Are You Crazy?

I often find myself trying to explain why we are adopting two more children and how we are going to manage it. The other day I was listening to myself tell someone about what we were doing, and I sounded so strange to myself. I sounded like I was justifying my ability to provide and also parent 7 children. Why in the world do I have to create a perfect scenario to prove we are okay to adopt Dylan and Dakota? Why do I have to provide a game plan on how everything is going to work? The truth is that my world will never be perfect enough to adopt two special needs boys from Bulgaria. I am not a perfect mom. I will never reach the bottom of the laundry pile, I will always last minute rush into a school program, and I will never cook a meal that even closely resembles Pinterest. In fact, I have told myself that Froot Loops are a great breakfast because they have “fruit” in the name. My son had a project at school where they were designing a cookbook with their mom’s best recipe. My son wrote out the directions for Ramen noodles. And the best part is that I am the clumsiest person you will ever meet. I am pretty sure that at some point I have dropped each of my children. Just two weeks ago we went to the lake and I decided to walk across the top of a fence rail…because my 11 year old son dared me. The very moment I thought, “wow, I have great balance,” I proceeded to fall off the rail and bang my knee and break my toe. Yes, I broke my toe because of a dare from an 11 year old boy. So there you have it, my life will never be perfect enough…and isn’t that the point. The simple act of saying “yes” to something so seemingly impossible, gives God the credit. Think of Moses and how he asked God to use someone better to speak to Pharaoh and lead his people. Someone who was more eloquent and would not get tangled in his words. But guess what, God used Moses to do amazing things. The man who feared public speaking was given a voice that was powerful. This was not through some amazing public speaking course for nomads. No, Moses said “yes” to God and God provided for him to do his work.

This last week was tough. My youngest son, Joel, had cranio-facial rib graft surgery  Basically they surgically removed a portion of his rib and grafted it into his jaw. They then placed 4 bone anchors, so that his jaw could be wired shut for up to a month  This will allow the bone to graft into place and hopefully give structure to his face. It is a difficult surgery and one I was not looking forward to.

After surgery, it was such a heart-breaking thing to hold my boy while big tears streamed down his face. He couldn’t talk and his eyes spoke volumes. I climbed into his bed and held him and he wrapped his thin arms around me. I was laying with him thinking about the difficulty of this situation and how my heart was aching. I have spent hours and hours in the hospital, as a nurse and also as the parent of an ill child. Seven years of medical foster care and I have become very well-versed with hospital stays and hurting children. And laying with my boy, I realized that my son did not need a Pinterest mommy who could cook gourmet meals and balance all the way across a fence rail. He needed a mommy to hold him close and wipe his tears.

He needed a mommy who could enlist the help of a grandma to make a bear without an ear and a superhero cape for the surgery.

He needed friends that would send him cards, help freeze nutritious (Ramen-free) meals that were blended and could be sucked through a straw and warriors that could pray,

This mommy knows that I will never be perfect enough for Dylan and Dakota. But I do know that because of God’s power, I can be a pretty cool mom that teaches love and grace. And because I am surrounded by such an amazing community and family, I have help where I fail.

So I would like to leave you with an introduction.  Because Moses said “yes” to God, Israel became a mighty nation.  Darren and I are also saying “yes” to God, and we’d like to share our son’s name….