Adoption Day: Joy & Lament
I have wondered about and wandered towards this day for four years. Late September 2020 we said yes to a call about a baby girl who needed a home. On October 5th, a resilient 8 month old arrived at our home wearing a pink dress and matching headband. Before we knew it, she was scooting across our living room floor, claiming toys, carpet, and our hearts in her wake. In fact, we soon had to put up barriers, both in our home and unintentionally in our hearts. Because this little peanut who quickly moved from stranger to beloved, was only supposed to stay here temporarily. Although we thought adoption might be part of our story at first, we learned after only a few months that the plan would be to reunite her with her parent. This is always the primary goal of fostering! So I tried to be a safe, loving space, all the while knowing that my arms rocking that baby to sleep would soon be handing her gently to be rocked by another.
Then I got to meet the woman who held and delivered this child- and who would hold my child- her child- yet again. And my own safe, neat, sensible world shattered in a million pieces. I discovered how easy it is to believe in false narratives or stereotypes about birth parents. Such stereotypes make foster parents seem like blessed angels who deserve children, and often paint biological parents as flat caricatures, with hues of contempt, judgment and shame. Yet such stereotypes couldn’t be farther from the truth, as I’ve met monsters in my own life, and the image and goodness of God in everyone I’ve encountered. In this process I’ve encountered God’s incredible grace and redemption in a million deaths and resurrections in my own story. I’ve discovered how desperate I am for God’s presence in my own life; and how beautiful and miraculous it is that He adopts me into His family regardless of my best or worst days.
And in T’s parents I met two people who loved their child deeply, truly, dearly. I spent time with a mother whose own journey was so far removed from mine, yet we bonded over love for this child. Whatever she’d been through, I saw someone who had persisted, who was generous and kind, who worked hard and loved well.
So after 18 long months, I passed a two year old from my arms to hers, and wasn’t sure if I’d ever see that peanut again. That day has haunted me many times since, but in my heart I truly believed that goodbye was part a good story too. (That is evidence of God’s grace and work in my life.)
In T’s absence, I chose to chase another dream: I enrolled in online college to complete my bachelor’s degree and pursue my dream of going to seminary. Little did I know that 7 months later, we’d get a call again that would bring this child back into our lives. The second yes was somehow easier and harder than the first. Part of me embraced her return immediately, buying a bed and preparing her room within hours of getting the call. She had been in our hearts for 2 years and there was simply never any way we could have said no to welcoming her back into our home as well. But by now, there was a part of my heart that felt numb and I did not know how to revive it. It would take time and beautiful counselors and supports for me, T, and our whole family, to relearn the rhythms of love, to let those carefully constructed barriers around our hearts dissolve.
The sweet girl I’d dropped off at 27 months, came back seemingly as a different child at 34 months, as though she’d been in some cocoon for seven months and emerged in mysterious transformation. The girl who could only string a couple words together before was chattering articulately now, and she didn’t really remember living in our home at all. The series of multiple transitions and caretakers had taken its toll on her, impacting her sleep, her behaviors and her attachment.
Further, as we continued to walk with her birth parents it was painful to carry their own uncertainty and grief which bled into my own. By now I’d seen every ache and hope in my own heart etched in their faces as well. And her mom taught me love at another level. I witnessed moments of her mom’s sacrificial surrender that I can only describe as a picture of the way God loves His children. Her love brings Isaiah 49:15 to life: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” May we never close ourselves off to the surprising places and moments that God will reveal Himself to us.
It reminds me that even though adoption is beautiful, it always comes through loss. I’ll always be grateful to my daughter’s parents for their deep love for her, and for the ways they’ve changed my life. This adoption doesn’t sever them from the story, and I would never want it to.
Today I hope to honor them, and honor our daughter, by making space for both joy and lament. When we only make space for a single emotion, we flatten the world into a two-dimensional reality where there’s a script of what we “should” do and feel, and where morality and mercy aren’t messy.
But they are. The world is beautifully and terribly complex. Yet God holds space for each of us, as we are, in the midst of all our emotions; so I will try to hold space for it all too, even when I don’t understand.
Today, I am so grateful today for the incredible gift of being able to raise this little girl, and I’m so happy to have a community of friends and family to share that joy. Thanks to all of you for holding space for me- friends, family, neighbors- thank you for all the ways you’ve come alongside me and our family in our joy and grief, waiting and receiving, hope and pain.
Leaving room for lament does not cheapen or diminish my joy; rather it weights my joy in reality; much like hope, joy’s buoyancy is more powerful when it honestly acknowledges the ongoing grief, brokenness and mess that is life.
In this joy I also acknowledge that for however long I live and get to parent my child, I will always only have her on loan; she will always be first and foremost a child of the God who created her in love, and holds her in all her comings and goings forever. That has become the verse I’ve prayed over this girl for years:
Psalm 121:7-8:
7 The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
On that note, I’ll close with a song I wrote to Teagan years ago based on this verse when we were preparing to say goodbye the first time. She knows it now, and sings it with me at bedtime; and T- I still sing and pray these words over you wherever life takes you.
“I searched the whole world for your song, the one we’d like to sing to you,
But melodies they came out wrong- too small to hold the love that grew.
So to the brave girl passing through,
Whose fierce and brave though she is small,
I wrote this tune out just for you,Hope it will catch you, if you should ever fall.
Be bold and curious, be you;
You’re stronger than you know and God’s [our] love won’t let you go.
This road has twists and turns its true.
But we’re grateful for each precious moment we could ride with you.
And as you move through hearts and hands,
God be the rock on which you stand,
He’s with you in your coming and your going.
God brought you to us for a reason; his faithfulness is all around.
Yes but, sometimes His gifts are for a season,
Like seeds He’s planted in the ground.
I know the plans He has for you.
To prosper you and make you grow,
But when fears and trials tumble through,
I hope this truth you will always know.
[Chorus]
You are loved, don’t you forget you’re beautiful so beautiful to me.
And you are free a child of God and you will always, you will always be.
You will always, you will always be…
Be bold and curious, be you;
You’re stronger than you know and God’s [our] love won’t let you go.
This road has twists and turns its true.
But we’re grateful for each precious moment we could ride with you.
And as you move through hearts and hands,
God be the rock on which you stand,
He’s with you in your coming and your going.
