Category Archives: adoption

What does it cost?

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I struggle with a voice in my head telling me that a woman in my ramshackle physical condition has no business hitting ramps on a wakeboard.

It is a powerful voice.

And yet I cannot help thinking that challenging that voice and hitting those structures is a victory of the heart.

Victories of the heart are often costly victories. We are challenged to face our deepest fears of loss and humiliation, pain and failure for love.

And so with the even objectivity of a math problem you could say–the measure of our love is the measure of our willingness to overcome our fear.

Or better said by a Braver Man–perfect love casts out all fear.

Tell me you love someone and I will ask you, what dragons have you fought to preserve your beloved?

When we are weak

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This was over a decade ago. A small storefront church, a young mother speaking.

She spoke about a children’s song–

Jesus loves me this I know/for the Bible tells me so/little ones to him belong/they are weak, but he is strong/

The song is so simple, so elemental, but it is only a portion of a longer hymn few of us know or sing.

We like the idea of Jesus being strong until he requires something of us.

We like the idea of Jesus being strong until he requires us to acknowledge our weakness.

We are weak. All of us. There is not a living creature on the planet who can stave off death, yet we cling to the illusion of our self-sufficiency.

The young mother that day was focused on the call of the Gospel–one man able to save us from death forever, and how to bind that good news to her children, all God’s children.

How many times have you heard a person cry out in grief and pain and then seen people answer–

stay strong/you are strong.

No. You are not. None of are. We are weak. That is the point–we are weak. He is strong.
So when sin and grief and pain hit you hard remember this: the song is true.

We are weak
He is strong
Only his strength can save us
From the swirling darkness of this
Dying world

Hat People Myopia

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I have a childlike way of seeing the world. There is a story in The Little Prince that I have found very useful over the years.

The narrator tells us that he once drew a picture of a snake swallowing an elephant. When he showed the picture to most people the drawing they exclaimed,

nice hat!

They could not picture the inside of the snake–the hidden elephant, if you will. He determined to talk to the hat people about insubstantial things–golf, the weather.

I find my hat picture is acknowledging great darkness in this world. Who wants to read about child abuse? Who really wants to write about it?

Not me.

I would rather not. I have done it aggressively, unapologetically over the last two years because I realized that it is a too-common story exacerbated and perpetuated by silence.

It has been an ugly cause. Made the more ugly for me personally because I realize how many “good” people do nothing.

I won’t ever be good at talking about golf while the world is burning.

Someone I cared about and once trusted as an elephant-seer had a conversation with me that reminded me how lonely the world of the abuse survivor can be.

The person’s discomfort was palpable and they couched it in terms of my Christianity. I have a feeling a lot of people look at my story of unhappy endings and think,

she must have done something wrong.

Of course I have! I am a sinner. But mental illness and child abuse happen everywhere, not just in my life. We don’t talk because have been taught to be ashamed.

That is not freedom in Christ. Freedom in the love of God involves a central story of pain, humiliation, agony, the death of God.

I cannot see the survivors of the crucifixion singing glib songs of cheap sentiments in the days of the cross.

Beware of people who preach resurrection joy without crucifixion agony.

The story of heaven can only be told if someone is willing to reckon with hell.

Thank God He did.

Numbered with the transgressors

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Not quite four years ago.

It was a watershed moment. I looked around the courtroom at the other bewildered parents, frankly wishing that my (adopted) son was just a weed dealer or boat thief.

He had done so much worse, and to people who were too young, innocent, and precious to deserve such terrible affliction.

I whined to God–why?! Why me? Why us? Why this?

Too much to bear…

That was my line of thinking until steady eyed Jesus reminded me of the thing He had done for me–

…numbered with the transgressors

I was numbered with the transgressors.

The message was clear–if He, blameless God, could be counted with the evildoers, I could stand this terrible heartbreak and shame.

After all, He was numbered for me, an actual transgressor.

We often forget what misery we have bought but not yet fully paid for in our rebellion against Love.

Love, heartbroken for His children. All His children.

How to be a failure

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First of all, let me restate for the record:

I am an egregious sinner and a (to quote my adopted daughter)–“failed parent.”

So yeah. Don’t be me:)

Second, a story…

When I first became a parent it was to a 12 year old boy who had been through hell.

He flipped out fast, threw rocks at our neighbors’ cars, and his caseworker told us our only option was to call the police.

Our next two charges we kept, despite the fact that they screamed at the top of their lungs 2-3 hours a day.

