Absent

I feel like the title of this blog is quite fitting. I've been absent. I'm going to be pretty real and raw-not because I want to sound like a broken complaining record, but because I want to be real, and I want to represent a real picture of what the adoption process can feel like at times, because it's not always fun.

Sometimes, it's really really hard

This past week was an incredibly hard week for me.  I was in a fog, and I could sense darkness.  I wanted to stay inside, and not see or talk to anyone.  I was angry.  There are parts of our adoption journey we're choosing not to share publicly, and that's because while I want people to be as involved as they can, there are some things that we will not share, because just like you won't publically share about the negative (and sometimes gross) parts of a pregnancy we are choosing to keep parts of our journey private.

But that also comes with challenges, like this past week for example.  The reality of adoption kind of hit me like a ton of bricks, the reality of a past.  Our son will have a past, a past that might have happiness, but will have sadness because he will loose (either by death, abandonment, ect) his family.  And there will be sadness, and there will be grief.  I will not be able to take back time spent in orphanages, time possibly spent alone with no one to go to him when he cries.  I wonder if he's sick, if he's getting the medicine that he needs, if he's cold. Things I just cant control.

Then I was reminded, kind of like a ton of bricks slamming in my face, I have no control.  As much as I  try to control what I can, I have no control over our adoption.  None, and it's like God shook that into me this weekend. My friend Becky told me a long time ago (and reminded me this past week ;) ) that I have to give my child over to God long before he's home and trust that God in covering him with protection.  I opened up a little to my friend Wynne, about what I'm going through and she gave me some great ideas, because she's been there, you can read a great post she wrote about waiting here...she suggested I write a letter to God. Easier said than done.  How does one start a letter to God? I literally sat there with absolutely no idea what to write...I mean...it's God...

But I did it, and it was hard, and there were many tears but I felt relief! I knew God already knew what I was going through, but writing it out (and reading it aloud) was so freeing.

I know that I'm feeling that dark that's before the morning.  I know we have to continue to fight for our son, because this is not the first of hard days, there will be many hard days in our life together.

It's important for me to write down these times so that I can remember them, and see how they line up with our adoption journey, because maybe someone else is feeling pain similar to mine, and our stories will meet one day.

Until that day, we will continue to press on and fight the good fight.

"My friends, adoption is redemption. It's costly, exhausting, expensive and outrageous. Buying back lives costs so much.  When Christ set out to redeem us, it killed him"

-Derek Loux

...I wonder what God was feeling while He was waiting for me....