Will They Hear My Love?

Most of us have heard the old saying about someone “lookin’ for love in all the wrong places.”  Some of those places might be in sinful relationships, seeking acceptance or recognition, money and worldly possessions.  In desperate situations where true love and safety does not exist many turn to drugs, alcohol, any escape from the pain.  I will always remember some of the little boys in the slums of Uganda sniffing their drugs from the empty water bottles that they had picked up from the trash.  And why not...they live with out the most basic physical needs...food, shelter, safety; and the more important emotional needs of family, love and protection. A drug induced escape was a welcome. I held one of those little boys in my arms and it struck me that he was no older than my boys...age 7-10-ish.  As his drugged glassy eyes looked up at me, I prayed for him.  I prayed that the love of the LORD would free him from the hell he was in.  How will this little boy find that love?  How will he hear it if no one tells him?  How will he hear it?  

As I am journeying with my children home through adoption and considering some of the hard places that they have come from, I have been asking myself if I am defining love in ways that they understand.  Today, I failed miserably in this.  I’m sick and my arm is hurting REALLY bad.   My understanding and love for the children has been low today because I have been focused on me. My old goals surfaced - just wanting them to act right.  MY sin and theirs was making it very hard for me to connect with them...or even to want to.  Yet what a perfect opportunity for me to die to myself.  “He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.  By His wounds you have been healed.”  (1 Peter 2:24)

Have you ever been around someone who spoke a language that is foreign to you?  I remember once being in a foreign country for just 3 and 1/2 weeks.  I had not realized how wore out I was trying to constantly understand what was being said and telling them what I needed until I got back home.  In such a short time I remember being so grateful to be around English again so that I could “relax”. 
Using this example with my children (but also for others that the LORD brings into our lives), am I using a “foreign” love language?  Are they feeling confused with what I am saying and doing?  
“...have we learned to “translate” our love into actions and a way of relating that will bring about connection, healing and transformation, or are we speaking a “foreign” love language that our  children (our others) are not equipped to interpret, understand and receive?” (From Created To Connect).   

The LORD gives me the perfect language to use to communicate His love.  I know that you know these verses, but think of them in terms of a language of love that others and especially those that we love, can understand.   
“Love is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love hears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.   Love never ends.” (I Cor. 13:4-8)  I was irritable today, and rude, and wanted my own way...But I LOVE them and I want them to know it.  
To end this post, one last reminder of HIS love and hope to us all from Created To Connect...
“Undoubtedly we will fall short far too often in consistently speaking and living a “love langage” that connects with our children in this deeply transforming way.  But we all must recognize that what we have been called to is a journey, and we are not meant to travel it alone.  God has provided us with helpful resources, insightful people, one another and intimately His Word and is Spirit as companions and guides for this journey.  As we continue to faithfully travel with our children toward healing and wholeness, let us pray that we become increasingly those who, by God’s Spirit, are led to love our children as we ourselves are loved by God.”
We Journey on for His Glory!!!!
(Thank you Karlie for these great pictures of my boys!!! Love you)

Remembering For The Sake Of Compassion....

This post is because I felt the LORD stopped me while I was reading some scriptures and The Connected Child.  To pre-face this post...we were very encouraged to find hope this last weekend at the Empowered To Connect conference.  We came home knowing that we needed to do an “intensive” in our home to really bring hope and healing to our children from “hard places.”  This will require a huge change for us as we focus on learning what is needed to help our children.  Yesterday was “not good”, and I say that with a tired sigh.  I did things wrong, but I don’t know what to do “right” yet.  They did things wrong and don’t know how to overcome the things that are keeping them stuck.  So, I felt the LORD told me to write this post and “remember” where they have come from.  I don’t know most of their stories before they came home to us, but I do know that their behaviors give me some “clues”.
  
(These picture are my children and are private property...do not use without permission-thank you. Also, the pictures do not match the the individual stories, but I did want to remember where I began with them.)

