I used to dream so big. My brother and I used to look through the JC Penny catalog (yes the real paper and glue catalog not online!!) and we would pick out what we wanted our lives to look like. We would pick our future spouse, our kids, the rooms in the house, the color of the walls ... down to every detail. My favorite was planning the nursery. I would usually choose to have twins or triplets and would pick matching yet different colors for their bedding etc. So .. as I typed that I cringed, because it sounds so dumb in retrospect. And so vain. But on some level it was also full of hope - hope that our lives would be full of all the biggest and best blessings our childish minds could contain.
Fast forward several years and my dreams started being shattered one by one. Almost exactly 6 months after we were married I stood broken and in shame as I whispered to my best friend and husband: "I don't know how to dream anymore."
When you are trying to adopt something weird happens (or is with me at least), you want to dream ... I mean you kind of have to dream to begin the process, but at the same time you are terrified of dreaming. Especially as has been in our case when you have lost babies you thought God was giving to you. As soon as you begin to dream it shatters, and you almost feel like even breathing a hopeful breath will break the magic of the dream and wake you up.
God has been showing me gently all my life I guess, but more lately, that HE is good even if our circumstances are not. And that being grateful for even the hard bits of life is what really knowing Him is all about.
Last night I thought; "I shouldn't let my heart have even the tiniest glimmer of hope" ...(after all only a couple of weeks ago an international situation we were decided to pursue was taken from us because of international adoption law changing and countries becoming harder to adopt from) but I also realized that maybe I would rather have the sigh of relief that dreaming brings even if the dream ends the way they always do. It's torture loving children you have never met, knowing you may never. But at the same time, how can I stop hoping? And how can I hope, when I know that if I ever am given my dream, someone else will be making an impossible decision? I feel like my hope for adoption means that I hope something very hard happens with someone else, and that makes me feel horrible! So, last night I let myself dream. And today I regret it, because I'm afraid of how it will feel when I wake up. But, I just keep trying to remind myself that I will be grateful and choose joy even when I have to wake up ... This is just the reality of where my heart is right now.
So for now, every love song I hear is my heart crying out to our babies ... One Day I've Fly Away
A Thousand Years say something
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Friday, March 7, 2014
Cursed to be a Blessing
I haven't blogged in a while - I have been very busy with my new job teaching at a Christian High school! But something has been on my mind and heart for a long time in regards to adoption stuff and I haven't been able to sort it out until just this week.
Someone said something yesterday about how a young couple is being so blessed as they are pregnant with their first baby - and basically that God is blessing them by allowing them to be part of creating an eternal being. Which is AWESOME - I mean, pregnancy is miraculous in every way and I will always be overwhelmed with worship of a God who can make a baby this way!
When I read the Old Testament in particular there are so many stories of infertility - and the people involved usually refer to themselves as being "cursed" with the inability to bear children. I'm guessing that most of us who can't have children feel "cursed". Now, I know that in Biblical times much more pressure was put on women to be able to produce children - and we live in a different culture today .. but there is still a very strong feeling of being cursed. The Bible also has many stories where God opened a woman's womb especially after her seeking Him, or some special grace given. Even though I don't really believe I am cursed - it feels like it. Because of all this, and because of the general feeling of shame involved in infertility, I have often wondered why God won't gave me a miracle and let me have children. I don't doubt His love, but I feel "less than" all the time. (which is ok - because in my "less than" He is my adequacy)
But this week I realized something. I consider the ability to bear children to be a great blessing, and I will probably always feel a bit cursed in my inability. But this week I started thinking about the blessing of having loving parents (a blessing I have been blessed with). There are children in this world that would give anything to have the blessing of parents who love them, the blessing of coming home to a safe place, to never be abused, to have a warm bed and lots of hugs, to have a daddy to tell them they are beautiful, to have a mama put band-aids on ouchies, to have unconditional love and acceptance and safety. My heart aches for children who don't have those blessings. And I suddenly knew and accepted that I'm ok with being "cursed" so that some of these kids can have the blessings they are longing for in this life.
We started filling out paperwork for our home study this week. It will be a long process - but we're trying to take steps in the right direction.
Someone said something yesterday about how a young couple is being so blessed as they are pregnant with their first baby - and basically that God is blessing them by allowing them to be part of creating an eternal being. Which is AWESOME - I mean, pregnancy is miraculous in every way and I will always be overwhelmed with worship of a God who can make a baby this way!
