Thursday, May 30, 2013

Hanging by a Thread

I brought this on myself. I know that now. I even anticipated much of it. I was informed, educated, and prepared. I counted the cost and made the leap...

...and landed without a parachute. 

I'm exhausted. No, not just exhausted...weary. I can see my self aging a little more every time I glance in the mirror. The fine lines are turning into deep crevices at an alarming rate. Not enough skin cream in the world to slow the decline. 

Mentally, I'm fuzzy all the blasted time. At work, I was helping a patient get out of bed and I put her shoes on the wrong feet. (Thankfully, she had a sense of humor.) I forget to show up for appointments, to return messages, what I was just talking about mid-sentence. 

My emotions are bubbling just below the surface. One sappy Hallmark commercial and I'm toast, brought to my knees with tears overflowing. One defiant child and I'm a raging monster, scaring the people I love the dearest. 

Adoption is hard. I'm not going to sugar-coat it. It's messy and exhausting. I was wrong when I said it's not weird. It is. It's very weird to take on a child with a lifestyle and a history foreign to your own. To parent a child whose smile either means, "You're funny and I like you" or, "You have exactly 2.3 seconds before I'm going to knock your glasses clean off your face," depending on... who knows what?


In the words of the late Derek Loux:
My friends, adoption is redemption. It's costly, exhausting, expensive, and outrageous. Buying back lives costs so much. When God set out to redeem us, it killed Him. And when He redeems us, we can't even really appreciate or comprehend it...

So, once again, it's not really about me. It's not about how I feel or what I'm experiencing. 

It's about a little boy who was thought to have been abandoned, but in fact, had a great big God who was always with him and loved him so much He tugged on our hearts, six thousand miles away. 

And, mostly, it's about that God who loves us so much He gently pulled us from our comfortable, complacent life into the great adventure and is allowing us the privilege of sharing in His suffering, one sleepless night at a time. 

He ministers to my heart even now and gives me just enough for today. At this moment, He has blessed me with a quiet house with sleeping children (including the new kid!) in which to write these thoughts and allow my perspective to be changed. He's teaching me to love, really love, without return. He's skimming off the dross that keeps bubbling to the surface in all this heat. He's lending me His strength and tenderly ministering to me His grace. 

He is good. And He is greatly to be praised!

And I find myself refreshed.

2 comments:

  1. Yes! Not easy at all but still good. Praying more refreshment and grace for each day. Hugs! Loved reading your heart!

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  2. Prayers to you Tara. I found your blog this morning and will be doing lots of reading to catch up! (I emailed you earlier today to introduce myself and tell you how the first entry I was blessed to stumble upon on your beautiful blog touched me)
    I have had my dearly loved (but often troubled) now 15 year old niece move in with my family several times over the years and though she is far from a foreign child...it was hard. To bring a child who has had few rules, no schedule, and little stability into a home where my kids have always had these was...well...Hard! I can't imagine how difficult adoption is. But what a difference in that child's life! God Bless You. Prayers for it to get much easier quickly.

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