We Have What We Prayed For: A Gratitude Prayer

Dear Lord,


You did it. You really did. You gave us what we prayed for. We asked, and you answered with the adoption of three Chinese children. A glorious gift.


Remember all those lifted prayers? Oh, how we prayed, and prayed, and prayed for our kids. We prayed, our friends prayed and our families prayed. We talked to you more in our waiting than we ever had before. Day after day, we looked at empty chairs and struggled to carry hope. We tried so hard to trust your promises. It felt like a calling in our hearts, but in our minds, it felt over the top crazy. To say we were going to be the parents of children born to three other sets of parents from across oceans? Ludicrous. We were rational, practical people and this was walking on the wild side.


Admittedly, we wavered. Your promise was clear, but the hardness a surprise, the challenges hard to swallow. The waiting seemed pointless and endless. We couldn’t help but wonder when it would be our turn, and then doubt that it might never be. But, with our mustard seed sized faith, we made space in our hearts anyway.


Then you removed hurtles one by one: immigration approval, TA, consulate appointment, and finally plane tickets to the Far East. We found ourselves in government offices in Hebeii, Chengdu and Nanjing, China holding daughters and a son in our arms. We pressed their inked red feet onto documents written in Mandarin, and our lives forever merged.

 
Yes, adoptions happened before and after ours, but that doesn’t negate the absolute miracle of it all. You, the God of Bible stories, the one who turned water into wine, multiplied loaves and fishes and parted waters was at it again, this time right before our own eyes. The whole thing reeked of glory. Your dominion became undeniable.


The slightest difference in timing might have changed our story’s ending. If we’d applied in a different month, chosen a different agency, or if paperwork moved at a different speed, our gifts might have gone to other homes. Your colossal sovereignty is more than I can conceive. You painted stars into the heavens and placed the lonely in a family. You protected three little souls, and provided life saving medical care.


You did it. You truly did, and we remain always and forever grateful. 
 

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The empty chairs now have bodies in them. The clothes that hung waiting are worn out and too small. It’s years later, and I’ve almost forgotten what it felt like to not have them. I barely remember lingering long on my knees begging you to bring them on home.


Lots of time has passed. We are just a family now.


The dreaming, fundraising and form filling is long behind us. Most days we are just trying to memorize multiplication tables, shop for shampoo, pack lunches and get to drama club on time.


I’m sorry to say, as time passes, the assurance of your presence and power that we experienced sometimes wanes. As new challenges arise, I wonder, yet again, if you’ll come through. My goodness, do I forget easily. You’ve done these massive miracles in our lives, three times now, and then I go and fail to expect you to be intentional. How you must shake your head at me. Forgive me.


For the rest of my life, let it be said that I remember. That I am grateful for your miracle work. That I am awed by your sovereignty over time and place, DNA and citizenships.


Just because time passes and normalcy sets in, I don’t want to forget what you’ve done for us. I don’t want to take it lightly. My kitchen chairs are filled with living, breathing Ebenezers.


Every time a little hand reaches for mine, I want to remember.
Every time I fill a cereal bowl, I have reason to be grateful.

 
The next time I doubt what you can do, please remind me of what you’ve already done. 


Thank you, Jesus, for answering ludicrous prayers, and for carrying us safely into the “wild side”. If I forget, remind me. 

  
Amen.

Originally shared over at No Hands But Ours.




You Belong, My Child

You belong, my child.

You are loved.

You are seen.

You are prayed for.

You are included.

You are a gift. 

You are a member of this family.

You are unique and special, yet melted into our whole.
…
You belong, my child.

Our last name is yours.

Our home is yours.

Our food is yours.

Our trampoline is yours.

Our hearts are yours.

Our books are yours.

Our time is yours.
…
You belong, my child.

Our plans will always include you.

Our prayers will always include you. 

Our toothbrush cup will always include a toothbrush for you.

Our van will always include a car seat for you. 

Our pantry will always include your favorite cereal.

Our frames will always include photos of you.
…
You belong, my child.

There is a daddy’s hand for you to hold.

There is space on the rug for your sleeping bag on movie night.

There is a seat at the kitchen table for you.

There is food in our fridge bought with you in mind.

There is a backpack hook just for you.

There is a branch for you on our family tree.

There is room in this momma’s heart for you.

…
You belong, my child.

You have a father who will always tuck covers around you and kiss your forehead goodnight.
You have siblings who don’t care much about the term “blood relations”.

You have a story that was written into ours, and ours into yours. 

You have parents so grateful to be parenting you.

You have siblings who love building blanket forts with you.

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You belong, my child.

As your dreams start to take shape, we’ll be here watching.

As you explore your faith, we’ll be praying.

As you discover what you like and don’t like, we’ll be here listening.

As you step into your gifts and follow your passions, we’ll be here cheering you on.

As you start to build a life of your own, outside of us, we’ll be here supporting you.



…
You belong, my child.

We will protect you from any harm we can.

We will try like crazy to be people who “get” you.

We will work hard to hear what you are saying and what you aren’t saying.

We will do what we can to make you feel seen and known. 

…
You belong, my child.


When you mess up, we’ll have grace to give.

When you succeed, we’ll be celebrating, and probably bragging too.

When you fail, we’ll be your soft place to fall.

When you need to have your belly filled, we’ll fill up your plate. 

When you are tired, we’ll have a place to rest your head. 

When you need a ride, we’ll grab the keys. 

When you are hurting, we’ll have Band-Aids and hugs. 

When you have a heart that needs tending, we’ll tend to it. 

When you leave, we’ll always be here waiting for you to come home again.
…
You belong, my child.

Someday you might find other places you belong: clubs, jobs, hobbies, friends, school.

Someday you might wonder about your birth family.

Someday you might find yourself curious about China.

Someday you might process what adoption means to you.

Someday you might get married and move away. 

Someday you might be a parent.

None of these will change your belonging with us. 

Belonging is not possession.
It’s not limited by time or even nearness. 

It’s somehow both holding on to you and letting you go.
…
You belong, my child.

The truth is, we’ll never do all these things perfectly. Your family is a bit messy and highly imperfect. We drop the ball. We yell too much and hurt each other’s feelings. We fail each other. We’re going to need your grace again and again. But child, we’ll sure keep trying hard, because we love you like crazy. You belong to us and we belong to you. We choose you and we hope you’ll always choose us.
I don’t know where you’ll go or what you’ll do. I don’t know what joyful, sad, hard, extraordinary or ordinary chapters God will write into your story. The only thing I know for sure is that you’ll always belong with us. In this place, with this family, and in this heart of mine.



Originally posted on No Hands But Ours.




White Momma, Asian Kids: Reflections on Race

I pulled at the corners of my eyes, slanting them until all I could see was light and distorted faces. Then, I strung together a long chain of “Chinese-Japanese” words, “Ching, ching, chong, chang, chong.” It got me some laughs. Other kids did it too, so I guessed it was no big thing. I was a nice little girl after all, who would never hurt a soul. There was rarely an Asian anywhere near my playground anyway.
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I heard comments. Racists ones. I didn’t understand, but when the words landed, my gut recognized ugliness. Not at my house, but I heard them sometimes at extended family or neighborhood gatherings, stores or sporting events. I heard opinions about African Americans, Mexicans, Asians. Sometimes the voices were from people I knew to be hateful, but sometimes they came from people I knew to be nice. I’m not sure how I responded, but likely with silence.
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One African American family lived in our middle-class suburban neighborhood. The daughter, Terri, was my fifth-grade class buddy. I liked her. She was smart and liked Scooby Doo and swinging high like me. I didn’t exclude her in my play at home, but we didn’t hang out like we did at school. She lived a few streets away. I don’t remember inviting her to my house, or she inviting me, more than a couple times. The kids I built forts with, the ones I have all the Lone Oak Drive memories with, well, they all looked just like me.

