Here Again.....

Daddy and Josie

For our 2011 international adoption I had planned to blog on our first trip. The first half of our trip was very difficult. We agreed that if we couldn't be truthful we wouldn't blog. So, for the most part, we didn't blog. Adoption is redemptive and beautiful. For most of us who bring home children, there are also challenges to be faced. It is difficult to walk into an orphanage, having a pretty good idea of what is going on inside on a daily basis, and not be changed. Not be sobered by what you are experiencing. When you bring home a child from that hard place you are met daily with the lasting impact that starting life in that environment has had on your child. You celebrate the miracles.....and there are MANY...... and you watch with gratitude as they learn to trust and relax. You battle beside your child to get to that place, knowing and appreciating how hard it has been, for ME, to get to that place in my own life....the place where I can trust God and relax into His love for me....how much harder it must be for a child who has been brutally neglected (at best) since birth. 

I have been amazed by how adoption has mirrored pregnancy and childbirth. The waiting. The worrying.  The wondering. My most anxious delivery wasn't my first but my fourth.....because I KNEW what to expect!! Sometimes the anticipation of holding my baby took center stage, but sometimes it was all I could do to control my fears about the pain I knew I would have to go through to get to the part where I was holding my baby!!! For Keith and I, adoption has been very much the same. Lilly and Noah are absolute MIRACLES! We have been privvy to watching utterly amazing things! We get to experience the wonder of feeling as though we could tell their birth stories because it seems as if they have always been a part of our family! But there have also been many hard days. Sacrifices. Scary moments. Time and again we have had to lay down selfishness, impatience, and fatigue. It is all SO worth it, but like pregnancy number four, as we enter this new adoption journey we have a much better idea of what lies ahead......both the awesome and the difficult.

I believe that the enemy uses fear to keep many away from adoption. How will I be able to do it? What will I have to "give up"? Will we ever go camping again? Will we all fit in our car? Will we ever be empty nesters? Will we be able to travel? How will we afford it? And on it goes. It can be paralyzing. The sacrifices are real. The difficulties are real. But so are the rewards....both temporal and eternal. We have had to work diligently this go around to keep our thoughts in check....some days we win that battle and some days we don't. By God's grace we are here!! The enemy is a liar and I can already see the blessings that God has in store for our family. May we encourage each other to fight the fight and stay in the battle! So many lives depend on it. 

So, here we are again!! And this time I am blogging!