I'm a little late to the game with reading 7, Jen Hatmaker's book about fasting over seven areas of her life. But I'm obsessed with this book. In fact, after reading it, I immediately bought a copy for all of the girls in my advisory group at school. I told Tom he had to read it. And after I get back from two overseas trips, I plan to start my own 7 fast.
Anyone who has fasted understands that the gains of sacrificing a comfort far outweigh the initial discomfort. The process of adoption has caused me to begin to question how much sacrifice and discomfort I am willing to go through for the sake of living out the Gospel. And this type of discomfort and sacrifice is like nothing I've ever done before: this time, it is permanent. See, I completely resonant with the type of liberation and freedom Hatmaker talks about when she gives away 7 items every day for a month. One of the most free times of my life was when I was living out of a tiny trunk in a 5x7 room in the middle of a mission's office building in Latin America. I could fit all of my possession in a backpack. There was such simplicity. I had no job prospects, less than $1,000 dollars in the bank, and no permanent home, but such freedom to focus on people and such time to listen to where God was leading me. I wasn't sure of anything in my circumstances, but I was 100% confident of the One who held the future. Fast forward eight years. Tom and I try to live a relatively simple lifestyle compared to the Keeping up with Jones' Plano crowd. When Tom graduated and was no longer making the grad student bucks, we vowed to try to keep our spending the same, regardless of our income. It was important to us that we looked at our finances not as if the 10% tithe belonged to God, but the whole 100% belonged to Him and therefore, we needed to have what John Piper calls a "war time mentality" with the percentage that we did spend. And yet, inevitably, our comforts and our wants begin to slowly encroach upon our month budget. Those bi-annual shopping trips became monthly shopping trips. Our dining out budget wasn't really a budget, but a guideline...for the first two weeks of each month. After which, we would be like, "Well, we blew that budget so...why not? I mean, it's Friday and we don't eat out every night." Rationalizations kicked in pretty quickly. And irony of ironies, we suddenly became much more worried and concerned and FOCUSED on what we had and our "upkeep" than when I had no job and no money-- crazy considering our net worth has exponentially increased, we both have secure jobs, and now, five college degrees between the two of us. What changed? Simply put-- our focus and our placement of trust. Because we spent so much time thinking, planning, and dealing with our "things"-- possessions, finances, etc., our focus slipped and furthermore, our success led us to dabble with the lie that our stewardship of these things was our own doing and therefore, our own to worry about. We trusted more in our circumstances because they consumed our thoughts more than He did. All this to say, with my 7 fast coming up, I am praying that this invited simplicity will focus our minds and hearts on the reality and truths of God's kingdom, not the temporary one we have built up around us. That we will have freedom from the things of this world, and thus, freedom in Christ to follow Him.
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Jen Hatmaker says in her book 7 that adoption is a marathon, not a sprint. That is not true-- Tom and I have both run marathons-- put in the grueling training hours and suffered through extreme conditions (20 degrees and sleeting), upset stomachs, bloody blisters, and more. Running a marathon is a flighty and attainable goal compared to the adoption process.
We are in step two of the adoption process, the home study, and already I've put in about 60 hours of work. And we aren't even in the most complicated stage yet. In the adoption process, there are many lists: lists of things to fill out about yourself, lists of documents you need to send your agency, lists of fees you have to pay. One list that Tom and I had to fill out early on in our application was a checklist of what type of child we would accept. On the initial application process, parents must check boxes from a list of about 150 conditions-- things that would be acceptable in their child. This ranges from emotional disorders (past abuse), physical disabilities (blind, deaf, one hand, cerebral palsy), to diseases (hepatitis, AIDS). There are so many conditions to consider. Believe me, one does not weigh those checked boxes lightly. As I looked over the application and each box, I envisioned what a life would be like if our child had each condition. I prayed over that list. I sought peace about which boxes to check. I took an honest assessment of what I could and couldn't handle. And then I remembered, I am not the only person who gets a say in checking those boxes. And that other person cannot be half-persuaded to check a box. These are all or nothing decisions. So Tom and I sat down together to fill in those boxes. I held my breath. I knew which boxes I would check. But part of me feared that Tom was going to immediately dismiss the boxes and say we wouldn't accept any of those conditions-- I feared he would say that if we are going to adopt, it has to be a 100% healthy, "normal", able-bodied child. As I read each condition aloud, Tom paused and responded, "Yes. Yes. Yes." Tears filled my eyes; I was so full of gratitude for God's provision-- He knew my heart and He knew Tom's heart way in advance, before we even knew we'd have to make these hard decisions. In a previous post, I wrote about letting go of our expectations of what it means to have children-- what it means to raise children. As our hearts have been preparing for our children, God has taught us so much about His unconditional love for us. There's no box on this list of conditions He can't handle. AND furthermore, NO person with any condition that wasn't made in the Imago Dei. In spite of our imperfections, our diseases, our defects, and our blindness, we belong in His family, we are wanted, we are loved, and we have purpose. This might come as a big shock to those of you who know me, but I am a huge perfectionist.