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My sister and I were once travelling unaware into a small Kentucky town. When we got close to the town center, a frightening roar entered the car windows. Curious, we turned a corner. Before us was a gathering of angry men in pointed, white hoods. It took a minute to process, but the hate scorched our eyes and hearts on impact. The KKK was real. Though our turnaround was instant, the memory is vivid.

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Was I a racist as a child? Even unintentionally?

Am I now?

I’d really rather not think on these things.

I am a white, middle class woman, and I have had experiences with racism. Some big, some small. I’ve heard it, seen it, and participated in it through my own ignorance and silence.

Now, as parent to three Asian-Americans, when I hear of kids slanting their eyes and speaking in “Chinese”, my heart hurts. Momma bear gets protective.

I am no longer passive about racism. I’ve allowed myself to wrestle with it. I’ve stood on the soil of Africa and Haiti and China, and considered how the place of my birth, the color of my skin, has altered the trajectory of my life for my benefit.

“Not being racist” doesn’t cut it anymore. I’ve seen too much, and three of my kids have beautiful, Asian, brown skin. They have silky, straight, black hair, almond eyes and differently shaped noses. I want them to see themselves represented in the world we’re planted in. They are watching, and collecting memories of their own. They’ve already experienced racism through stereotypes and their own encounters of kids “speaking Chinese-Japanese” with slanted eyes.

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As they grow, I suspect they’ll wrestle and have more experiences with racism, and prejudices against differences, just as I have. If I want to honor and guide the full child, I get no free pass to not talk about racism and differences.

I want to raise up little allies, be an ally, to people who live and look differently. My husband and I want to raise our kids up with intention. We can’t assume that not saying racist things will be enough to protect them from even unintentional racist notions. The world is so ugly, but we can shed light into the darkness.
    
I have felt guilty, protective and angry, for how I’ve neglected to reconcile race in my world, but I don’t want to get stuck there. It isn’t helpful. We want to be better and do better. We want to open our hearts, home and table to more voices, friendships, and experiences. Not in the pounding my head guiltily against the wall, here’s another area this momma doesn’t measure up, way. That’s not sustainable. More in let’s get creative, mix things up and breathe the world more deeply in ways.

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Prayer: 
I’m asking God to have His way with the ugly places in our hearts. I’m asking him to show me ways that racism might saturate my thinking. I’m asking for the words to talk to our kids. For the boldness to set an example on responding to racist comments and playground games. I am asking the Lord to continue to color our family’s world with people. I pray that He’ll stir our hearts and open our eyes to our neighborhood, community and world.

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Voices We Listen To: The last racist protest in the news shed some light on a pattern that needed changing. Fired up and ready to use my voice, I was devouring blog posts. But I realized, other than some MLK quotes, everything I was sharing about race, was written by a white person. I love that my white-skinned sisters are trying to be allies, but in times of flared tension, I don’t want to only hear from them. So I went looking for what my black friends, Hispanic neighbors, or Muslim writers, were thinking. I admit my need to be enlightened, challenged.

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Honest Talk:

I really didn’t want to show my kids the news video of white hooded men gripping tiki-torches and chanting hate. I really didn’t want to tell my kids that the contractor daddy just talked to won’t be doing the painting he bid on because he added that he “never hires any of them Mexican workers” to his sales pitch. I really don’t want to explain to my kids that all races and cultures have racism. That though not everyone is racist, every group has pockets of racist people. None of us, regardless of our appearance, is protected from bigotry. I’d rather not talk to my kids about our country’s history of slave run plantations, “colored bathrooms”, Japanese internment camps or low pay of migrant workers. I’d rather not explain to my kid why people have swastikas on their parade banners.

But I need to if we want to be a family of difference makers.

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What Voices Fill My Home?

We listen to podcasts, watch Netflix, play Spotify, have a basket of library books on the coffee table and scroll Instagram. How many of these voices, chefs, pastors, authors and characters are white? Too many.

Adding some new Pandora stations is such an easy way to raise up culturally tuned in kids. We have kitchen dance parties to Lecrae, “Latinos En La Casa”, and “Indian Vibes”. We do homework to “Chinese Traditional”.

I’ve widened my social media following to include the perspectives of Ravi Zacharias, Awesomely Luvvie, Francis Lam, ChihYu Smith, Nat Geo Travel, Jo Saxton, Khalida Brohi, Eugene Cho, Wynter Pitts, Preemptive Love, Esther Havens, Latasha Morrison, Confessions of a Muslim Mom, Tony Evans, Naptime is Sacred, and Grandpa Chan.

When roaming the library, I always try to grab a book or two with characters that don’t look just like us. Check out Here We Read, I Love Books and I Can Not Lie, and The Sweet Pea Girls on Instragram for globally minded suggestions.

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What Toys Do the Kids Play With?

Diversifying toys is easy. Our Barbie and baby doll baskets are filled with plastic skin in all shades and eyes in all shapes.

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Who Are We Friends With?

The honest answer? Mostly white people. Yes, thankfully, many of those white people have biracial, adoptive families. But, sadly, I’ve never had a deeper than casual friendship on a long-term basis with anyone who didn’t match the hue of my skin color. Lord, please change this.

Being around matching people is easier. You mostly agree, like mostly the same food, dress mostly the same. It’s comforting, until you begin to see others, all others, in all their creative shapes and forms, and realize you are missing out.

I want my kids’ worlds to be wider than mine was. Until college, I was mostly around white people. My interaction with Asians was limited to a couple exchange students.

We’ve been intentional to put our kids in a school with kids of all races and cultures, and thankfully their neighborhood friends are white, African-American and Hispanic. But we want them to see their parents connecting more and more widely, more deeply, to their friends’ parents. Neighbors have taught us to roll tamales and brought us El Salvadorian pupusa, and we have had so much fun. Our prayer is that the people we invite to our table continues to broaden.

Is it weird to pray for Chinese friends? Probably, but I am doing it anyway.

(In full disclosure, I deleted this section ten times. This girl who has travelled the world, earned a degree in multicultural education, mothers three children born in China and is fascinated with cultures, is so not cool with my friend status.)

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What Food Are We Eating?


We love to take our kids to a truly authentic Chinese restaurant, where being white makes you stand out. We love this for our family. We want our taste buds to grow, in a fun way, with the foods we bring in and the eateries we seek out. 

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I had no idea how my eyes were closed before, though I thought them wide open. Skin color, races and cultures, I thought them fascinating, but it wasn’t personal to me. It is now.

I hope you’ll join me in self-reflection. Let’s consider how our world’s might be too small, what people we might be missing out on, what tastes await us, and what the books we read and the songs we hum might be teaching our kids.

Lord, make us change makers for our kids and our communities.
I’d love to learn from you. If there is a voice you listen to that I should add to my world, please share.

Courage, dear hearts.

Originally shared on No Hands But Ours.




Even Still

“We must learn to realize that the love of God seeks us in every situation, and seeks our good.”

- Thomas Merton

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Sometimes things just don’t make a bit of sense. 

Sometimes, often actually, God allows things to happen that I don’t get.

Sometimes, in the story, rules change, and I’m confused.

Sometimes, in my story, things hurt, and I’m frustrated.

Sometimes I find myself groaning, “Why God, why?”


