The Imperative of Pain - The Undiminished Gospel

Off to get coffee and write a blog!

We are very selective when we talk about adoption.  We like to talk about the beauty and redemption inherent in successful adoptions. We like to talk about the believer's call to care for orphans.  We love to talk about adoption as a powerful illustration of the Gospel - in fact Scripture draws this parallel
in Romans 8:15-17.

While each of those statements are beautifully true, the problem is this --- those true statements are only part of the whole and as long as we remain selective in our conversation we create a very dangerous, romanticized view of adoption which has significant consequence in both the lives of adoptees as well as the families who choose this path.   There are many reasons that we must resist the temptation to romanticize adoption by remaining silent about the deep pain that accompanies this journey.  Here are just a few:

1.  Pain is not our enemy:  We live in a society that avoids discomfort at all costs.  Physically, emotionally, psychologically...we have completely lost sight of a very important truth:  pain is not an enemy, but an incredibly valuable alarm system.  Without pain, we have no idea when something is wrong.  Pain is a messenger that tells us to pay attention --- to stop and assess before further damage is done.  When we ignore pain or deaden it with medication, we risk further injury.  It is much more difficult to find it's root and work toward healing the cause rather than simply treating the symptoms. When we refuse to acknowledge and talk openly about the pain and loss that always precipitates adoption, we rob our children of the freedom to express grief over that loss and grief is an absolutely vital part of the healing process.  Adoption should be painful.   The rending of a family that God Himself knit together should be painful.  This pain should sound a glaring alarm for us as the Body of Christ!  God created families to be permanent and we should seek with all of our might to keep families together first.   And when this is impossible, we should grieve deeply alongside of the precious children who become collateral damage in the wake of sin or tragedy.

2.  A romanticized view of adoption sets adoptive parents up for failure.  
I understand the dilemma.  How much do we share?  And how do we share openly and truthfully, without turning someone away from this path when what is desperately needed is for the church to step up and DO SOMETHING!  There are tens of thousands of children in THIS COUNTRY --- one of the wealthiest and most privileged in the world --- waiting for an adoptive family.  Waiting for someone to step up to the plate and answer the call.   Waiting for someone to say, "I choose you."   Each year, approximately 20,000 children in the U.S. will age out of the system. I deeply understand the dilemma.  I want to beg people to run toward this call.  To lay down their own life and choose the life of a hurting child.  The temptation to whitewash the challenges and pain, that are so closely intertwined with the joys and triumphs, is great.

It is also dangerous.  The realities of walking alongside children who have suffered so much at such a young age can be devastating.  Parents who are considering coming alongside children from such hard places must be better equipped for the challenges.  How in the world can we prepare for a battlefield when we have no idea what is coming?!

When we romanticize adoption, the Church has no idea how desperately we need her to come alongside of us.  This call is too big for any one of us.  Our kids need a village to step into their lives to speak grace and love and truth.  We, as adoptive parents, need rest and reprieve from the day in day out of this difficult walk.  I need other believers to sit in the muck with me and simply grieve the damage that sin and tragedy have wrought in the lives of my kid's and, by proxy, my heart.

3.  When we avoid the reality of grief, pain, and loss as an inherent part of the adoption story, we diminish the Gospel.
Sin causes tremendous separation and damage.  It wreaks havoc on our world and in our lives.  But this is the absolute power and beauty of the Gospel!  To quote from an author we are reading in our Sunday night study at church:

"Christianity, unlike any other religion in the world, begins with catastrophe and defeat.  Sunshine religions and psychological inspirations collapse in calamity and wither in adversity.  But the Life of the Founder of Christianity, having begun with the Cross, ends with the empty tomb and victory."
                                                                                                                      ~Bishop Fulton Sheen

This is hope!  This is the grace and redemption of the Gospel...of Jesus Himself!  To deny the pain and challenge is to cheapen the beauty of the Gospel and it's power to redeem and triumph over even the most vicious schemes of the Enemy.  What begins in catastrophe and defeat is, in Christ, resurrected to power and victory!

In light of this, I asked Sammy to speak into some of the challenges over the course of the coming weeks:

Do you think it is important that adopted kids have the freedom to talk about the pain they have experienced and do you feel free to talk about your feelings about foster care and adoption?

Sammy:   I agree that's really important.  I feel like I have that freedom but I usually don't express myself because I don't think people will understand.  Sometimes I believe I can work through them by myself.  My heart feels like that's true but my mind knows that it's not.

Sometimes I think if I ask for help, I will be judged for it.

What are some of the things you do to avoid emotional pain:
Sammy:   I try not to think about it, shut everybody out.   I've spent a lot of years doing everything possible to avoid talking and thinking about the adoption and foster care.  I just push it to the back of my mind and don't think about it because I know if I think about it, I will have an emotional breakdown.

The problem with avoiding the pain is that the more you avoid it the more pain it causes and the more I get frustrated by it.

