There are many things I love about my passionate personality. I tend to be
Oh but there are times, and this is one of them, that I long for a more steady, even keel personality.
I have never been so overwhelmed in my life. Or so lonely. You know, the kind of lonely where you are in a crowd full of people and still feel completely alone. The dumb, self pitying, no one else knows what this is like, kind of alone. But there it is. Here I am. The frustrating thing is that so much of the isolation is self imposed. And I know this. I am surrounded by people who love me, and who love Jesus, and who I know would probably give me a kidney (don't hate - I have some good community around me) if I needed it. What is it about struggle that tempts us to disengage from the community that we so desperately need and then taunts us with the lie that we are alone?
Right now, the roller coaster is stalled in a place I don't love: mourning what has been lost. I've discovered something interesting about families. We each have our own family culture. You know, all of those things that make your family 'home' for you. Foods we all like to eat, games we like to play, t.v. shows we like to watch together. There is this comfortable rhythm that comes from having spent most of our lives together. For the most part we laugh at the same kind of humor, enjoy many of the same activities and just get each other. I hadn't considered what it might be like for cultures to collide when we added four new people, with their own rhythms and culture - not even taking into account the genuine cultural differences that are inherent in trans-racial fostering/adoption. The realization that we would need to let go of some of that culture to make space for God to build something new, and the letting go? It's hard.
This is all so difficult to communicate. We are asked regularly how the kiddos are doing, how we are doing. And the truth really is they are doing GREAT! Over and over again we have been humbled and amazed by the determination and resilience these kids have exhibited in the face of more trauma, transition, and loss than most of us could imagine. They have offered us much grace as we sometimes, in our efforts to heal, unintentionally cause more pain or damage. Sometimes it feels like trying to navigate a mine field. They are working their tail ends off to catch up at school. They are trying so hard to meet a whole new world of expectations. They have courageously opened their hearts to our friends and church family. They are fighting with all their might to connect and attach, though I know this is terrifying for them. And with every passing day, I see more and more glimpses of what is to come. And I know. I KNOW. He is making beauty from ashes. That what He rebuilds will bring more joy and purpose and glorify Him beyond anything we could have constructed on our own. But some days are hard. And I am struggling with the hard.
I miss easy. I miss comfortable. I miss natural intimacy and relationship. I miss not having to fight so hard for joy. And I am ashamed at how spoiled I am. How easily I allow my joy to be stolen and how shallow my gratitude really is.
But in the quiet moments, when my heart is stripped bare before the Lord, hands open and empty, I have heard Him ask. . .do I love him enough to hate even my family in comparison? Will I give up even the thing I so struggle to hold loosely. What's more, do I really trust Him? Do I believe, really believe that He is able to make something even more beautiful than I could ever ask or imagine? That perhaps what I thought was so good was only a dim shadow, only the tiniest hint, of the joy and grace that He wants to work in my life. And in those quiet moments, the answer is, "Yes!" In those moments that I glimpse the beauty and the good He is starting to work, I trust it with every ounce of me. And I am praying for the
