Not Flesh of my Flesh......

"Not flesh of my flesh, or bone of my bone, but somehow, still miraculously my own. Never forget, for a single minute, you didn't grow under my heart, but in it."

It's National Adoption Month. I think there may have also been a National Adoption Day, but I'm blessed that I remembered today is Monday so special days outside of the norm don't register in this mama's memory. And even though this adoption road has been quite bumpy, adoption and foster care are things I do still feel passionate about......though my perspective has changed a bit.

When Jake and I first started this journey, I would read the above quote and sob at the idea of having a child that I could share those words with one day. A child that would embrace the idea of me as some ethereal woman robed in white with children bouncing on my knee with love pouring out of my veins and into the lives of all of the people around me. I was also delusional. First of all, I'm not ethereal. At all. Second, white makes me look like death. Third, no child, living a for real life, with for real people, will ever look at their mother with zero angst. So toss that romanticized version of "mothering" out the window, fast forward to actually having our child in his new forever home, and insert the ACTUAL reality.  Adoptive/foster parents are NOT saints. They are NOT perfect. They do NOT have it all together. They do NOT want you to put them on a pedestal. They ARE sinners just like every other Tom, Dick and Harry. They ARE still people. And people, people are just the worst.

Really. We are. And adoptive/foster parents suck at life just like non-foster/adopt parents. The ONLY difference between the two is one said "yes". One said "yes". And "yes" for us looks like this:

Adoption/Fostering is:

- like putting yourself on the fast track to sanctification. If there is anything awful inside of you, children, especially children from really hard places, will bring those impurities to the service for God to burn off.
- not always about the child. Very very often, the child is the last redeemed soul......while the rest of the family finds themselves closer to God than EVER imagined before.
- a deliberate, intentional proclamation to gut it out. To CHOOSE DAILY from the beginning of the paperwork and forward to fight the fight and do the character building and LOVE regardless of the hard, ugly, terrible stuff that might happen.
- an unpredictable path with only one road map and one compass......THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT GOD.
- a beautiful love story
- a tragedy
- heartbreaking AND heartwarming
- a step of faith
- a whipping post
- a physical reminder of how God can and will heal......

Don't tell me I'm amazing. When I'm getting screamed at or spit on or breaking up another sibling fight, I don't feel amazing. When I'm hiding in the closet with my husband praying for a breakthrough for a child, I don't feel like what I'm doing is anything greater than anyone else. But then......when someone asks him "what does it mean to be adopted?" and he replies "it means mommy and daddy loves me".........there is beauty in the ashes. There is fruit. There is purpose in this pain. There is a reminder that anybody can say "yes"......because WE ARE NOT THE ONES THAT HEAL. We are not the saints. We are just the sinners. The vessels. The ones that prayed some crazy prayer one day and asked God to break our hearts. He broke our hearts. Our family. Our idea of family. We have had 5 days of good. 5 days straight. In the last 13 months, this is a record. The days have been long. We've analyzed and questioned and wondered and pondered. We've prayed and we've disciplined and explained and explained again and hugged it out and prayed prayed and then prayed. And some days, the efforts felt in vain. Some days, we labor without remembering that God is laboring with us. Some days I swear God throws His hands up and says "great! Thanks for making My job harder!". But we plug away. Day by day. And why? Because God.

Because God.

Someone asked me just last week "why Ukraine? Why not adopt from the US?" and I quickly replied, "because when we prayed, God said Ukraine". Is a Ukrainian childs soul not as valuable as an American childs soul? I think that foster/adopt families will ALL agree that every child is worth it. The day that we start regarding children as disposable, or not worth the fight, is the day that we have to question our own lives. Why are we worthy of life and purpose if they aren't? I look at my life. At the ashes. At the shape that the potter is still molding me into.....and I imagine my children one day, changing the world, one super hard day at a time. Because they have seen how God works in HIS time. They have seen Him redeem and restore and renew. I know, that even today, day 5 of great, that my mind still has no capability of understanding what God has in store for those that love and serve Him (1 Cor. 2:9). I believe everyone deserves a chance to find out. And that it's our job to afford them that opportunity.

I don't believe this is a job for everyone. But I do believe, that anyone that says "yes" will be sustained and walked with and held onto by a God that loves them as the orphaned child they once were.

I don't know what today is.....national adoption day or ugly dog day or whatever day. But I know that today, my son told me that he chooses to love me. It's a hard choice for him to make. Trust is HARD. But God.

Thank you to all of the women that chose life for their children. They are not always flesh of our flesh or bone of our bone, but somehow they are still miraculously (by the grace of God) our own.