Do you think you're making progress in talking about your past?
Sammy:   I can talk about it without getting as emotional as I used to.  I don't like when I don't have control over emotions.  I feel as I get older I can think about things more and not just act on impulse.   The more I think about the things I went through, the more I realize I don't want to be 21 and still have all these problems I haven't worked through.  I feel like I have the resources and I might as well use them instead of trying to keep it all to myself because in the end that doesn't work.

Overall do you think adoption is a good thing?
Sammy:   I wouldn't say it is a bad thing or a good thing.  It depends on the people you're with.   Some foster parents are bad and some are the kind you need to be around.

What are the best parts of adoption?
Sammy:  There are a lot more resources and people willing to help you.  You can stay in a good school and better environment than you were.  You know there are people who are willing to help you and want to see you succeed and will do everything they can to help you.

What are the worst parts of adoption?
Sammy:  Even though you're happy that you're in a good foster home there is still a part of you that just wants to go back to your mom and home.  When you feel happy you feel like you're betraying your biological parents. . .they might think you don't want to come home.  It feels exhausting all the time to feel like if I'm too happy here, my  mom might get mad.

You feel like you have to compete with their biological kids and live up to those expectations
It's just so confusing.  You want this to be your new family and feel like you have someone to count on but but then at the same time I just really want to be home with my mom.

I am so thankful for Sammy's willingness to express her heart here.  Please continue to pray for us!  The enemy is not happy about the progress this beautiful girl is making and would love to see her fail!  We are so encouraged by the initial responses to this blog!  Thank you for coming with us on this crazy journey!

**This blog is a part of a series that my 17 year old daughter Sammy and I are writing together.  The blogs are a window into some of the greatest joys and most difficult challenges we have navigated on the adoptive journey.  

Sammy's words in this blog are her own!  I have helped her clean up some of the grammar for the sake of clarity and asked questions to help her flesh out her story but the vernacular and vocabulary are hers and hers alone.  I have added a few parenthetical statements of my own for clarification. These are the pieces she is bravely choosing to share that someone else might be encouraged, challenged, or moved by her story.   The first blog in the series can be found here.***

The Beginning

**This blog is a part of a series that my 17 year old daughter Sammy and I are writing together.  The blogs are a window into some of the greatest joys and most difficult challenges we have navigated on the adoptive journey.  

Sammy's words in this blog are her own!  I have helped her clean up some of the grammar for the sake of clarity and asked questions to help her flesh out her story but the vernacular and vocabulary are hers and hers alone.  I have added a few parenthetical statements of my own for clarification. These are the pieces she is bravely choosing to share that someone else might be encouraged, challenged, or moved by her story.   The first blog in the series can be found here.

Sammy's Story:

Hi, my name is Samantha.  I am sixteen years old.  My favorite color is blue.  I love to sing and dance, and I love Justin Bieber.  Don't hate.   I just got my driver's license a couple of months ago.  I was ecstatic!  

I have a lot of siblings (ten that she knows of, between her adoptive and biological families).  I have a crazy family because I am adopted.   I was taken into foster care at age 12.  I was extremely angry that they took us from my mom.   The night they took us away--there were 6 of us--we had to spend the night at the agency because they didn't have anywhere for us to go.  The next day we were split up.  Three of us went to our aunt's house and the rest of us to a cousin's house.   At first it wasn't too bad because we were with family.  We still got to see our cousins and people we had ties with.   We knew our family wanted to help us.  We stayed there for a few months and then they started to have family problems.  It was too much for them to handle with all of us and we had to move.  That was when it got really hard because they started to split us up.  In the next two years I moved 17 times.  (Sammy's adoptive and foster records actually indicate that she moved 26 times in 24 months.)   I never had a connection anywhere.  I wanted to be with my mom.  I could never really settle down and I never really fit anywhere.   I was so angry at everyone all of the time and it was hard for me to get along with people. 

I used to get in trouble a lot.  I thought maybe if I got in trouble enough, nobody would want me and I could go back to my mom.  Sometimes I wouldn't get to see my brothers and sisters for a long time.  The only time we got to see each other was at visits at the agency, maybe once a moth.  It was always really hard to leave those visits.  It would make me so angry and afraid that I might not see them again.  A couple of my placements were with some of my  sisters and those were the best ones. 

After about 2 years of bouncing around foster homes, I met the Daniels at the agency.    I was excited because I knew that I might get to stay in a place or even be adopted with some of my siblings.  I thought it was weird that they lived in the country and I was a city girl.  I wondered why they wanted to adopt us.

Moving to their house was hard.  There was a lot going on.  I had to change schools again.  There were four of us moving in.  They already had three kids.  It felt really weird to think about a home that actually wanted to adopt us. 

Our adoption was finalized about a year and a half ago.  I was really conflicted about it.  Part of me wanted to be adopted and part of me didn't. I still feel that way.  (That's a whole other blog we will write later!)  We have had a lot of ups and downs since then.   I want to write this blog because I think it might help other kids who are going through this process so they can know they are not alone.   Even though they are going through it, they can know there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Even if they feel conflicted at the time, they can know it might end up being the best thing for them.    This is why I want to tell my story.