But, even still, I know…

God is not cruel.
He does not intend harm.
He is loving and good.
Always.
All I can do, when I’m confused and battered up, is chant this that I know to be true. Years of living has certainly tethered my heart to Jesus, but I can’t yet claim “unwavering faith”. God’s sovereignty over all life’s bruising twists and turns is truth in my mind, but my heart sometimes is yet convinced. Sometimes I doubt Him for a bit. How could I not? This world is filled with so much hurt. But, in His kindness, despite my waver, His goodness settles me all over again.
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Even…
When governments make rules that make no sense, that harm children and blister our hearts.
When a family willing to say yes to adoption is told no.
When a family has an adoption file in hand, a child already in their hearts, but is told, “No, rules changed.”
When a family holds vigil by a broken-hearted son’s hospital bedside, praying with hope for a medical miracle, but the healing comes not on earth, but in heaven.
When children linger on waiting child lists.
When a newly adopted child wants nothing to do with being loved.
When a daughter with layers of medical trauma needs yet another IV.
When a traumatized boy rages, all these years later.
When the surgery has complications.
When the test results aren’t in our favor.
When teens join eager families, but their world is spinning so wildly out of control that they fight love.
When my own little medical needs daughter’s body stops functioning post-up and scrub draped nurses race her hospital bed into the OR at midnight due to renal failure.
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Even still, God is not cruel.
He does not intend harm.
He is loving and good.
Always.
Sometimes, when life isn’t how I think it should be, when suffering wounds my heart, all I can do is chant to myself that He is good. Reminding myself, willing myself, to believe that He is good, even still. He made us some promises, didn’t He? In those moments, the best I can do is step out a door and let the sun soak life into my skin and allow the breeze to still me. Under the blue of the sky, evidence of Him cannot be denied, and it is there where I can consider His ever present love and sovereignty.
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He’s the one who rains unexplainable peace in OR waiting rooms.
He’s the one who fills hearts with hope when all hope seems lost.

He’s the one who amasses prayer armies.

He’s the one who sends gentle angels in nursing scrubs.

He’s the one who fully and forever heals broken bodies and promises heavenly reunions. 

He’s the one who promises to someday “wipe away every tear”. 

He’s the one who paints rainbows. 

He the one who washes the earth with rain.

He’s the one who tells the sun to burn unending light.

He’s the one who siphons joy back into wounded hearts.

He’s the one who stirs hearts to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves.

He’s the one who calls more and more new families to say yes to adoption.

He’s the one who pumps passion and the crazy kind of love into the adoption community.

He’s the one who sends the servant-hearted nanny into the orphanage.

He’s the one who sends the friend who “gets” what orphanage behaviors can do to a home. 

He’s the one who placed the spunk and fight in the Chinese-American daughter whose hand holds mine. 

He’s the one who turns night to merciful day, dark to light, mourning to joy, over and over again.


In all things, He is calling me to Him, whether I like the story, or not. He pursues me, and you, in life’s winters and its springs. In its harshness and its hopeful abundance.
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When God allows hurt, I might be confused, but I refuse to believe that He is cruel. He’s promised to be our refuge, our stay in the storm, and to work it all out for our good and His glory. So even when I have to chant it to my own heart, I trust His goodness, even still. He sees things that I cannot. He is ever and always at work within governments, adoption agencies, hospital rooms, families and hearts.

Yours and mine.
God is not cruel.
He does not intend harm.
He is loving and good.
Always. Even still.
“And by accepting all things from Him, I receive His joy into my soul, not because things are what they are, but because God is Who He is, and His love willed my joy in them all.”

- Thomas Merton




This is Us, Adoptive Families

I am thankful for my family. I’m thankful that we’re all safe 
and there’s no one in the world that I’d rather be too hot or too cold with. – Jack Pearson, This is Us

Time’s been storytelling with us. Our family life is a sitcom and a drama. Our script has been sweet and fun and challenging and gut-wrenching. It’s been real, raw and full. Giggles and tears have walked in tandem. We are husband and wife turned father and mother. Our cast of characters has expanded, and we certainly aren’t who we once were. We are family built by adoption and biology, time and circumstance. There have been plot twists and surprise endings, and it’s a messy kind of beautiful. With every memory though, every point in time, our us gains strength and definition.

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Tomorrow calls us forward, but oh how the past has shaped us. Our scrapbooks bulge ever open, full up with happy photographs and ticket stubs memories. But the highlight reel also holds loss and secrets, hurt and pain. The memories all so intertwined now.

This is us, adoptive families.

Our marriage stretches and grows and groans. As we’ve moved from wearing jerseys and cheering on our college team to delivering a daughter in an operating room and boarding planes to adopt daughters and a son, we’ve had to figure us out over and over again. We’ve planned romantic nights out, but also sometimes turned the kitchen into a battleground. We get it right and get it wrong. We make sacrifices for our family, yet still give each other space to be individuals with gifts and interests. Through all the complications, I like us. We’re fun.

Every child’s birth into us is a miracle story. There’s been birth and adoption, loss, birthparents, abandonment, surrender, acceptance, beauty and blessing. We deal with race, have questions about unknown birthparents, and wonder about lost culture. Our kids hold their arms up to ours and ask why the color is different. The outside world looks in on us and has questions too, and we respond at stores and at the pool.
   
As a wise TV dad once said, we love our kids as much a human heart can. We don’t want to be 10 out of 10 parents, we want to be superhero, 12 out of 10 parents. So we make sacrifices and plans. We pack lunches and sports bags. We do homework and pop movie night popcorn. We cheer at soccer games and plays. We build traditions and hold hard to them like safety nets during life’s plot twists. We carry our kids on our backs and hope they’ll feel the arms wide open, weightless freedom that comes with being carried.

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We are one team, yet each family member is unique in temperaments, talents, appearance, and personalities. One kid has charisma, and another is quiet. One battles self doubt, and another anxiety. Sometimes we’re left sitting in the hallway, dazed and confused, trying to make sense of what each child needs. Sometimes we try to protect them from standing out, when actually shining is just what they need. We get it right and we get it wrong. Our kids love each other, envy each other, enjoy each other, and are tired of each other’s big needs.

We hope and pray that someday our grown-up kids will look back with fondness at the life we strung together. We hope they’ll grin, shake their heads and tell stories about birthday parties, vacation blunders, and living room dance parties. We hope they’ll see the hard moments through the lens of being loved. We hope joyful memories will trump painful ones. We hope solid sibling relationships will give our kids an us, long after we’re gone.

Our us is messy and quirky in the best way. We like road trips and have a fondness for jazz and Disney tunes. We have epic meltdowns, occasionally in public. We have secrets, sicknesses, arguments at Thanksgiving, and have lost people we love. We have history, inside jokes and a handshake. We have relationships that come together, fall apart, and then come together again. That’s just us.

We are discovering beauty in the messiest parts of life. We’re realizing that sometimes we smile, even while crying. We are learning to carry bouquets of rainbow balloons even on hard days, because the hardest parts of life are seared with a beautiful rawness.  We aren’t the best at it, but we love each other, and that’s something. The days are passing and the years are already blurring together, so imperfect us is trying to live our here and now days to the full.

We are trying to choose joy, to say yes to the dance floor, yes to blessings disguised as interruptions, yes to music up loud and windows rolled down. And, why not, yes to goofy family chants and silly traditions.

In the end, we’re just being us as best we can, in and out of days, in and out of years.

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I like our life.

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  …life is full of color. And we each get to come along and we add our own color to the painting, you know? …And these colors that we keep adding, what if they just keep getting added on top of one another, until eventually we’re not even different colors anymore? We’re just one thing. One painting… I mean, it’s kind of beautiful, right, if you think about it, the fact that just because someone dies, just because you can’t see them or talk to them anymore, it doesn’t mean they’re not still in the painting. I think maybe that’s the point of the whole thing. There’s no dying. There’s no you or me or them. It’s just us.
– Kevin Pearson, This is Us



Originally posted on No Hands But Ours.

Preparing for and Enduring Surgeries and Procedures for Medical Needs Children

 



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*Note: I have no training in trauma. I simply have a few notches in my medical momma belt, and gently offer here what I’ve learned.

Many of us adoptive parents said yes to the adoption of almond eyed, precious ones with needs, and by doing so, stepped outside the familiar territory of parenting healthy little people. We did so willingly, though we had no idea what that would look like, or how it might feel.

