I'm not great with brevity.
We had our 1-year- post-placement visit a few weeks ago. I love our social worker. She's calming, inquisitive but not intrusive. Always encouraging.
Harrison was a nervous wreck. Sometimes I don't think he is listening or that he doesn't understand what we are talking about when conversations about China come up. However, he always gets cuddly and quiet. He wouldn't talk to her, and curled up next to me during almost the entire visit. He typically has ZERO interest in talking about China, still refuses to speak in Mandarin, and seems to want with every fiber of his being–to move on from his former life. When I told our social worker that, she said it's actually pretty common. And, that we just need to keep that door open, because he will want to talk someday. I found that relieving. I know many families whose children keep in contact with friends and caregivers from their care centers, who take language lessons in their birth language, and so on...
Things I want for my son.
But, I feel like it's okay to let him become part of the family wholly in his mind,
and wait for the day when he is more interested in his past and can trust that his past and present can coexist safely in our family.
I still have panic attacks regularly.
I started taking an aikido class with a friend. The sensei has a background in domestic violence work, and victim advocacy. He was going through the stages of losing consciousness and how victims typically react during strangulation. Before I knew it I was fighting a full blown panic attack just sitting and watching him explain the process. Racing heart. Sick to my stomach. Needing to run, right. now. Tears that turned into sobs before I could stop them. Left the room for a bit. Calmed down. Went back in. Super embarrassing! Ridiculous.
But, the sensei was understanding and said I was free to leave and regroup anytime I got anxious. I don't even know why I was anxious.
So.
My life is not going as planned. It's almost been a year, and I'm forced to at least consider this condition as my very unwelcome companion heading into the future. I desperately hope it goes away, but sometimes searching for a cure is just as draining as the disease. I will still probably talk to a therapist, it really helps with expectation management. I will still work on boundaries and guarding my heart.
But, I can't let it define who I am and control everything I do.
I'm learning a few things.
This month for the first time since China,
I've noticed that when I have an episode, I don't plunge into darkest despair during or afterwards. I don't feel as detached, or "depersonalized" (which is a really scary feeling). This month the really scary things didn't happen. I still felt incredibly sad. I still had those thoughts dancing in the back of my mind. But for some reason...they didn't take over. I know those feelings of detachment will likely come again, but I have hope of relief and...hope.
"A man cannot discover anything about his future" Ecclesiastes 7:14
Unfortunately.
I've had this thought in my head all month. I can't quite say why it's helped.
It's the thought that God created me for obedience, and work, and fellowship...but most of all he created me to delight in me, and for me to delight in his creations. And in him, of course.
This is really hard for my works-oriented, legalistic, shame-filled heart to accept.
Let me EARN your love.
Let me PROVE my worth.
Let me do one. more. thing.
I'm SO motivated by projects and what's next and next and next that I have to, I must move to the next tier of accomplishment.
And, that often creates this terror that I just might be on the wrong path and it's all for naught.
However, Adam and Eve tended a garden.
And, it was enough.
Jesus made cabinets and ate with sinners, and it was enough.
(And, of course died for the world to know true love, but he was complete even before that.)
A good friend of mine was talking about how sometimes she will look at kitchens on Pinterest and say, "I hope that is in my home in heaven, Jesus."
It struck me as the most ridiculous, silly...and then profoundly beautiful thought for a person to trust God with even their most homey earthly desires. I couldn't stop thinking about her child-like faith in God's provision of what was beautiful to her! And while I don't want to live my life for the fulfillment of apple-pie-American dreams–what if I really could trust him with tending to the desires of my heart in even the smallest ways? Did he not create the teeniest of flowers to bring joy? Did he not make my babies soft, squishy, in love with mama, and bathed in just a little bit of heaven to make my heart strong enough for the days or maybe minutes ahead?
Last month I was going through Genesis because I was wanting to know why the hell God made marriage in the first place. It sometimes seems it was so disregarded by people in the bible, and is just as difficult a concept to grasp by modern day men and women. Something that multiple people mentioned when I would talk about Genesis, was this idea that our job in life is to tend. Not so much arrive. We pick up laundry. We nurture each other's hearts with fellowship and food. We hold our children. We mow our laws, even though the grass will grow back. We clean our animal stalls though they fill up before we can bat an eye. We fold laundry some more. Clean pee off toilets and maybe bathroom walls. We suffer. We will most definitely have pain. We fight it. But we can't avoid it.
