you will ever do,” and I wondered out loud why would God call people to adopt if it only leaves them feeling alone and isolated….an island in a world that pays little attention…and he said, “It is not God’s will that we are alone…it is a heart condition of our society.”

And I agree with both of them. I don’t think it’s an intentional heart condition, but an undiagnosed heart condition, made possible by the combination of decades of misinformation via the media, and a shallow culture that is discomfited by those who get their hands dirty because it threatens to mess up the manicures of the elite.

Deep breath. All this, with a broken coffee pot. I guess we should be grateful that this wasn’t a caffeinated post.

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 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

– 2 Corinthians 1:3-

But friends, post-adoption depression…it’s real, and serious. It’s a different beast than post-partum or any other depression, and it comes with a myriad of its own mutilated griefs, but they’re all spawn of the same ugly monster. Life doesn’t go on hold for families who bring hurting children into their homes, and in many cases, they deal with drama and attack from several directions outside the home as well. If you know an adoptive/foster family, or a special needs family, or a family who falls into both categories (and many do) – for the love of all that is holy, pray for them.

If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

– 2 Corinthians 1:6-7

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Jesus, we pray for your peace and patience and wisdom in homes that need you utterly right now. Adoptive families, special needs families, foster families, blended families, grieving families – come over each of them with Your Spirit, and flood their homes with peace and joy, unity and healing, that makes the enemy flee.

You have great days ahead for us. Your plans are good. You make beautiful things out of the dust. You make all things new.

The Unshapen Land…it’s not a place we linger or stay, but it has lessons to teach for those who trod the bleak path there. They come out wiser and well-armed to slay the monster, and finish the task before them.

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This story is now told in Risk the Ocean: An Adoptive Mom’s Memoir of Sinking and Sanctification.