-When we went to bring home one of our little ones, she had scars from IV’s...why where they there?  What medical issues did she face?  She was nick named “the roaring mouse” by the other adoptive parents on the trip to bring her home...what had she lived through that had instilled such a low threshold for dealing with fear and frustration?  She wouldn’t allow us to hold her face to face and is still uncomfortable with hugs.  After she came home she would “fall apart” (at 12 months of age) and even holding her we were unable to comfort her.  She still “falls apart” and we are trying to learn to help her find the safety and trust that she needs.

-Another little one who was adopted at birth needed help immediately after his birth with some “heart” issue.  When we arrived at the hospital a little later we were not able to see him for awhile till he was stable.  What happened pre-natally or in birth to create this early trauma? 

-Another little one had so much stress in her 15 month old body that I thought I might die from the sheer and exhausting demands that came from her fear!  I honestly didn’t think that I would make it.  Her fear and stress was easily the size of Texas.  She was so hungry that she would try to take food from strangers at the airport.  A dear lady finally found a banana for her after hours of her screaming and crying.  This was after another lady rudely said she hoped we were not sitting near her on the airplane.  (On a funny note, in my exhaustion, I said what was on my mind...”Believe me, if I am anywhere near you I will ask the stewardess to move me anywhere else!!!”)  She SCREAMED (my baby, not the lady-LOL) in sheer terror at any unfamiliar or loud noise; cars, airplanes, dogs barking, pop sounds, flushing toilets.  She fell in love the first time her feet touched carpet and would run on it and roll around on it.  Unfortunately, she discovered this new delight at a funeral.  But she would have NOTHING to do with grass.  She overreact to almost everything still. 

-Another little one reacts very quickly to frustration and anger...still.  He had to have pure goats milk when he was a baby because he was unable to eat anything else.  He also has always gaged on certain foods and always tried to hide foods he didn’t like.  I thought the most cleaver hiding trick was scrapping them down the window well and then proudly displaying his finished plate.  

-Another little guy gets mad at himself for getting mad and closes up like a turtle.


-Then there is the mischievous one...scared to death of anyones anger, but has a hankering (Texas slang for urge) for exploring and doing what she shouldn’t.  She has certain reactions that show us that at some time in her three years before she come home she was treated very harshly (NOT BY US).  She has perfected that art of lying and “hiding” so that she wont get into trouble.  She was also very sick, and very close to death by the time she came home.

-And then there is our precious Aiden, whom I have talked about here, who seems to have some huge sensory seeking desires that are unhealthy and unsafe for him and others.  He has banged his head, hard, every night since we brought him home at 5 months.  He still does this and it can be heard downstairs.  In fact a friend of Jace’s stayed the night last week and he told me the next morning that he hadn’t slept at all and he thought our house was haunted...he said that all night he kept hearing these rhythmic banging sounds and he was envisioning a ghost stomping above him.  Aiden seems to have a strength that is not normal for his age, and yet at his heart he is one of the most sensitive and loving people I have ever met.  

With my biological children there are piece of a puzzle that make some sense to me.  Caresse has these horrible bone knots in her body...but so did my grandmother, my mother, my uncle, me and several other people in our family.  Jace is so much like Steve AND me in personality, but he is MOST like my father.  Kalyn is exactly like my darling husband - easy going, relaxed, creative.  When I look at my biological children I see the amazing person that they are, but I can also SEE where they came from to some degree.  There is at least a generational “map” for me to look at.  

With my children home through adoption, there are so many puzzle pieces that are missing, and the “map” is at best, for me, incomplete.  None-the-less, we have made a commitment to them...we have entered a covenant relationship with them and though we may not know everything, HE does, and I find hope that HE will show us what we need to know to fulfill our commitment to these children...to love them, the help heal them and to set them on the path that the LORD has for them.  

My purpose for this post is best summed up in a few quotes from The Connected Child...so this is where I will end for today.
“Adopted and foster children deserve deep compassion and respect for what they may have endured before they were welcomed into your home.”
“The difficult history of these children means that you, as a caretaker, have to work harder to understand and address their unique deficits and make a conscious effort to help them learn the skills they need at home with a caring family.  Certainly, your children may exhibit manipulative or assertive behavior, but instead of faulting them for it, respect that it enabled them to survive and cope in profoundly difficult circumstances.”