What breaks our hearts the most is watching our kids endure the poking and testing and NG tubes and chemo infusions and enemas and casting and surgeries and invasive tests and blood transfusions and echocardiograms and sleep studies and catheterizing. And how could we have known how those blasted IV sticks would make us crumble?
 
But it is all needed. So we do it.

Our family is with you, as our small people have experienced hospital stays, surgeries and a whole host of corrective and life-saving medical procedures. This is our offering on how we prepare and endure.

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Parents


The most essential advice is, for us the emotional mom and dad, to stay calm. It’s going to take some time on our knees, because for every procedure, we need peace and trust like a protective blanket. We’ve simply gotta grieve another time. It’s our most important gift to them. They sense our tension and respond.

 

Take turns being the comforting parent. There are often many people in a hospital room during hard moments. We try not to add to it by adding noise and distraction attempts. One parent voice at a time.

 

Don’t make assumptions about what kids understand. Do they understand that medical professionals are helpers that have to do uncomfortable things to make us better? Do they understand that their casts/bandages will eventually come off or that bleeding will stop?

 

Surrender your efforts to make it all better. Let God be the God of your child.
 

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Leading Up to a Procedure or Hospitalization

We are open with our kids. On a level they can understand, we tell them what to expect. We do this in pieces, step by step, when needed. If anesthesia or sedation will happen, we might say, “The nurses will give you some medicine to make you snooze while they help your body. You won’t feel anything. When you wake up, it will be all over.”

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We purchase sticker books, such as Usborne’s Dress the Teddy Bears: Going to the Hospital Sticker Book and Going to the Hospital Sticker Book. We read books, such as Franklin Goes to the Hospital, The Berenstain Bears Hospital Friends and The Surgery Book for Kids.
Sticker and reading time helps us explain what nurses and doctors do, why they wear masks and use stethoscopes, what a hospital rooms look like, and what an IV machine does. We read these before, during, and after hospital stays.

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Dolls and toys expose kids to medical equipment in a fun, hands-on way, such as dolls in wheelchairs and Doc McStuffins doctor’s kits.

The International Children’s Ostomy Educational Foundation even offers ostomy dolls free of charge. We use these for conversational play.

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Before a hospital stay, we let our kids shop for something fun for the hospital, such as crazy socks, a water bottle, slip on shoes that they can wear (once mobile) when walking the halls of the hospital, hair accessories or nail polish.
 

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Promises

On the way to the hospital, we make some promises to look forward to. Then, in the hard moments, we can remind them of plans we made.

“You’ll get to see the big aquarium in the lobby.”
 

“There is a library and play room in this hospital. Should we check those out while you are here?”
 

“If you ever need it, let’s calm ourselves by doing our family hand shake. Or I can hold your hand and we can do big cheek breathes. I could rub your back too.”
 

“Mommy and daddy will buy you a balloon from the gift shop while you are with the doctors and nurses. You’ll see the balloon as soon as you see us. We’ll pick out a balloon for you from the gift shop. What kind should we look for?”
 

“All these people are here to help you. Should we draw them some of your cute pictures when you are finished?”
 

“After the nurse finishes, how about I snuggle in bed with you and watch a princess movie?”

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Just Before Procedure

In the last moments before a procedure, we hold back those tears pooling in our eyes, remind them of our promises, pray, say we love them and distract.

Sing a song.

Make funny stuffed animals voices.

Talk about what flavor popsicle we should choose afterward.
 

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During Procedures

If in the room during hard things (IVs, urodynamic tests, etc.), use a gentle and steady voice, even if they are screaming. We try to “ground” them by:

Holding their hands and questioning, “I’m holding your hand. Do you feel it?”

Ask them to squeeze your hand as hard as they can.

Touch their face and ask them, “Can I see your eyes? Can you see momma? I’m right here.”

Kiss their forehead or rub their hair. “I’m here. I’m here. Do you feel my kisses?”
 

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Let Them Feel

When I was a new medical momma, while my in-pain child was sobbing during an IV/NG tube placement or invasive test, I found myself repeating, “You are OK. You are OK.” Somewhere along the line, I stopped saying this, and started offering permission to acknowledge hard things.

The truth is that what they are experiencing doesn’t feel OK. So, instead, I say, “Does this hurt, baby? I promise if you’ll be brave, it will be over very soon.” 
 
These are gut-wrenching parenting moments. Unfortunately though, they are experiencing trauma.
And processing pain is essential. We don’t want them to soldier through or hide their feelings. Crying is a healthy response. It’s alright if they aren’t “fine” or “okay”. We can’t take away hurt, but we can help them process through it.
 

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After surgeries are over, we don’t just move on. They’ve experienced trauma, so we find ways to let them talk about what they experienced and how they felt. It’s not fun, but it’s helpful.

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Special Requests

Be an advocate. Talk to doctors and nurses about your child’s past medical trauma and adoption attachment.
 

Ask to hold your child during breathing treatments or finger pricks.
 

Ask for permission to be with your child until they are on “loopy meds” or asleep. (Some hospitals allow this, some don’t, depending on the procedure. Just ask.)
 

Request to be in the recovery room when your child wakes up.
 

If a hospital doesn’t allow this, don’t panic. Most don’t. Kids are far more resilient than we imagine.

We always tell our child later where we were and what we were doing while they were “asleep”. “We were in the waiting room waiting for a nurse to come and take us to see you. We prayed for you the whole time and went to buy you a balloon. We never left.”

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Hospital Room

Provide familiar, sensory comforts: a favorite soft bear, fuzzy blanket, Play doh, something to squeeze or chew on. Rub your child’s back, listen to favorite tunes, or do a family handshake. Get in the hospital bed and hold them. On our last hospital stay, we used a diffuser with our daughter’s favorite scented oil.
 

Sometimes kids need to zone out. If your child is upset, it might be time for showing #769 of Frozen. If they are crying, turn it on and just gently ask questions and talk about the movie. Stick with it. They will eventually calm down when the room is calm again.
 

Other times, they need to not watch that 123rd movie. Turn on familiar tunes and read books. Color in a coloring book. Be the calm they need.
 

Tell them that after this is over, they’ll be going home and will soon start to feel better. Make no assumptions that they “get” what is happening.
 

Take full advantage of hospital play rooms, libraries, child life specialists, and art carts.
 

Find things to celebrate. “It was yucky to get your NG tube, but you did it! You are so very brave. Let’s make funny faces on SnapChat.”
 

These times are not fun. For every medical procedure we endure, I vote that we parents get badges or chocolate. We’re a strong bunch though, and we can do hard things.

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In the end, most of the time that we wear a hospital ID sticker, we’re just doing our best, moment by moment, then hour by hour, until it’s day by day and we finally head home. We can’t expect ourselves to respond perfectly, but we can take some intentional steps about preparing our kids.

The good news is that these days will pass.

Even if there is more medical fun to come, we’ll walk into hospitals and we’ll walk back out. We’ll be the firm foundation for our little people, even if we are melting inside.
Because we love them, and it’s just what we do.

Courage, dear heart. – C.S. Lewis

Originally published on No Hands But Ours




Biologically Yours

My sweet one, you and I might not share DNA, but I am forever and always, biologically yours.

Biology: the science of life or living matter in all its forms and phenomena, 
especially with reference to origin, growth, reproduction, structure, and behavior.

Dictionary.com

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If you researched our story, you’d begin with the origin of our love, the moment when my head and heart began its connection to yours. God placed the seed of adoption in the hearts of your daddy and I, and the story of our life together was born. The dates and times, first conversations, and plans made are the very first data that you could record. Long before we laid eyes on your dark hair and almond eyes, we loved you, and that love grew rapidly, like a multiplying molecule.

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Our connection cannot officially be quantified by science, and there is no scale that can weigh love, but oh my, is there evidence of both. God created your biological body and mine too. He designed our personalities and gifted us with souls. He is the author of love, and the chemist that put our family into motion.

