She wrote, “I’m glad adoption worked out for you, it doesn’t for everyone. Our adoption has destroyed us.”
I would never consider that adoption has worked out for me. I would also wager to bet that I am not who I was before we adopted. I am broken and lonely. I fight voices that tell me I am fighting a losing battle, and every single day I struggle to rise up and parent trauma. I live with big behaviors and hard emotions. I live with simple victories and tiny miracles. And I hold onto both as landmarks along the journey of family. I am a very frail and human woman, adoption has broken me into many pieces.
I learned a long time ago that this life I live, this time I spend on earth does not belong to me. Every failure, every hurt and every poor choice is held in the hands of a God who sees past my big behaviors and my ugly tears. I have spent many hours in anguish and terror. One cannot see the plight of the orphan, or the abuse inflicted on foster children, and remain untouched. I have wanted to run away from the flinch of the sexually abused 6 year old, flee the smell of the bed sores on the bed-ridden, infant-sized teen in an orphanage, and scream to the heavens watching my two youngest children rock soundlessly locked back inside an orphanage that continues to live within their minds.
Adoption has not worked out for me, and I will say that it hasn’t worked out for others either. Adoption is always, always the second choice. It is not God’s plan for me to raise another woman’s child. His plan was never hurt and broken families. His plan was not sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect of tiny minds placed in my home. Instead, adoption has been stepping into broken loss and doing the very best I can to point my children to only one who can heal such pain. And I have been given a spot in the arena to join in the fight for my child’s worth and love. It is a messy, painful battle fought daily.
Often adoption will not work out well, because children are not naturally resilient. Bad things cannot happen over and over to a child and just be forgotten. No, their very cells cling to past traumas and the slightest triggers spiral them into remembered fear and pain. It is said that pain is the greatest teacher. My children have learned from a young age that this world, and those in it, can hurt them. Now translate that into the context of family and you see a mixed message of hope and fear. Some days hope wins; other days we drown in fear.
I read your words again, “I’m glad adoption worked out for you, it doesn’t for everyone.”
Oh mama, I hear your pain. I see how you are feeling like you have failed in some way. Perhaps your child has reached beyond your family’s ability to parent everyone safely. Maybe the sleepless nights and the days of rage have spiraled into in-patient treatment or a specialized group home. Or maybe you have been led down the path of severance because your adopted child was on a path of destruction and you were standing alone. I see you and I want you to know that your child’s brokenness and failure is not yours to claim. We all must reach a point that we realize that we can only do our best and sometimes our best cannot touch the splinters of childhood trauma. That some children will not heal under our care. I hope mama that you do not carry the burden of shame or failure, because it is not yours to carry.
Many choose to follow God whatever the cost. And the truth is this; the pain of this life is often more than we can carry, more than we can bear, and darker than our sight can penetrate. There are moments when it doesn’t work out and all we taste is the bitterness of failure. In those moments, I pray that you remember that Jesus is familiar with your pain and hurt.
And maybe today you are broken and dropped to your knees. Perhaps you have reached the very end of your ability to handle one more piece of heartache. I have been there too. But, I know that in my darkest hours, I have met God. In the spaces that are filled with dark, dreadful and suffocating silence, it is here that I have heard the still small whisper of a God that loves me more than my broken. A God that has promised to exchange eternal life with my daily hurt, failure and struggle.
I see you mama, and you are right. Your adoption did not work out in the eyes of the world. But I can imagine that one day the eyes of the God of the universe will be upon you, and the words he speaks will not be of your failure. You see, He only wants you and He will use your pain on this side of death to open your eyes to Him.