We lived in a cute little neighborhood. Imagine our neighbors’ chagrin when the howling started and their tremendous relief when we finally moved.

Imagine being young, reasonably cute and surrounded by a maelstrom of LOUD everywhere you went.

I still can’t believe we did it.

But we did.

Because we believed

In Jesus

Still believe, actually.

Before I wrote this I asked my oldest biological child how how life would have been different for this child and the family if I had followed advice we have encountered over and over about hiding our adopted son’s predations.

The answer was a chilling thing–

If I had, if we had, hidden the crimes against our children and supported their predator, we would have unleashed darkness on our children.

In other words–we had to tell the truth, be the failures in the eyes of family, church, and community to succeed in the one thing that matters–showing our children they are precious.

In fact I would say this to all of them the same–you are precious.

And if you are a threat to yourselves or others I will be the first person to call the police.

Because, my dear, we all deserve the law–it’s gravity and protection.

Beneath a grim and unavoidable Cross.

RAD Memories

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I had a dream a few nights ago. I had no money, no means of buying things. I had been given the task of engaging my adopted daughter (who has disowned me) in a conversation.

Because it is a dream, I choose to discuss an array of roasted and cooked chicken that is behind a butcher’s counter.

I try to keep the conversation very neutral, very chicken-focused.

Because when your kid is RAD that is how you learn to roll…even in your subconscious.

I am going to start laying out my memories of life with my adopted children. Like an old woman pulling sweaters from the attic. I need to organize this thing….the life we lived together.

The first thing you should know is the last thing that happened–she cut me off because she suspected I had reported her brother….suspected him of child abuse.

Ironically, as with so many things before, she unleashed her anger on the alleged reporter instead of facing the crime.

The terrible crime.

Surviving RAD–so far

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I don’t mind saying it–some of my biggest heroes are the fostering and adopting parents of attachment disorder kids.

RAD is the nightmare consequence of leaving a baby without physical and emotional nurture. It is a scary mix of pathological thinking and behavior.

It deserves to be a household word, but it is not.

RAD is preventable–babies need the security of physical and emotional caregiving. They need to know that when they cry someone will respond to their needs. They need to know love.

If they do not get that love and security their brain functions and emotional wiring gets pretty messed up.

Scary messed up.
Impossibly tangled.

Recently Reuters and other news sources have focused on the rise of an informal networks developed to help adoptive parents with disrupted adoptions–many because of RAD.

I have read the installments with a grim empathy…for the parents…

As the adoptive mother of two RAD kids, I know exactly what drives well-intentioned parents to abandon fheir kids.

After reading this article I am deeply grateful we all survived.

So far…

Hostage Negotiation?

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The car was dark and I was not driving when he said that he would go head first into a truck if he had to go to prison.

Cell phones cut in and out. Did he say head into? Drive into?

I was not sure how to put words into a string of meaningful units. All I could think of was how awful that would be–a spreading tragedy.

I said,

As your mother I don’t want you to do that. I don’t want you to kill yourself.

I also would prefer he not kill anyone else.

I need to say these things out loud but I also need to say–I think his impulse for self-preservation is very strong.

Who would Jesus defend?

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Over the last few years my belief that pedophiles were at or near the lowest rung of human society has been challenged.

The truth is pedophiles get a lot of consideration, even deference from most of us.

We look away and pretend they are not predators. Shame on us.

No. The true bottom rung of human society is firmly occupied by children.

Because they are young, small, defenseless, and cannot vote children are not given the same consideration as adults–including the ones who have hurt them.

When I think of these stories of children being exploited, marginalized or abused, I think about Jesus.

Jesus, unlike many who profess his name, actually did protect children. He speaks unequivocally about the need to protect children and the grim consequences of not doing so.

Matthew 18 is the primer on this, but this is good as well–

Matthew 25:40,45 (NIV)
“The King will reply, `I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ [45] “He will reply, `I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Our acts of compassion matter.

Believe it or not this comforts me. I made a lot of costly decisions for some small people once. It hurts to know how costly and how unrequited these decisions were.

Jesus reminds me that the good, the bad, and the ugly in my life is his. I stand behind his love. He paid the price…for all God’s children.

A Survivor Speaks Up:

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Sometimes I get angry when my adopted sister gives people trouble when they are just trying to help keep kids like me safe.

Sometimes you should not worry so much about other people’s stuff. You are a mother now and need to focus on being a good mother. You should not harass other people who know it is hard to be a survivor of child abuse.