“January’s been going on for a long time,” our 8-year-old recently declared. I feel the same way, but the first month of the new year always feels exciting to me, so I don’t mind the feeling of it lasting a long time. Ezekiel’s perception also factors in his concussion at the end of December from falling out of a tall tree, a whopper of a sickness that knocked our family out for two weeks, and his sister’s fun-filled birthday celebration. (She is able to maintain a fever-pitch of excitement that I believe he finds a bit exhausting. :))
Last year I shared with you my word for 2017, joy. My word for 2018 comes at the perfect time in our family’s life: it’s REST. Oh, Jesus, thank you for giving me this word for the year!!! I’m not sure I’ve ever been so excited about my marching orders before. However, I’m starting to realize that it won’t be as easy as it first seemed. Rest doesn’t always come easy, but I’ve already located a favorite spot in the house for little retreats throughout the day, and I’m learning about making the choice to carve out intentional resting time. Ecclesiastes 3 says, “For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.” I’m so grateful that this includes a time for rest! My all-time favorite Scripture about rest comes from Matthew 11, where Jesus says, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Rest for the soul! That’s something every single person in this world desperately needs if they haven’t yet found it. I’m beyond grateful for this indescribable gift, found in a personal relationship with Jesus, that allows my soul to be at peace no matter what is happening around me.
Along the lines of rest is respite, a term commonly used in the foster and adoption world when a consistently high level of trauma in the home necessitates a period of purposeful rest. Merriam-Webster defines respite as an interval of rest or relief, and we began 2018 with a respite of this kind. It was time to step back, allow ourselves to breathe for the first time since July 28, 2014, and prayerfully pursue God’s best for the child He asked us (and equipped us) to rehabilitate. God allowed us the privilege of seeing the miracle of a whole life transformation unfold in our home over the course of three and a half years! I would say there are no words to describe what we witnessed, but I have clearly put plenty of words to it, as you can see by perusing the blog archives. 🙂
Kami progressed so far in the three and half years since pickup day that she is now a completely different person. In fact, the difference is that she is now a person rather than a shell of a person! After the drug withdrawals, and after she learned the basics of family life and decent social behavior, and after she learned that her basic needs would be met each day, a child emerged. This new child came with a new set of needs that were finally able to surface a few months ago, praise God!
In the fall, we recognized for the first time that some of these needs could, by the very nature of our family, not be met in our home moving forward. At this point we had a choice: to continue on and pretend everything was fine, seeing Kami’s newly revealed set of needs go unmet, resigning all six of us to an existence that was clearly not abundant life, or to desperately and humbly cry out for help, trusting the God who made Kami and began her rescue to carry it through to completion using whatever means He chose. He surrounded me with not one, not two, but three fellow adoptive moms of children from similarly difficult beginnings in Bulgaria who had made difficult (and unpopular) choices to do what was best for their children. One of them has bravely written about her journey on her blog, Faith’s Feat. She has been a partner in prayer and encouragement to me since before we even brought Kami home, and to say I’m grateful to know her is an understatement. She writes far more articulately than I do about some of the hardest things in life, and with such grace and transparency.
Older child international adoption is a beautiful, complicated, messy miracle, and it can take a huge variety of paths. Our daughter Eden was born to us seven years ago. As we celebrated her birthday this month, I marveled at Kami’s seven years in the orphanage…seven years. Year after year of hunger, pain, unmet needs for affection and healthy touch, loneliness, neurological damage, stunted development, and so much more. As I rewound the years in my mind, thinking through the compounding interest of hurt accumulating in Kami’s young heart (and the hearts of the many, many children like her around the world), seven years seemed like an eternity. When a child has been this deeply wounded for this long, healing does not necessarily look like a smooth process of transition directly from the institution to a “forever family” where healthy emotional bonds grow unhindered. It can take a journey with several stops, a relay race of families in partnership with agencies, therapies, and specialists, to bring this child to a place of abundant life. We were the first stop in the relay race for Kami’s healing.
This past month of respite, during which we’ve been in close communication with her spectacular and experienced temporary caregivers, has revealed some extremely helpful things. Kami’s deepest unmet need moving forward appears to be the need to be the baby. We agree with them that she could thrive in a home where she is either the only child or the youngest by several years. Mason and I can attest to this from the few special times we’ve shared with her alone, just the three of us. At this stage in her recovery, she desperately needs a degree of attention and physical presence that can’t be met with other little ones in the house. She deserves the chance to be the baby, and I believe that given that chance, she will be able to heal and flourish in unimaginable ways! Of all the things that God equipped us to do, He has not equipped us to make Kami our baby. On the contrary, He strategically used our other three young ones (one of which was a baby when we welcomed her into our home) to teach her how to be a kid. They taught her to climb, play, laugh, hug, watch movies, and everything else that comes naturally to a pack of well-loved little ones. But now Kami has graduated from the pack. Among other things, she needs extended one-on-one time and the opportunity to revisit the unbelievably crucial baby stage for as long as she needs to, filling in gaps that are essential to her becoming a healthy and whole person.
To all of you who love her as much as we do – who’ve cheered for her every step of the way toward healing – who want the best for her – pray with us for God to make clear the path ahead. John 10:10 tells us that Jesus came not just so we could have life, but have it to the full. Only He knows what this looks like for Kami, and we are trusting Him to show us the next step.
What are you carrying that makes you weary and burdened? Come to the only One who can give you rest.
Resting securely in Him,
Christen
Each Word a Gift 