If you study this mother’s love for you, you’ll see growth, and behavior that demonstrates our biological connection in many forms.
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Science: systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.

Dictionary.com

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Look at my life and my days, sweet one. Observe my actions closely and you’ll see our biological connection. We could fill a thousand lab journals with physical and behavioral proof:

Daddy and I pursued you, though you were a world away, with blood, sweat and tears.

 

When I first held you, every last one of my senses burned awake. Tears pooled, my heart beat faster, my mind raced, my skin tingled and my stomach twisted. We were mother and child, and my body felt it.

 

In those first days together, I slept beside you and watched you sleep. I breathed you in and watched you until I couldn’t hold my eyes open. And so we slept, resting our bodies under the same blanket.

 

When relationship building was hard, we pressed on, experimenting until we figured it out.

 

Over time, our relationship gained chemistry. I “got” you and you “got” me. I could look into your eyes and guess your thoughts, presume your feelings. You knew about my chocolate habit and I knew spiders make you shriek.

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Now, this body of mine knows you with all its muscles, all its functions and all its senses.

I tune my ears to your voice and listen again and again when you tap me on the shoulder and ask if you can tell me just one more thing.

 

I turn my eyes to you in our backyard grass, and watch one more time when you plead, “Watch me, Mommy!”

 

 

Read the rest over at No Hands But Ours. 

 

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I See Love By Choice

Sometimes I can’t bear CNN. I can’t stomach Facebook. My heart can’t hold another story of gut-wrenching loss, more video of violence, another photo of a child swollen from hunger, yet more stories of families fleeing from hate in their homelands. I can’t read another word about ugly politics or strands of hateful, intolerant status updates. Sometimes this broken world is too much for me.

But God graciously immersed me in the world of adoption, and so very often he uses adoptive families to turn my eyes from humanity’s bad to its beauty. He uses faces of orphans turned daughters to lift my eyes to love. He uses medically fragile, fatherless, little boys that love transforms into miraculously healthy sons to remind me that He redeems.

Love by choice is splashed all over my Instagram feed, church and community. Love on display in its purest form in a thousand stories, families and redeemed lives.

I see parents pushing tirelessly, but war wounded, through obstacles and red tape for children they love, but have not yet held.

I see dads saying yes to adoptions that aren’t in the budget, and laying aside protective fears regarding the impact of medical needs.

I see moms pushing through the hard wait by researching about attachment, medical needs and a new country’s culture

I see families who learn big lessons about God’s provision when funds are miraculously provided.

I see families struggle to fundraise, but who move forward still, learning different big faith lessons as they scrape and sacrifice to write big checks.

I see adoptive moms who work tirelessly to raise funds for other families.

 

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I see adoptive parents who willingly say yes, knowing it will mean specialist appointments, g-tubes, wheelchairs, prosthetic fittings, chemo, HIV meds, catheterizing, enemas, transfusions, EKGs, OT, PT, medication filled syringes, and too much time sitting prayerfully outside operating rooms.

I see families bravely climb into planes bound for the Far East, taking giant steps into the unknown.

I see parents stand in civil affairs offices, surrounded by people speaking a foreign language, feeling the weight of their longed for, beloved child for the very first time. There’s fear, there’s a million questions, there’s lives forever changed, but there is raw, hard, beautiful love.

I see the supportive, cheering adoption community anxiously refreshing computer screens every Monday morning for the courageous love shown in Gotcha Day photos.

I see teary, beaming grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends welcoming little strangers into their families and lives in airport terminals.

I see siblings who welcome new brothers and sisters into their homes and share toys, time and mom and dad.

I see jet-lagged, shell shocked parents whose lives have been turned upside down, but who keep right on loving kids too afraid to be loved.

I see couples who sleep with a daughter in-between them for months until she feels secure.

I see dads walking their kids around in church hallways because little ones just aren’t ready for the stimulation or separation.

I see families who adopt older children even though the world suggested that it’s a bad idea.

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I see brave warrior boys showing up for regular, life saving blood transfusions.

I see Instagram photos of adorable kids donning adoption fundraising t-shirts.

I see families adopting again, and then again.

I see couples giving up weekends to sit in conferences to learn how to best parent kids who’ve known trauma.

I see moms who push and plead to be the first face their medically traumatized child sees post-operation.

I see an adopted teen who sets a big goal of helping one thousand aging out or medically fragile kids.
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I see families who organize races to fund other family’s adoptions or to pay for medical care for fragile little ones who still wait for families.

I see adoptive moms and dads advocating for waiting children.

I see friends who change their profile photos to remind friends to pray for the adoption community’s sick kids facing big surgeries.

I see moms and dads who continue to cheer and champion their kids from hard places as they grow and change and process and bloom.
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I see adoptive moms generously answering a million questions for those who come after them about their adoptions, kids’ medical needs and attachment experiences.

I see dads travelling across the globe to love on orphans, advocate for waiting children, and teach English.

CS Lewis penned, “To love is to be vulnerable.” My adoption community restores my soul, fills me with inspiration and swells me with pride through its big, vulnerable love by choice. Because it has seen and knows, and refuses to be indifferent to the needs of the orphan. They love with hearts wide open in civil affairs offices in Nanjing, hotel rooms in Guangzhou, hospital rooms, therapists’ offices, IEP meetings, rocking chairs, and beside toddler beds at 3AM. They rally for each other, pray for each other, give back, and spur one another on.

I see the hard too. I’m not ignorant, or immune, to all the gut-wrenching challenges, grief, loss, hurt, and struggle, but I see families choosing to say faithful, courageous, knowing yeses anyway. Choosing to keep going through battle-like processes, international trips, homecomings, stretching transition seasons, long nights and grief soaked conversations. I see love by choice

Thank you, adoption friends. This circle blesses me, and is a much needed beacon of light in this hurting world. I’m grateful to stand among you.

This post first appeared on No Hands But Ours.

*Special thanks to Kelley Berrey, Lisa Ellsbury, Liberty Joy, Kelly Preston, and LeighAnn Pruiksma for sharing photos.  

More Beautiful for Having Been Broken

Dear Daughter,

As I stood watching you, little one, tears rolled down my cheeks. You stood before my mirror all dolled up in your pink plastic dress-up shoes, hot pink, sparkly tutu, mismatched head bands, some bracelets, as many necklaces as you could gather, and your big sister’s glittery lip gloss. With your hip popped out just so, you twirled a pig tail and smiled at all the fanciness in your mirrored image. Without hesitation, you deemed yourself “boo-tee-ful”, and I did too. I noticed all the beauty on your precious little outside; your black shiny hair, almond eyes and pink cheeks. You are truly beautiful as the world sees beauty. But your loveliness goes far deeper than what most eyes can see. Your beauty has layer upon layer.

You bear many scars, my girl, both physical and emotional. Some your momma sees and can identify, and others she will never be able to. You are made up of broken pieces, some that have healed and some that need more time.

Your story has had harder edges from the moment the world first welcomed you. By your first birthday, you had scars from more than one surgery. Throughout your earliest years, you spent altogether too much time hooked up to an IV, when you should have been playing peek-a- boo. You were crying from discomfort from infection, instead of crying from a dropped pacifier. By age four, between China and home with mommy and daddy, you’ve endured ten surgeries, with all the scars, complications and infections that came along. You spent more time in hospital rooms than play rooms.

You have not been given the luxury of an easy entry into this world.

The luxury of spending time cradled in your birth mothers arms. 

The luxury of not knowing what the inside of an operating room looks like.

The luxury of having your only milestones being eating your first table food and walking.

The luxury of your childhood spent surrounded by birth family and birth culture.

