The Super Adoption and Life Update

So, I realize that I haven’t caught you all up on what exactly has been going on. So, lets’ make this snappy!

For those who missed it:

• We wanted to start a family
• We conceived a lost a son named Liam
• My body went crazy after the miscarriage and I was diagnosed with “unexplained infertility” AKA “we don’t know what the heck is going on either, but we can pretend to help by giving you Clomid.”
• After a year and a half of waiting, I felt like God told me that we should adopt first and birth second. (Adoption was already on the table but for later in life.) My husband surprisingly was on board. (He hates change but God had been prompting him too.)
• After a lot of research, we decided to be a Foster/Adopt family in January. We went through training and home studied and completed our portion on stuff in the middle of June and waited for approval.

…and to catch you up:

• We received “Ben” on August 3^rd…two weeks later we received our approval letter. (Apparently we were approved in the computer system but hadn’t been notified.)

• We are currently part of a dual case plan. Ben’s mother is currently being offered her last chance at reunification. They don’t have a lot of confidence in her, so they placed him with us so that we could adopt him quickly and he wouldn’t have to transition anymore.
• We quickly recognized that Ben needed more care than we could give him with our busy lives…so I full time ministry (almost 7 years on staff at this church) to stay at home with him. I picked up a part time afternoon job that isn’t ministry related. It was a big move but one that I felt like God was prompting me to do.

What’s actually going on with the case: Well, that’s a hard question. Ben’s mom has only shown up at ¼ meetings required and has not formally received a case plan due to her absences. They keep reaching out to her and she does not respond. Our next court date is at the end of January. I am honestly praying that her lack of cooperation leads to an early termination of parental rights (TPR). So, praying friends, please join us in prayer for a speedy TPR and adoption process. (The minimum time is 13 months but this could drag out for as long as 24 months.)

How I am feeling: This is the weirdest time in my life but I feel that I am 100% led by the Holy Spirit. This is not the story that I would have chosen write but it is His story for me. I choose to trust Him. I would NEVER have seen myself staying at home. I am a career woman, dang it! I run with the boys! However, I am having a wonderful time as a mommy to this little one. He feels like he was supposed to be with us the whole time. I am learning more and more every day what it is to live a life dependent on the Lord (many times leaning on Him for sanity when forced to watch yet another episode of Harry the Bunny!)

So, that’s what has been going on in my absence.  I actually had to give back my beautiful laptop when left the church, but after some saving and shopping I am back in business and more posts will be coming soon!

Letting Go and Accepting More

Some amazing people in my life have passed away lately.  A few more are very ill and I know it isn’t much longer.  The entire thing has made me ponder what death really means for a believer.  As a staff member of a church I have been to a lot of funerals.  My favorite funeral moment was while attending a friend’s grandmother’s funeral in Tennessee.  I witnessed a conversation that went something like this:

*Young boy walks to the front of the sanctuary with an adult and looks at the casket.*

“I thought you said Granny was in heaven?”

“Yes, she is.”

*Kid blinks and looks back in the casket.*

“Then why did she come back?”

Great question, right?  As a child, I remember the idea of death and heaven being a strange mixture of over my head and terrifying.  I didn’t want to go to heaven.  Don’t get me wrong, I did not want the alternative; I just wanted to stay here.  I wanted the safety of what I know.  I wanted my bed, my house, my toys, and my mom.  God, however, doesn’t want that for me. He wants more.  He wants to give me peace and beauty….a place with no tears.

It seems as though in both life and death God is constantly calling us to let go of what we know and accept more.  

Stamps

Okay, so this is really a continuation of my last post.  It’s been a couple of weeks since I received the letter in which God totally replied to my prayers though this awesome woman named Anna.  If you haven’t read it, really go back and read it. 

Fast forward to last week when I went to the post office.  I went to buy ONE stamp.  (I had lost my booklet of stamps and had to send my rent check, so I only wanted ONE because I am cheap and was going to look for the booklet later.)  When I arrive the office is closed, so I end up having to buy a booklet again from the kiosk.  I chuck it up and pay for the booklet, but when I went to grab the stamps, I have an extra handful of stamps.  I look around and no one is there, weight the morality of it all, and decide to keep them. 