We take away the weeds.
And...they all come back.
And, if you think about the end game: it all seems pointless. You raise up children, and forgo sleep for decades, carefully pick out dresses, and bb guns, search for their favorite books, movies or videos games, make their favorite meals, and one day they scream that they hate you because you took away their iPod.
Or perhaps balk at their latest chore the morning after you helped them into the wee hours of the night with their homework, or after you had, "family pizza night" and had carefully planned the perfect movie that all 10 people in your family would actually like, baked homemade pizza, and cleaned stray popcorn from all corners of the living room. (This is all theoretical of course.) You spend hours cuddling with your trauma kids, you try to remember there is a foundation to lay, lost time to make up, you say you love them every. single. night., you cross oceans and spend mountains of money and wouldn't hesitate to spend mountains more, maybe even beg, borrow to bring them home, and you worry and stress and are downright terrified of their pain at times. And, then just when you think you've healed every corner of their hearts–they tell you they wish they didn't have a mommy and daddy. Or that they wish so and so had adopted them instead. Because, after all, aren't they a commodity to be traded or laid aside at will? And, why can't they be involved in this transaction? And, you realize you are totally 100% unable to be a healer without The Healer, and it's not YOUR fault things didn't work out in their first families, and it's not THEIR fault they are still angry or sad or confused, and... your life is going to be messy forever.
FOR-EV-VER.
And, even if you had no children. Or married someone else. Or adopted 10 or adopted 1, or earned a doctorate degree, or won a Nobel Prize: we are all in the same quandary, and our lives are all messy.
And we tend. And we tend. And we tend. And we tend. We go to work. We do our homework. We go to our meetings. We visit the sick. We have uncomfortable conversations with friends or family.
And it's all for naught.
Unless their can be some kind of joy in the being. Just being. Some kind of gratitude in our consumption of space on this planet, in this century, in this moment–today, with these other flawed people, in these short-tall-fat-skinny- imperfect, yet glorious bodies...and with all the tragedies attached to our very existence.
So basically all the clichès about enjoying the journey not the destination.
But it's struck me hard.
No one can tell you to be grateful. Or to feel wonder.
Or to, "stop worrying."
Or to live after death has stolen something precious.
Or to trust and hope after the world has revealed it's insidous mutiny. You have to wander the wilderness, wrestle with dark scary beasts with real fangs and claws, and open your crusted, bleary eyes to it yourself.
I tend my heart, because just like a garden, the weeds will come. The sin and despair will come and try to entangle around everything that is precious.
The weeds come back, but we know the end story.
It ends in victory.
And despite what I felt during these past 12 months or so...I KNOW, know, know that there is beauty and joy to be had. Relationships to delight in. Sunsets to see. Creeks to listen to. Fresh air to smell. Strangers to meet and call friends. Babies to snuggle. Coffee to cup in my hands. Truths to learn. Love to know. I am surprised by joy lately (to steal a very good phrase). I really thought I might not ever feel it again. And, here it is...peeking out.
I have so much pride in being capable.
And bursting into tears and shallow breathing with snot-bubbles in front of strangers is the surest way to feel like you are not so capable. But, that's just it. It's pride.
Suffering isn't exactly a new human condition:
I have had enough Lord, he said. Take my life, I am not better than my ancestors. 1 Kings 19:4
Now O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live. Jonah 4:3
Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? Job 3:11
I have no peace, no quietness, I have no rest, but only turmoil. Job 3:26
I loathe my very life, therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul. Job 10:1
Terrors overwhelm me…my life ebbs away, days of suffering grip me. Night pierces my bones, my gnawing pains never rest. Job 30:15-17
Cursed be the day I was born…why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow and to end my days in shame? Jer. 20:14,18__________________________________
He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hid their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Isaiah 53:3
And He said to them, 'My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and keep watch.' And He went a little beyond them, and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass Him by. And He was saying, "Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will." Mark 14:34-36
When I start having a tsunami of soul-emptying thoughts hijack my brain, I've taken SO much comfort in telling myself to just, "...tend you garden." Who knows what will happen? Just tend to today and leave the turmoil that comes tomorrow alone.
There is honor and satisfaction to be had in menial tasks and joy in seeking beauty.
From the looney bin on the mountain.