Both your body and your heart have been broken. As soon as I type that, I want to hit delete, because most of the world hears that word and cringes. So this momma bear wants to take it away, to pretend it’s not so. But that would be diminishing you and your story, my dear, because you are a warrior. A tiny yet mighty one, made more beautiful by the broken parts. You are not normal. No, you are far more. You are an original, and your scars tell a story of strength and miracles and survival.

The truth is, that evening watching you in the mirror, my tears were spilled both for you and for me. My world was spinning, and seeing you there proud in the mirror stopped me in my tracks. Just a few weeks earlier, a doctor had informed me that the lump I’d found was malignant. That afternoon I had visited a plastic surgeon to discuss reconstruction after breast cancer. As she whipped through photos of all my less than fun “options”, it wasn’t the surgery that scared me most. It was all the scars. I’m about to have scars, my dear, and you already have so many. What are we girls to make of it? We girls want to feel beautiful.

I am not one that is overly focused on appearance. I tend not to compare, and I don’t focus too much energy on extreme body sculpting exercise or on finding the perfect jewelry and shoes for each perfect outfit. But those images of potential scars rocked me, I must admit. Though my appearance has never been my obsession, at the end of the day, like you, I still want to stand in the mirror and feel pretty, and I wonder if I’ll be able to.

Just when my fear was starting to swell, the Lord placed you in my mirror with all of your sparkle. How could I keep blowing up pity party balloons with you standing before me? How can I not glean strength from all of yours?

You are young, little one. You just color your “artworks” and give your baby doll a bottle, blissfully unaware of your history, unburdened by your losses and the scars they left. You don’t carry the weight of it yet. I pray you never well, but I suspect it will be something you’ll have to pray your way through as age brings understanding and exposure to the world’s view of beauty. I worry that someday you’ll look in the mirror and those scars might be more noticeable. As your momma, I am going to say every affirming word I can to empower you to see yourself with loving eyes. Ultimately though, I know that only the Lord can heal hearts and bind up wounds, so I am going to be praying my guts out for Him to do so for you. I’ll pray for him to do so for me too.

Once a friend, aware that one of my concerns about your surgeries was the additional scarring, blessed me by sharing a graphic with an image of a gorgeous piece of Japanese pottery marked by streaks of shining gold. Beneath it was the caption:

Kintsukuroi: to repair with gold, the Japanese art of repairing cracked pottery with gold or silver lacquer, and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken

 

 

You are my beautiful, brave warrior. The strength you’ve shown in enduring four years of loss, hospital stays, surgeries, and invasive tests make you even lovelier as you stand on the other side of each one. Lovely not in spite of it, but BECAUSE of it. The Lord is in the process of writing your redemption story, and it’s one of miracles. You are a piece of art He’s creating, ever so intentionally filling in broken pieces with gold.

Your journey is not over, and neither is mine. But let’s expect that gold filling. Let’s expect layers of beauty. And when we doubt, let’s remind ourselves to consider how our very artistic Creator sees us.
Someday maybe you’ll lift your shirt up, and I’ll lift up mine. Maybe we’ll notice that the scars are present, but fading, part of the story, but not all the story. Maybe we’ll fist pump, because we fought like girls.
  
Courage, dear heart.

Love,
Mommy

This post was originally published on  No Hands But Ours. 

I Could Never Do That

I could never do that.
I could never adopt.
I could never foster.
I could never have more than two kids.
I could never adopt multiple children.
I could never afford adoption.
I could never say yes to a child with special needs.
I could never bear my child needing surgery.
I could never parent a child with complex medical needs.
I could never go through that emotional process again.
I could never endure waiting for my child while they linger in an orphanage across the globe.
I am afraid that I could never love an adopted child as much as I love our biological children.
Your family is just so beautiful, but I could never do what you’ve done.

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We adoptive parents hear it all the time. We hear it from other parents at school parties, on the playground, at the Target check out, or from dear friends being vulnerable. And we respond as best we can, with a smile. Sometimes we respond with perfect gumption and eloquence and other times we fumble for the words to match our conviction.
But here is what we want to say. 

Here is how the response dialogue plays out in the car as we drive away.
We say, “Exactly.”

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Because…

We know our own weakness.

We know our own fears.

We know our own lack.

We know the crazy that our homes already possess.

We know that when deciding to say yes, we almost said no.

We know that we too could never do any of it in our own strength. But we put ourselves into the position to watch God come through. We bought front row seats to watch Him show Himself mighty. And though we may be weary from the journey we’ve said yes to, we stand gratefully in awe.

We want you to know that God has come through for us. That, in each of our families, he’s shown up and shown off in a million big and little ways. In the middle of any part of it that has been hard, we’ve seen provision and we’ve been carried through. And in the end, we’ve been changed and we’ve been blessed.

Read the rest over on No Hands But Ours.

A Prayer for Adoptive Families

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts…? – Psalm 13
Adoption awareness and orphan care have become a life’s work for us, a calling bigger than adding children to our family. It’s seeped into our faith, hearts, conversations, serving, friendships, and Instagram feeds.

Though our first steps in were tentative, three adoptions later, we are a family flying the adoption banner. We’ve compiled dossiers, read books, received grants, fundraised, waited, travelled, and attached. We’ve also served, bought t-shirts, spoken, written, advocated, and conference-d. We’ve started an adoption ministry, urged our church to offer an adoption grant, and served on mission trips. We’ve jumped onto the bandwagon and we’ve driven it too.

But just because we wear the t-shirt doesn’t mean we’ve got it all sorted out.

This year, this veteran adoptive mom found herself rattled by Orphan Sunday and National Adoption Month. I love the awareness it brings. It stokes the fighter in me who wants to shout at the world to stand up for vulnerable children. I pray that we’d all be outraged that families give up their children because they can’t afford food or medical care. That we’d not be OK with kids growing up in the US foster system or in the world’s orphanages. That the world would see the redeeming beauty of adoption.

But the truth is, I’m still in process with my thinking, and my understanding has layers now. I wrestle with how best to “defend the fatherless”. I wrestle with how to help in a way that doesn’t hurt. I wrestle with my role and my motives. I wrestle with my own apathy and my own helplessness. I wrestle with how much of my kids’ stories to share and with what words to use. I wrestle, and I pray you will too.

Our family was given the gift of three children birthed in China, and they are perfectly fitting puzzle pieces. But, I don’t think God intended them for our family or that we saved them. I wrestle with that thinking. Rather, I think He can redeem any of the losses or the traumas of this broken world, even parents having to give up their children. We are merely grateful that He chose us to receive these beautiful gifts. They are cherished children now, but we didn’t save them. As much as I’d love to believe that, we just don’t have it in us. It was us who were saved. Us who could have missed it. This life turned upside down by adoption and these glimpses into brokenness. This life less comfortable and full of heart checks.

We are just a crazy, under construction family blessed by adoption, redeemed by God, wrestling with how to see with His eyes and love with His heart. Like so many of you, we’re a big mess with rattled hearts.

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I’ve come to realize that God is a fan of heart-transforming wrestling. I can say now that I’m grateful for how adoption stretches my trust, comfort and thinking. From the signatures on our first application, we wrestled to understand the wait, the red tape, the apathy of governments, and the sheer number of children without birth parents who can raise them. We just couldn’t fathom why adoption was so hard when so many wait. One side of my brain gets angry with God and the other knows to trust that He’s good. I pray that even with the hard questions, that I will trust His goodness. I pray you will too.


I don’t yet have tidy answers to my questions, and I don’t suppose I will this side of heaven. This is messy redemption business happening in a broken world, and I think grappling is part of the package. This questioning has forged a sweet, new understanding of who He is to us, to our waiting kids, and to the world’s fatherless.