When I get home, the newsletter from the healthcare ministry that I am in had arrived.  I open it up and started reading.  I turn a page and see the list of names of families that have lost children to miscarriage or still birth and my heart breaks.  Just a few months ago, that was my name.  Those aren’t just names…those are broken, hurting people just like me.  I remembered how much Anna’s letter had meant to me.

So I did what I thought I should do, I prayed and then I grabbed a card and a stamp and sent one mother a card.  I told her the things that I needed to hear.   I told them, what I keep telling myself, day after day.

I counted the names on the list.  Then I counted the stamps.  The same. 

So, today I am Anna.  I am writing all these mommies to let them know that they are not forgotten.  With each card, I feel a little more whole.  All it took was stamps.

Not Forgotten

So, a couple of weeks ago I was having a really hard day.  I saw something about babies online and just lost it, sitting at my desk in my office.  I dried up my tears, packed my things, and left the office.  I got into my car and cried out to God.  I told him how mad I was about losing Liam. I told him about how upset I was that he hadn’t healed my body.  I told him that I didn’t understand.  I told him that I was afraid Liam was just forgotten.  I felt forgotten.  I screamed.  I cried.  Then I calmed down and finished my day

When I arrived home, there was a package for me.  I didn’t recognize the name on the box.  When I opened the box, I discovered a card from a woman I had never met.  She is a part of a Christian healthcare ministry that I am a part of.  She had seen my name listed as a person who had lost a child, and the Lord had placed it on her heart to reach out to me.  She told me her story of loss and then mentioned specifically several of the things that I had prayed about previously that day.  She enclosed an ornament in the box, telling me that my child was not forgotten, but was with our Father.

I think I read that letter two or three times before it sunk in.  I checked the postage on the package.  God knew I was going to have a hard day, so he spoke to this woman a week before so that this letter would get to me on the day that I needed to hear it. WOW.  That’s the God that I serve.  I just can’t chuck that up to coincidence or probability.  I can’t. 

I am not forgotten.  

Heart Like Hannah

I have not written much in the last week or so. It’s been a really tough week. The holiday was much harder on me than expected. In the last week or so:

• I have had someone tell me that I “need to hurry up” and get pregnant
• I have had someone ask if I had kids. (legitimate question…I am just not sure how to answer it anymore)
• I had someone ask me if I was ever going to have a kid
• My cousin lost a baby just a little further along than we were
• I had to watch my husband’s family ogle over a newborn for hours.
• I had someone (who never knew I was pregnant) ask me several times if I am losing weight and tell me that I look great
• I heard my congregation applaud when my coworker mentioned that he and his wife are having a baby
• It was pointed out to me that it is funny that I am so passionate about children and yet don’t have my own
• I

I think the worst part of losing a baby is the fact that you can’t talk about it. People say ignorant things like listed above and we just ignore it. We live in a world filled with families. So, you suck it all in. You deal with all the stressors and you bottle it up. Next thing you know you are crying at your desk at 9AM. (That was me today.) It’s funny, but in many ways it is getting harder as opposed to easier. I had a lot of support for the first week or two but now it almost feels as if life has gone back to normal and Liam is forgotten. People ask me how I am doing and by being honest with them, I felt like I put them in an awkward position.

Tonight I found comfort in reading the story of Hannah and Samuel. I relate a lot to Hannah. She longed for nothing more than to have a child. The Lord gave her a son, but she had to give him back to the Lord. In 1 Samuel 1:27-28, Hannah says, “For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord.” As I continue to heal, I pray that God gives me Hannah’s heart. I want to continue to trust Him with my child. I want to remember that he is lent to the Lord and that I will see him again.

A Mile in the Rain

Today I decided to walk a mile in the rain.  I wasn’t being melodramatic, I just felt cooped up after being at my desk all morning.  I looked out the window and realized that it was just a light sprinkle and decided to go for it.  The church has these prayer paths that are mapped out with specific things to pray for, so I grabbed my umbrella and set out for a walk.