I mean, I'm textbook, type-A, oldest sibling, OCD, overachieving, rule-following (with a stubborn, rebellious streak)--- all those things. And with those things come expectations. Most of life's disappointments come from having expectations. I'll never forget one of the biggest fights Tom and I had when we first got married: I was a first year teacher, he was a first year grad student. We were overworked and underpaid. As a new wife, I wanted to be the perfect homemaker. While I do still have my Martha Stewart tendencies, I look back laughingly at that new wife of Tom's youth. I want to pat on her the head for her stupidity and say, "Are you out of your mind? Trying five new recipes each week? Freshly baked goodies for the week, all dairy and egg free?" Sigh. It's good I experimented when I had the energy-- now, all Tom gets is the same repertoire of dishes I know I can roast in one pot in under an hour. Anyway, one Thursday evening, I had worked late. Tom had worked late. We arrived home at the same time, and after a day of addressing the needs of teenagers with learned helplessness, I was overwhelmed at the thought of producing a meal FROM SCRATCH (because, any other way was NOT acceptable!!!!!). Cue explosive fight. Cue hours of crying. Until my patient husband finally helped me to see I was yelling at him for wanting me to make dinner and he had NEVER asked me to make dinner. The expectation to make dinner every night-- where did that come from? I imagined it had come from him, but in reality, it was all a false expectation I had put upon myself as a wife. This is my point: we all have expectations of what life is going to be like and who we are supposed to be. If we aren't careful, those expectations can steal our happiness, cloud our perspective, and distract us from what matters. Tom didn't care if I made a dinner from scratch. He just wanted to sit at the same dinner table with me and break bread. As we've entered the adoption process, we have had to examine our expectations. Most parents expect to see their children take their first steps. They expect to teach their children their first words. They expect they will have the ability to protect them and watch over them those first years of their life. They expect their kids to be healthy. They expect to one day see them graduate from high school. To get married. To produce grandkids. To be respectful. To be competent citizens. These are all things parents envision. And anyone who has ever lost a child, ever had a child reject them, ever had a child fail, or ever had a child with a disability knows those expectations aren't reality AND furthermore, their love for their child is not dependent on those expectations. As we have considered adoption, we have had to ask ourselves, "What are our expectations of having a child?" We expected to be there for all those "firsts." What if we aren't? We expect our child will love us back. What if they resent the fact we adopted them? We expected that when we had kids, people would look at them and say "Oh he looks so much like you." or "She has your eyes." Those are expectations that aren't true-- they were never guaranteed. Just as biological children aren't guaranteed to turn out the way parents expect and those parents may mourn as a result, Tom and I have had to adjust what we envisioned our family would look like. At the core of all this is a realization that applies to our lives: thankfully, we don't know what we really need, but God does. When Tom and I thought about our future family, adoption has always been a "when" decision, not an "if" decision. We didn't know how, when, or what adoption would look like, but we both felt drawn to adopt.
At almost 32 years old, I can count on one hand my married friends without kids. Most of my good friends, by this point, are moms. I hear them talk about being a mom-- how it feels to give birth to a child and have it belong to part of your family. What it feels like to want a baby. And I've never felt that way. I feel like a mom whose kids are somewhere waiting to be found. I understand what my friends mean when they talk about wanting or aching for their kids-- I do that too, but my kids did not come from me. I feel like my kids are waiting for me to come and get them. Just as each child is created in the image of God and born into a loving family that will keep them and love them for who they are, my children were specifically created to play a valued and loved role in my family-- they just weren't born into it. This is not a surprise to God. This is not a matter of a mistake-- a child placed in the wrong family or having to adapt to a new culture or home. Whoever our kids are, they were made, in advance, with God's knowledge that they would be part of our family. In the Bible, God calls his followers to love widows and orphans. He calls us adopted. He went out and intentionally sought us. We are grafted into his family as if we had been there all along. We were rescued from a life alone. Our past doesn't matter. Our imperfections don't matter. Our skin color, our abilities, our age-- these things don't matter to Him because He created us to be a part of His family. We don't have to fulfill any expectation to be perfect in order to stay. There is grace with our weaknesses-- the remnants of our hurt and broken past life. There is patience with our failure to understand. There is love to overcome the despair of our shame and rejections. This is one reason we are compelled to adopt-- Christ adopted us and rescued us. Out of His love for us, we desire to share His love with those who are most in need of it. "You might want to start a blog to keep people up to date on your adoption process."
I've had two blogs before and I always fear that the blogosphere teeters on the rim of narcissism. Because it does. In the past, I started blogs because I like to write and to record my thoughts to look back and where I've been and how far God has brought me. I stopped writing because I stopped reflecting. So, when the adoption agency encouraged us to keep a blog to record our adoption process, I had to feign reluctance and hesitation, and admit my tendency towards narcissism. Tom and I started the process of adoption in November; it is now nearing the end of February so I calculate that I've written approximately 87 blog posts in the running narrative script of my small mind; my internal editor is getting exhausted from writing fake sentences that have never or ever will be spoken into existence, I figured I should just give in and start really writing. It's always so much more productive than the imaginary writing (although I did learn what my students mean when they say they've written their entire research paper- just in their heads.) For those readers whom we haven't had the chance to update in person, here's a brief update: 1. We have applied to the International Adoption program with Dillon International. I'll say more on this later, but to those who ask the question, why adoption and why international, I'd have to respond with this: Why is your biological child your child? If you have children, why did you choose to have them? Adoption for us has never been a question of if, but when. And I've always known that I have children that did not come from me. They were created to be part of our family-- they just weren't created within our family. 2. It looks like we will be adopting from Colombia. With our backgrounds, travels, and love for Latin culture, this program seemed to be a natural fit. In addition, Tom and I are open to adopting a sibling group of 2-3 kids. We feel this is a unique calling, and Colombia is unique in that many of its orphans are together in sibling groups. Also, with international adoption, families are encouraged to maintain cultural connections with their children's homelands. Since I speak Spanish and Tom is always working on his, this made Colombia another great match. 3. Our timeline: who knows? Like I said, we started the process of picking an agency in November and have just been approved to start our homestudy. Many of you probably know firsthand or have heard that adoption is a ridiculously long and unpredictable process. It is unlikely our family numbers will change in 2015. And even that detail is not for certain. That's what this blog is for-- we'll keep you posted. |
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