Years ago, my fired up for orphan care self landed in Zimbabwe to serve kids in group homes. I arrived planning to serve and save and left unsettled and having not saved a soul. One afternoon, while painting strokes of blue paint onto the wall of a home alongside the teens that would inhabit it, I contemplated the words Save and Orphans written in giant letters across my t-shirt. Knowing they could read English, realizing that I was nobody’s savior, and seeing that these “hurting orphans” were not just a cause, but souls with beating hearts, thoughtful minds and stories beyond my comprehension, I felt differently about my well intended t-shirt. My mindset shifted, and though I still fail, I’ve been more carefully considering my words ever since.

Now as I parent three kids who know great loss, words matter. I don’t expect to always say the right thing. I don’t have that within me either. It’s just that I want to intentionally tell our story, while still protecting and honoring theirs. I want to consider first how my kids would/will hear my words. There are just too many complexities within parenting from adoption that I don’t have the luxury of ignoring. I’ve made mistakes in this, but I’m learning. I desire to honor God, protect the hearts of my kids, and “look after orphans and widows in their distress”, so it’s a dance I want to dance prayerfully.

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Honestly, I’m just beginning to process how my need to feel good, matter, and belong within the adoption community might subtly sneak into my mindset when serving, advocating, and posting on social media. God’s given me passion, but I’m learning to pause before I act, speak or write. I’m praying that moment by moment, I’ll defer to His guidance in first shepherding my kids’ hearts.

My National Adoption Month prayer is that together we’d wrestle with our role on behalf of vulnerable children. That we’d be shaken by what we’ve seen, what we know, and what we’ve been called to. That we’d wrestle with whom and how we’re called to love. That we’d openly celebrate the beauty of adoption, passionately advocate, and prayerfully consider how to do it well.

Our Missing Villagers

The village it’s taken to build our family is a wide circle.

It took a village of family, friends, adoption agencies, social workers, US and Chinese government agencies, donors, an adoption support group, grant ministries and orphan advocates to get our three China babies home.

It took a village of nannies, nurses, a healing home, orphanage directors, cooks, Half the Sky and Love Without Boundaries to care for our China babies before we could get to them.
It took a village of tour guides, drivers, hotel staff, and family at home to help us meet our China babies and navigate in China.

It now takes a village of friends, family, teachers, online adoptive momma friends, therapists, surgeons, specialists, lab workers, x-ray techs, and nurses to help us heal, teach, love and parent our China babies here at home.

But then there is you. The birth family.

The rest of the villagers get more attention, but you are the reason why the crowd of witnesses can exist. The miracles were birthed in you. I don’t know why it unfolded as it did, but I know that three almond eyed loves call me mom because of the life you gave them and the sacrifices you made.

You are our missing villagers. The mothers. The fathers. The siblings. The extended family.

That the women who birthed our babies are not present in their lives is a truth I can scarcely bear. It’s too heavy for my heart and too unfathomable for my head. It’s a fallen world that we live in when mommas can’t hold their babies and love them into adulthood. It’s broken when children will never know the guiding hand of their biological fathers, or listen to the old stories of their grandparents. When siblings will never play together, or even meet.

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Our three China babies are too young to make sense of you. They know they are adopted and have China mommas. They know the facts, but grasping that they have flesh and blood birth families living on the other side of the globe is another matter.


I’d like to send a message over the miles, the separation, the culture differences, the loss and the circumstances to tell you that though you are missing in physical form, you are in the circle still.

I’ll admit that I’ve felt a flurry of mixed-up emotions when thinking of you. They are not all pretty, processed or ironed into fair just yet. Mostly, I am deeply sad for your unfathomable loss. For the gift you were given, but then had to release. I think on how you came to the decision, what the circumstances were, where you were, and what you felt. Were you forced or was it the only option? Did gender or medical needs make the decision for you?

It’s hard not to dream up romantic stories. I believe most mothers’ hearts are loving, but I attempt to not fill in details, because the opening chapters are yours and not ours.

 Our relationship is complicated, yours and mine.

The momma bear in me has felt heavy with anger over the disparity between what should be and what is for my children. Anger at you. Anger at your family. Anger at a culture that has allowed this to be commonplace. Anger at a medical system failing families needing help. Anger at the brokenness flowing deep and wide through humanity. Anger at myself for feeling angry.

I’ve felt a cavern of grief. Grief for the gift that you were given in these precious soles, but then had to release. Grief for the labor you bore to deliver them from womb to world and then from your arms to mine. Grief for the anguish you must have felt when you first saw a cleft lip or heard the words sick and fragile. Grief for the series of choices you had to make. Grief for the moment the decision was made, and for final moments together. Grief for every day you can’t know what amazing people they are becoming.

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We don’t know you and you don’t know us, but you are villagers still.


We talk about you. We pray for you. We wonder about you. Truth be told, sometimes we get about the business of living and forget that these little people weren’t birthed to us naturally. We don’t notice that their skin is a shade darker, their hair a bit straighter and their features not matching our own. They are just our kids, until we remember that they are your kids too.

Sometimes people ask about their “real parents”. Reminded again of loss and love, we respond imperfectly, but intentionally. Into little confused souls we state the facts. You are real and we are too. They have two real families, both bringing life, one in the beginning and the other for a lifetime. One in China, one across the breakfast table.

Birth family, know that in our less than perfect way, we attempt to honor you. Our family is a family of six because your sacrifices afforded us the gift of two daughters and a son.

We promise to keep praying and processing through our emotions and thoughts. As they grow older and their questions get harder, we’ll do our broken best.

We don’t know you and you don’t know us, but you are villagers still.

Be the Village: 20 Ways to Serve Adoptive Families or Families in Crisis

“Let me know what I can do.” 

 


We make the offer to newly home adoptive families and families facing medical challenges or hospital stays. We all say it, and mean it, but we know they won’t take us up on. Not a matter of gratitude, help offers are always appreciated. And support is likely needed, but they likely don’t have the energy to muster up suggestions, coordinate care, or give the deeply vulnerable response, “Yes, please help us.”

Our family has known adoption and medical challenges, and our village of loved ones has gently and intentionally placed us on a mat and heaved us over their heads for carrying. From our position perched on the shoulders of others, we were taught to graciously say yes to receiving offered blessings.

Early on, a wise mentor urged, “Take me at my word. Let’s not play the polite game. You need help. I can give it. Let’s not waste time here.” So, we submitted and learned to allow others in, and are better for dropping pretense, releasing obsessive control and forfeiting the polite game. Now there is a new intimacy within our village and we all get to participate in God’s storytelling.

But how can any of us show big support in ways that don’t max out our already maxed agendas? How can we be the village that rallies for these families? First, we remind ourselves that it’s not about perfection or about impressing. It’s about loving. It’s about sending the message that you will stand shoulder to shoulder in the hard places. It’s simply about showing up.
We were loved on in a host of creative ways, and our hope is to pay that forward. May these 20 suggestions spark ideas for ways your family can “carry the mat” for others. Whether they admit it or not, there most likely is need for physical and emotional support, so let’s be the village they need.
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1. Meals. They might be capable of toasting some bread and scrambling up some eggs, but the gift of a meal is as much of an emotional blessing as it is physical help. We use Take Them a Meal for online coordination. The organizer sends out a calendar of sign-up slots. Volunteers can see what others are bringing and also get emailed reminders. Food equals love, friends. Many times when my family saw friends standing in our doorway with soup and salad, our hearts were lifted. It was their presence and their hugs that mattered even more than their ciabatta bread.

Meals do not need to involve your finest, most complicated recipes. Rotisserie chicken, bagged salad and fruit is a perfect meal. Think simple, kid-friendly food. This is not about exhausting yourself. It is about blessing by doubling your spaghetti dinner or half-ing a pot of chili.

Do consider giving a hug and dropping the meal at the door. The family will invite you in, but they are tired, or they are cocooning, or they have dinner time hungry kids.

2. Group Prayer. Get your friends, your life group, or your neighbors together to pray big, bold, out loud prayers prior to an adoption or surgery. It doesn’t have to be a big event, just a circle spilling their requests before the Lord.