As I walked I prayed.  I started praying for the prayer requests that I had helped type that morning and selfishly drifted to myself and my own problems.  I honestly feel so broken lately.  There is not a day that goes by that I don’t miss my child.  Something happened to my heart…to me when that happened.  I am not the same.  I am completely a broken person.  I don’t think that’s bad, it just is.  I am not looking for sympathy, nor to I walk around in tears every day…so please know my heart.  It just changed me.  It changed the way I see others in tragedy. It changed how I see their chaos.  I get it.  I have known Jesus for such a long time, that I forgot what it felt like to feel lost.  I get what it’s like to trust God for my next steps.  To hope that I am walking in the right direction.  To feel adrift.

So I walked in the rain and prayed for my brokenness and for those who are broken around me.  I prayed for my broken nation.  My broken heart.  My broken friends.

I started to read some scriptures tonight and God led me straight to a scripture about broken things.  The more I looked in the word, the more broken things I saw.  I noticed the broken jar of oil in Mark 14:3 that the woman used to anoint the feet of Jesus.  I thought about the broken bread that Christ used to feed 5000 in Matthew 14:20.  Most importantly I thought about the broken body who took upon itself the sins of the world. My God doesn’t discard broken things, but he finds amazing purpose in them.  So as it says in Psalms 51:17, “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you…”  I give Him my brokenness because he finds it beautiful.

Seeing God in the Mess

Life is a mess right now.  For the last month, it has been almost daily that someone has shared a burden they carry with me.  Everywhere I turn people are hurting.  From marriages to children and work situations, I have heard so many stories.  I add this onto my own personal loss that I am still recovering from and it feels like too much.  I can’t process how so many followers of Christ can live in such chaos at one time.  Tonight I was staring into the mess, trying to see Christ in the clutter and it was so hard.  I just kept running out of prayers to pray, so I starting looking up scripture and found this:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you…Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.” James 2: 1-4 & 7

What stands out to me is that the scripture doesn’t over a remedy to the test.  I think that’s our natural inclination when challenged.  How do we get rid of this?  What steps to do we take?  On the contrary, it challenges you to persevere and, if you need something else, you can ask for wisdom to understand what you’re going through.  So, I suppose that’s what I need, Lord.  Give me wisdom.  I want to see you in this mess and find it beautiful. 

Losing Liam

I never wanted to have children until I married Michael.  Obviously I love children.  I have dedicated years to educating them and support lots of non-profits that help children and families, I just never really cared about having my own.  I thought that I had the best deal ever: I got to spend time with kids all day and then send them home.  Michael changed things.  I knew within two weeks of marriage that I wanted a family with him.  We originally set a goal to wait 5 years, but after 3 we decided enough was enough.

First of all, I cannot say enough how awful “trying” is.  Nothing can make a woman feel more broken then trying to conceive and then it not happening month after month.  You think to yourself, “if the girls on teen mom can get pregnant, what in the world is wrong with me?”  You feel defective.  I started checking my basal body temperature and every other trick I learned about.  I checked out numerous fertility books from the library.  Finally after over a year of trying, we conceived our little one.

Everything was normal for a long time.  Although it was too early to tell for sure, we just knew we had a son.  We named him Liam.  On Friday, we had a perfect ultrasound and saw his heart beat.  It was amazing to watch his little life inside of me. He didn’t move much, but he was right on track.

Monday afternoon, I knew something was wrong.  When I went to bed, I told Michael, “If I wake you up, we have to go to the ER.” At 2 am I woke up and knew something bad was happening. We rushed to the emergency room and waiting for someone to see me. By the time the doctor saw us, the baby was already gone.  We were almost in our second trimester.

This experience has brought up a lot of feelings about my faith.  The cliché, “why do bad things happen to good people” comes to mind.  I sacrifice many things to work in the ministry (financially and personally), I am constantly putting others first, I tithe, and yet this still happens to me.  What benefit did the Lord have in giving me a child for 10 weeks and then taking him away?  Would have not been better to just not give me the child to start with if I were not to carry him to term?

I can’t answer these questions and I am still praying through a lot of this, but all I can tell you for sure is that I have had an overwhelming sense of peace.  It weirds people out.  I live in a strange dichotomy of being completely heartbroken but filled with peace. I don’t understand God’s ways, but I trust Him.  I think it’s okay to trust Him and still wonder why.  A friend sent me this scripture and I pray it over myself every day.  If you are going through something that you don’t understand, I challenge you to pray this over yourself as well. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13