“If you remain mindful of a child’s unique history and how early growth was disrupted, you can even admire the strength that allowed this little child to survive adversity and have compassion for the ongoing struggles he faces.”


I had lost my compassion for where they have come from, and tonight I am praying for my heart to remember and to be broken...
with the hope and assurance that the LORD causes all thing to work together for our good.
I want to again, say “Thank you” for reading my blog post and for walking this journey with me with your prayer, support and encouragement.
FOR HIS GLORY we journey!

Use Every Opportunity To SEE Their Preciousness

Yesterday I shared that in the “life-ness” of the days my motivation had changed to controlling my precious darlings more than I was really connecting with them.   

Another thing that I have, for a better word, “neglected” was to remember that my children that are home through adoption have come from hard places.  I have tried to parent them the way that I did my 3 bio children, and I am grateful that from the beginning having a healthy attachment with my children has always been my ultimate and highest goal.  BUT, I believe now that I was overlooking a very important piece in mothering my precious children who have had different “risk factors” then my bio-children; like:
-prenatal stress
-difficult or traumatic birth or labor
-medical trauma early in life
-abuse
-neglect
-trauma

I now realize that I was minimizing the impact of these risks factors and somewhat ignoring that “my” children might have been impacted.  I can say now that I was being blind and impractical here.  I needed to be reminded of my children's beginnings so that I can help them move forward.  I want to help my children not just behave, “but to blossom and to empower the healing connections that will bring greater joy..”  from Created To Connect workbook.

The workbook also says “There is an undeniable truth that everyone who loves a child from the hard places must remember: the past affects the future...but it does not have to determine it.”  This journey that we will walk with our children must be firmly established in a steadfast faith in and dependence on the One Who delights to redeem and restore the brokenness of this world.
See, here’s my real goal and motivation and my hearts desire for all of my children...to empower them to fulfill all that God has called them to be and do.  And I realize that for my children from hard places I will need to learn “new” things.  Now, really, there is “nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).  

The LORD has created us all with a longing of the heart to connect and belong.  And I believe with all my heart that God offers a wealth of wisdom in the Bible for us to apply.  
A phrase that you will hear often in the Empowered To Connect teaching is “Trust Based Relational” parenting.  In the workbook they write, “His (God’s) love for us is made tangible in practical ways, and we believe that our parenting must also make our love for our children tangible in practical ways that they can understand, accept and apply.”  Because of the back ground of some of our children, their ability to “understand, accept and apply” my love for them may be very weak.  

So where am I beginning....
-First, my goals for each day are different (I’ll come back to this);
-We have given ourselves permission to set apart the next 6 - 8 weeks (longer if needed) to do some “intensive” in our home ... I will be blogging about what that looks like;
-Steve and I are reading some books to better understand the needs of our children home through adoption...in particular Sensory Processing issues, but there are other things;
-I need help...plain and simple...I can’t do this alone...so we are hiring Kalyn to be our house cleaner and our meals for now are becoming even more “super simple”;
Back to number one...what are my goals for each day?  To connect!!!  So I am using my daily chores, jobs, work...what ever...to create connection with one, several or all of my children (NOT EXCLUDING  bio-children...hey they want to know that they are precious too!!!!!)  An example from today are the picture in this post...I love to hang my laundry outside when it finally gets warm enough here in Colorado.  

And lest you warmer weather states think that is is at least 80 degrees based on the pictures, I will let you know it was a balmy Colorado 58 degrees.  Hey, we even took a walk because it was so nice - LOL.  However, my GOAL was not to hang the clothes up, my goal was to connect with my children...to focus on the PRECIOUSNESS of each one of them.  My heart is where I start!  Making sure that I am SEEING the God created preciousness of each of my children and show that to them.  

By the way, all the ADORABLE pictures where taken by my extremely talented oldest daughter Kalyn, who gave me permission to edit them to black and white.  Thanks Kalyn for sharing your preciousness with me.