3. Voxer Messages. Download the Voxer app on your phone and have your friends do the same. This app was a sweet lifeline during our long, out of state hospital stays. It works like voice texting, and allows an ongoing conversation that you can listen to, or record, when you get free moments. Uninterrupted, coherent phone conversations while in the hospital, or newly home with a traumatized child, are hard, but hearing the voice of those who love you is a spirit lifter. I might have spilled my guts in marathon Voxers a time or three.

4. Care Bags.
Adoption: Show up with a bundle of small gifts that demonstrate your acknowledgement of what they face. Our adoption support ministry gives flowers, chocolate, nuts and gum.

flowers: “Adoption is beautiful.”

chocolate: “It’s sweet.”

gum and nuts: “But it will stretch you beyond your comfort zone and make you nutty.”

Hospital Bags: Fill a bag with some comfort items for weary families spending days in sterile hospital rooms. Include things like chocolate, magazines, Kind bars, chapstick, fuzzy socks, chocolate, tea, grapes, nuts, hand lotion, a journal and pen, and more chocolate.

5. Hospital Visit. Always ask first if company would be a blessing. If it’s a yes, then show up to be shoulder to shoulder in support. Consider asking if you can pick up some non-cafeteria food. When you arrive with Starbucks or Chipotle, don’t be surprised if tears flow. Try keeping the visit to under an hour, as patients get tired easily.

6. Text Personal Videos/Knock Knock Jokes. Don’t have time to visit or whip up lasagna? No fear. Pull out your phone, tap record and have your kids, or your whole family, send a fun and encouraging video message. We send videos of the kids telling goofy knock-knock jokes. In the easiest way possible, you are “present” on a hard day. It’s not about perfection, it’s about connection.

7. Gift Cards. It can’t be denied, we all love them, and they are a big blessing to a family facing medical challenges or adoption transition. Think Starbucks, Chik-Fil-A, Subway, Panera, hospital meal cards, and restaurants that deliver. ITunes cards are a fun pampering of new songs and games to entertain us. If travel is required for surgery, gas gift cards help lighten financial burden.

8. Hospital, Ronald McDonald House, or at Home Mail. Send a card. It will matter. Kid art is the best.

9. Balloon, Flower or Cookie Bouquet Delivery. Ever watch a two year old receive a balloon on a string? Yea well, adults have that same reaction.  

10. Text or Message. It means something for someone to remember where you are and what you are facing. You might not get an immediate response, but don’t think it too small an act. Don’t wait until you have the right, profound words to share. Just send your love.

Find the rest of the ideas over at No Hands But Ours.

Letter From Us: No Hands But Ours

When newly home two years ago with three year old, Eli, and one year old, Evelyn, life felt turned upside down for such a very long time. A few months in, I found myself focusing more heavily on the changes I was feeling and experiencing than on how my two little ones, who had been carried away from their worlds in China, might have been feeling. In order to reorient my heart, I spent some time processing through what my kids might have told me if they could.
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Dear Momma,
We first walked through the doors of what you call home two months ago. Can you believe it? Seems like longer.

This has all been so confusing to us. It was just an ordinary day of playing at the orphanage when you suddenly appeared. You had tears in your eyes, and it seemed like you knew us, but we didn’t recognize you. Our nannies handed us to you, and then they stepped away. You looked so different, and your hugs and kisses felt strange. All the fuss unnerved us. We weren’t used to being touched so much. You even smelled different, and we couldn’t understand your words. Your smile was friendly though, and we loved all the fun things you had in your bag. Then, you carried us out the doors of the only place we’d ever known. As we drove toward all things new, our cribs, nannies and friends were moving farther and farther away in the rearview mirror. It’s like our hearts stopped beating and our heads started spinning. It’s been really scary.
  
Remember that our little hearts are still trying to make sense of it all. Our worlds just stopped when you added us to yours.

We know we brought some crazy into your ordered, comfortable world, and sometimes you and daddy seem tired, frazzled, and grumpy. Maybe we turned your life upside down. Ours is upside down too.

Despite it all, we catch you looking at us and smiling. And when you pull us close, it feels hopeful now, even if we still aren’t sure how to handle the touch.

You guys are kind though and take such gentle care of us. Slowly, safety is calming us. The best thing? It hasn’t ended yet. We keep wondering if it will. Every morning we wake up and you are still there. This thing called family feels like something special. We don’t quite get it yet, but it is starting to settle into the deep places of us.

We’ve noticed that when we go places, we always come right back to this same place. It’s like we all belong here. This house is fun too. Everything is soft and cozy. Tile, concrete and lots of kids sharing the same things are what we were used to. Here, interesting things seem to be in every drawer and basket. We like to dump things out and investigate, because we were never allowed to explore before. There wasn’t anything to explore.

More great news? We are growing more attached to you. You feel safe, so when you aren’t in the room, everything feels off. You’d probably prefer that we not sit on the rug beside the tub during your end of a long day bath, but we just love the feeling we get when we are with you. And those little almond eyes you see under the bathroom door? That’d be us. There is a deep place within us that wonders if you’ll leave and never come back. Could that be part of our story more than twice?

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We might call everyone “mama”, but in our hearts, we are learning who you are. You are different from all the “mamas” who have taken care of us. You are gentle and constant. Something in us just knows that you’ve changed everything.

As you can tell, we require a wee bit of extra grace. You didn’t think it was funny when we stuffed things in the toilet, dug dirt out of plants, peed on the couch, played on the carpet with water filled toy dishes, smushed oatmeal in our just washed hair, got into the medicine cabinet, and ripped pages out of your library book. There might be some words that you said that we shouldn’t repeat. And those “child safety” things you just installed? Probably a real good idea.

Can you keep showing us grace? We’re just checking out our new world. Deep breaths might be a good idea as well.

Sometimes we just can’t process how the newness makes us feel. It’s hard to understand-even the good parts. When the feelings are too much, sometimes we cry, scream, grow silent, run away, or hold on hard and not let go. Does your grace and love have a limit?

Keep singing “Jesus Loves Me” into our ears. It quiets our shaking souls. Someday soon we’ll learn the words.

Don’t worry so much about us learning to talk. Our ears just need more time taking in all the English. You sound so different from the nannies.

You’ve got baskets of books everywhere. We think they might be something special. The sitting still thing while you read is a bit hard, but please don’t stop trying. Your lap feels good, and the cadence of your voice a simple comfort. Be patient.

American food is funny, isn’t it? We ate very different food in China. Give us time, and please serve lots of rice and noodles. We’ll get used to the rest.

We get the feeling you’d like for us to sleep better at night. Sometimes when we cry because we aren’t right next to you, you seem really grumpy. Remember that we used to sleep in a room with all our friends. There were even night nurses who would play at midnight. We’re afraid if we wake up and you aren’t in the room. The good news is that you make us feel safe. Is that what love means?

When we first came home, you were doing well just to give us all baths and clothe us. You sure have come a long way. You and dad are SO productive now. It’s like you got on a mission to handle it all. Accomplishing tasks seems to make you feel good. That’s important and all, but instead of an empty dishwasher and a plan, maybe we could just BE together. When you take the time to hold us, look in our eyes, and react to our smiles and cries, something new stirs in our hearts. 
  
Thanks for the healthy meals and folded clothes in our drawers, but maybe one day we could just eat hot dogs, wear the same clothes two days in a row and dance in the kitchen. Daddy has some great moves.

And outside? So cool. That’s new to us too. Let’s go out there more. We’ll try to remember not to walk in the road.

Sometimes, just for a passing minute, do you ever think about life before we met and miss it? Yep, us too. Everything has changed for all of us. Let’s not forget though that God made us some promises, and that He writes stories with great endings.

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Read the rest over at No Hands But Ours.