Adoption Hurts

 

"Is adopting her harder than you thought it would be?"

    I think, when I weighed the options back in 2021, before I brought my 12 year old daughter home, I knew how hard it could be. I accepted that it could be brutal. But, honestly, I hoped it wouldn't be. I hoped maybe, just maybe, trauma hadn't sunk deep into her bones and colored everything she did. 

Some people may have different perceptions on how prepared I was, since I did jump into it pretty quickly. But I think that I did acknowledge, and accept, how hard it could be. But the reality of life is that there is no real way to know how hard anything actually is until you're living it. Meaning, I knew how hard it could be...but had no idea what that level of hard would actually feel like. 

Because it hurts. Raising a broken teenager hurts. It hurts my daughter. It hurts me. It hurts our relationship. It just hurts. 

But just because something hurts...does that mean we aren't called to do it? 

I think so many people wanted to protect me from the kind of heartbreak a teenage adoption brings. They expressed their worries and concerns, all of which were completely valid. I was only 7 months out from losing my husband ( not to mention the potential baby we were in the complicated process of trying to conceive via fertility treatments). 

I was broken and healing. I had already experienced so much incredible hurt in my 33 years. No one wanted more hurt for me. And everyone wanted to know if I was even in the position to bring on such a burden?

Probably not. I probably should have been more healed...more whole...more sound. 

Or maybe she should have been less broken...less despondent...less desperate?

Would adoption have seemed more reasonable then? If we had seemed better for each other? More whole? Probably...if we're being honest. Everyone would have been less worried, certainly. Rightfully so...because it would have made everything so much easier.

But she was still just a kid who'd been shuffled between so many homes that promised permanency and never delivered. And if there's a possibility that we can help just one kid, even at our own expense...aren't they worth it?

I think that I sometimes soften the hardness of our life together when I share because I don't want anyone to say "I told you so" or to question her place in my life...in my home...in my family.

Because I still wholeheartedly believe that she was always meant to be a part of me. 

Not in the way that two puzzle pieces fit together.

Or in the way that feels like home.

But more so in the way that Jochebed placed Moses in a basket and released him to the Nile river.

Or in the way Hannah handed little Samuel over to the priests.

Possibly even in the way Mary gave her son up to death...even death on a cross...for the will of God.

In the way that it sometimes hurts to live in the will of God.

Because although we were created for a life without sin, we brought sin into our lives. There was never meant to be widows, or orphans...or kids who keep being given away. 

Our hearts long for the perfection we were created for but we must live in the brokenness of this world...but not for always. And because the end result is not this finite life, God often asks us to do hard things, heartbreaking things. Because His plan is for our ultimate good.

There is so much of my heart that doesn't understand the broken parts of my own story, let alone the broken parts of her story. But I understand the God who has woven it all together, and I choose to believe that that is enough for me. 

I am raising a broken daughter. Because God asked me to. And because I chose to make her a part of me there will never be a moment that I choose to regret her.

I choose to love her...will choose to love her. Regardless of what she does or who she becomes, she will know that there was someone who chose her for always. Someone who chose to love her even in the brokenness. 

Because God chose her mother...her mother chose her...even if I am a poor imitation of the Father who chose her first.

"And that is the wonder that is keeping the stars apart".

It is the greatest honor and greatest sacrifice of my life to be her mother. 

Even when the brutality of her young life is angrily directed at me.

Even when I sit sobbing on my kitchen floor.

Even when it's so much harder than I could have realized to live out our redemption story. 

"This is my story. This is my song; praising my Savior all the day long."