When I read the Old Testament in particular there are so many stories of infertility - and the people involved usually refer to themselves as being "cursed" with the inability to bear children. I'm guessing that most of us who can't have children feel "cursed". Now, I know that in Biblical times much more pressure was put on women to be able to produce children - and we live in a different culture today .. but there is still a very strong feeling of being cursed. The Bible also has many stories where God opened a woman's womb especially after her seeking Him, or some special grace given. Even though I don't really believe I am cursed - it feels like it. Because of all this, and because of the general feeling of shame involved in infertility, I have often wondered why God won't gave me a miracle and let me have children. I don't doubt His love, but I feel "less than" all the time. (which is ok - because in my "less than" He is my adequacy)
But this week I realized something. I consider the ability to bear children to be a great blessing, and I will probably always feel a bit cursed in my inability. But this week I started thinking about the blessing of having loving parents (a blessing I have been blessed with). There are children in this world that would give anything to have the blessing of parents who love them, the blessing of coming home to a safe place, to never be abused, to have a warm bed and lots of hugs, to have a daddy to tell them they are beautiful, to have a mama put band-aids on ouchies, to have unconditional love and acceptance and safety. My heart aches for children who don't have those blessings. And I suddenly knew and accepted that I'm ok with being "cursed" so that some of these kids can have the blessings they are longing for in this life.
We started filling out paperwork for our home study this week. It will be a long process - but we're trying to take steps in the right direction.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
The First Thanksgiving and being loved
Today I am thinking about the first Thanksgiving ... no, not THAT first thanksgiving, but the first Thanksgiving I ever spent with my husband.
It was nine years ago on Thanksgiving day, and my family had left me home sick for Thanksgiving (in their defense I told them to go on without me). I was getting ready for my big surgery in a couple weeks and so when I began having some weird symptoms I called my dr. who told me to go to the ER because they thought I was reacting to some antibiotics I was taking. I didn't have a car and my family was over 3 hours away - so I called my neighbor (Joshua's parents) and asked if anyone could just drive me and drop me off at the ER. My now Father in law and my Farmer Boy showed up and Joshua drove me to the ER - and he STAYED.
I was embarrassed that he stayed, and so so thankful.
I kept telling him that he was missing Thanksgiving, and should be at home with his family, and he kept saying that he was having fun just being with me and that he didn't want me to be alone. He stayed with me for 8 hours. His sweet family waited until 8 pm when he got home to eat Thanksgiving dinner. I felt bad for making them all wait, I felt sad that he had missed the day playing games with his brothers, and I also felt loved beyond words.
It was on that Thanksgiving that I realized that He loved me, as more than a friend, as more than a neighbor - he loved me! I wouldn't have admitted it then, but it was pretty obvious to everyone that this guy was being more than a good neighbor that day.
And I am so thankful!
We didn't start dating for almost another year, but ever since that day I have thought about him above all others on this earth. I didn't realize it at that time, but I loved him too, and I've loved him every day since.
So, today, as we are away from family living in a new place, I am still thankful .... so so thankful that I get to spend this my favorite holiday with the man who loved me on that Thanksgiving so long ago.
It was nine years ago on Thanksgiving day, and my family had left me home sick for Thanksgiving (in their defense I told them to go on without me). I was getting ready for my big surgery in a couple weeks and so when I began having some weird symptoms I called my dr. who told me to go to the ER because they thought I was reacting to some antibiotics I was taking. I didn't have a car and my family was over 3 hours away - so I called my neighbor (Joshua's parents) and asked if anyone could just drive me and drop me off at the ER. My now Father in law and my Farmer Boy showed up and Joshua drove me to the ER - and he STAYED.
I was embarrassed that he stayed, and so so thankful.
I kept telling him that he was missing Thanksgiving, and should be at home with his family, and he kept saying that he was having fun just being with me and that he didn't want me to be alone. He stayed with me for 8 hours. His sweet family waited until 8 pm when he got home to eat Thanksgiving dinner. I felt bad for making them all wait, I felt sad that he had missed the day playing games with his brothers, and I also felt loved beyond words.
It was on that Thanksgiving that I realized that He loved me, as more than a friend, as more than a neighbor - he loved me! I wouldn't have admitted it then, but it was pretty obvious to everyone that this guy was being more than a good neighbor that day.
And I am so thankful!
We didn't start dating for almost another year, but ever since that day I have thought about him above all others on this earth. I didn't realize it at that time, but I loved him too, and I've loved him every day since.
So, today, as we are away from family living in a new place, I am still thankful .... so so thankful that I get to spend this my favorite holiday with the man who loved me on that Thanksgiving so long ago.
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