Chris, Sammy, Shanita (Sammy's biological mom), and Tashiana

Chris' Story

In August of 2012, my family took a vacation to Florida.  This is what our family looked like back then:

 As we do on most of our vacations, we drove.  We love the spontaneity and adventure that comes along with a good road trip.  In our years with our children, much of our best conversation has happened in the car...maybe because they are a captive audience. 

On this particular road trip, after some incredible conversations about faith and what it looks like to really live this thing out for our family, our two oldest posed a really challenging question.  It went something like this, "Mom and Dad, we have talked about God calling our family to adoption for as long as we can remember.  Are we just going to keep talking about it, or are we ever going to be obedient and just do it?"

Sheesh.  Talk about accountability.  We spent much of the rest of that drive home worshiping, praying, and seeking God.  With great excitement, we started the process to become licensed for foster care shortly after returning home from that vacation.

It is so interesting to look back on the process now.  In fact, it is quite jarring to recognize the gulf between the process for us, which was filled with joy and anticipation, and the process for our children, filled with grief and pain and loss.  

As we jumped through all of the hoops to get our home licensed, prepared and rearranged bedrooms, and did our best to prepare our hearts for the major adjustments to come, we were overwhelmed with the support and encouragement of our church family.  Once again, while we experienced the joy of family and community, our kids were drowning in separation, alienation, and rejection.

Still, we did anticipate the growth of our family with great joy as we learned of 4 siblings who needed placement together (Two more sisters were already in permanent, stable placements.)  We knew this would stretch us beyond our capacity, but we trusted intently that God would provided what we needed if this was where He was calling and by April of 2013, our little family had grown to this:

This picture, by the way, was taken in the same place in Florida where God moved our hearts more firmly toward adoption.  Full circle.  It took nearly 2 1/2 years to finalize the adoption, but in July of 2015 we took these photos in the courthouse downtown.  (Getting a good, functional picture of our family requires an act of God.)

Again,this day was filled with conflicting truths and emotions:  joy, and pain, beginning and end, separation and union, anticipation and regret, sorrow and hope.  It is strange how these emotions can simultaneously inhabit such close quarters, but they absolutely do and for kids who have already been drug onto a roller coast ride of emotions that they never asked for, it can be incredibly confusing and overwhelming.  When they asked Sammy if she consented to this adoption (as they do with children 14  and older) I held my breath.  I was honestly unsure what she would say as she had wavered many times in the preceding months.  She said yes.  

The gravity of that 'yes' was not lost on me and as I sat in that courtroom with some powerfully conflicting emotions of my own, I begged God for healing, connection, and peace for her heart and for our family.  Every day since then has been a step toward His answer to that prayer.  The answers have not come as quickly or completely as I would like to demand, but as they unfold they are more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.  

The adoption has been finalized for just over a year now and sometimes I think we are beginning to find some solid footing.  Other days I wonder if we have gained any ground at all.  But every moment, He has been faithful, and more than this story is ours, I pray it will be His.

An Adoption Story

A couple of years ago, my then 15 year old daughter, Samantha, expressed that she would like to write her adoption story in hopes that it might help other kids who were struggling through similar circumstances.  At the time, I was not sure she was ready to examine her own past that closely, much less share it with others.  Over the course of the last two years, Sammy has grown in some incredible ways.  This warrior of a girl has fought through more grief and loss in her first 16 years than many of us will face in a lifetime.  I have watched her muscle her way out of some terrible pits...some she dug herself, some that she was pushed into by no fault or choice of her own.  She is learning what it means to be loved - by herself, by a family, and most importantly by the only One who can redeem every bit of brokenness and loss.

So we have decided to write a series of blogs.  Once a week we will address the topic of adoption. My hope is that this blog will give Sammy a voice.    We are writing for us--to process, vent, reflect and gain some empathy and understanding for the other's perspective.  We are writing for you--that perhaps our own struggles and successes will encourage someone else on this journey.  There is such power in simply knowing that you are not alone.

If you are reading this blog in the hopes of a feel-good success story that has a tidy ending, all tied up with a neat little bow, you may be disappointed.  The last 3 1/2 years have been incredibly challenging for us.  We have had some mountain highs and some rock bottom lows.  If we are honest, there has been more of the latter than the former.  We have cried and screamed and fought and struggled.  Steve and I have made many mistakes, often causing more hurt in our clumsy efforts to help.  Sammy and I have struggled tremendously to find solid relationship and connection.

Neither is this as story of defeat or failure.  We are still fighting, and we are gaining ground.  This process of healing is painstakingly slow and often my perspective is skewed.  But when I back up and look at how far she has come, how far we have come, the truth is that there has been amazing progress and incredible victories.  Our story is not over and we are looking toward the next chapter with great hope and anticipation!  Our story is messy and hard and uncomfortable and amazingly beautiful and our prayer is that our life would declare the praises of Him who continues to call us out of darkness and into His marvelous light!  (1 Peter 2:9)

To be continued...

We would love to hear about your experiences as well!!   This journey is meant to be lived shoulder to shoulder!   Share some of your story in the comments!