It’s Not Me

This past year has really thrown me for a loop. It has been hard, the adoption process is hard as is handling a 4 year old that has a hard time if her Mom is having a hard time. She has been hard to love, I have been hard to love…….

The other night I was out with friends whom I don’t talk to on a daily basis and they were talking about how great Hank and I are for adopting again. I am quite taken aback by those kind of comments since we are not really that great. We are just like anyone else that struggles with daily life and don’t always handle it in the most gracious of ways. My entire family and close friends can vouch for that. God started this all!! I don’t know why he chose to give us the desire to adopt not just one, but two children who were once orphans and no longer are.  He just did. I don’t think it makes us so great or unselfish that we said “yes”. We are both selfish at times and we are both fallen. I don’t think this has much to do with Hank and me at all, but more to do with God and his desire for two children to have a family and the love of a Mom and Dad that they may not have had otherwise. I think it has to do with His desire to make us be closer to Him and mold us into what He wants us to be. Maybe we need more work than others out there, I don’t know. I do know that He has been up to something in my life for a very long time now and I am thankful for that. Yes, I do have moments that I wish my life were smooth and that I was not struggling with it all. But then I think about what I would be missing, the REAL part of life. I would not get to watch the struggle of my sweet Madeline come to terms with who she is, to see God work in her sweet heart. I don’t think I ever had to search my other children like I do her. I did not have to cry out to God to help mend a broken heart of a  4 year old. The older three have had broken hearts but they were always able to rest in the fact that their father did not leave on his own accord and loved them with all that he was.

Madeline does not have that……and she is hurt daily with the reality that she was left by a China Mommy and Daddy as she calls them. The questions have been frequent and hard lately as she is putting it all together since we are going through the process of bringing Janie home. I just have to tell her I don’t know all the answers, but I know her China parents would so love her if they could. She is SO loved by her family now….yet it is a heartbreaking process to watch and to deal with. So no, I fail miserably every single day but I also love her every single day with a deep fierceness and protection for who she is and for who God intends her to be.  I am blessed to be a part of her life…this life.

So all that to say, it is not me who is all that great. But it is me, and the rest of the family, that get to take part in something so much bigger than who we are. Anything else would be very small in comparison.