The first thing that strikes you is how far away the bottom really is. Then, looking up, you realize how far away the surface now is. Your feet kick in vain; there is no foothold, no handhold for you to grasp. For several dreadful seconds, you flounder in the water, going neither up nor down. The fear descends upon you like a leaden weight chained to your heart. You panic; for a moment, you cannot even think, cannot rationalize. Then the thought comes, "How could I have been so foolish to think I could do this? I'm going to die here." But slowly, from somewhere deep within, the urge to fight comes back to you. You remember to kick your feet and paddle your arms, and slowly, very slowly, you begin to rise to the surface. At last, you break through, and inhale a lungful of delicious oxygen. But just as a feeling of victory is bubbling up, it is replaced by surprise and confusion, as once again, your head sinks below the surface. You don't understand. "I thought I had beat this", you think to yourself in anguish. You try kicking and paddling again, and find yourself moving toward the surface once again. Little by little, you learn how to balance the kicking with the calm, the fighting with the giving; you eventually realize that it is only in the balancing of the two extremes that you will keep your head above water.
The scenario described above is something that I believe many people can relate to. Most of us have felt that drowning sensation in the midst of overwhelming circumstances. When the children came back to us after that year of being away, there were a number of things that had to be dealt with, and all in a certain order. I have explained in previous posts about these things, especially concerning the emotional issues that the children struggled with. I suppose working full time made it a little easier to put off the knowledge that I was in over my head, but it was short-lived. The month after the adoption was finalized, I resigned my position at the assisted living facility and became a stay-at-home mommy. It was shortly after this that I began to realize the enormity of the change. No longer was I able to put any distance between myself and the chaos at home. No longer was I able to make myself believe that it would "work itself out". And right in the thick of it, I ignorantly decided to potty train the two youngest - who were six months apart - at the same time. That was like going from a bad storm to a hurricane!
I remember one particular day in November. We had been potty training for a couple of months, but Camrie was having some serious stubbornness issues and was frequently ignoring her body cues in favor of watching television or playing, resulting in several unnecessary accidents each day. That time of the year was also an emotional challenge for Jymmi because of certain things from her past, and she was acting out in ways that surprised and angered me. That evening she blew up, Camrie had her third accident of the day, and the other children were complaining about having to clean the kitchen after dinner. I remember feeling my face getting hotter, and feeling like something inside me was going to explode. I grabbed my phone and walked outside. I sat on the porch and called my mother. When she answered, I was crying so hard I could not speak at first, but I finally got it out: "I think this was a mistake." It was the first time I had allowed myself to give a voice to that feeling, but it had been haunting me for several weeks. I talked with her for nearly an hour. When we hung up, I did not feel any more comfortable with my situation, but I felt more purposeful about it. My mother reminded me of what God was trying to do, and of what my role was in the overall plan. So over the next several weeks, I grappled with the question of whether or not I truly believed in my heart that it had been a mistake for us to take the children. I weighed it out, looked at it from both sides, and in the end, I had to admit that, although it felt like a mistake, it was the right thing for us to do. That was one of the major milestones in my faith, when I actually purposed to believe in something that I neither saw nor felt.
I was not only emotionally overwhelmed, but I was also overwhelmed with the natural changes that had to be made in our day to day lives. We were living in a 1200 sq. ft. mobile home. We had four children in each of two 8x10 bedrooms, and my husband and I shared the master bedroom with all of the furniture, boxes, and miscellaneous items that had been in the spare bedroom. Our living room also served as the children's "shoe depot" as they had no room in their tiny closets for them. Our kitchen was also our dining room, schoolroom, and home library. With two tables (because we could not fit the whole family at one), two refrigerators, two trash cans and three small bookshelves, there was barely room to cook anything. Our laundry room was little more than a closet; in order to keep a laundry hamper in there with the washer and dryer (since there was no space for it in either bedroom or the bathroom) we had to block off the back door. With only two bathrooms in a house with ten people, there was no such thing as privacy. It took nearly half an hour just to get everyone pottied and changed each morning because we had to do it in shifts. At every birthday (which we had at least once each month except for November and December), we had to go through the toys and books and find things to give away to make room for the new gifts. It was very difficult for all of us, and grace was in very short supply.
As the endlessness of my new situation finally rolled out before me, I began to feel overwhelmed. This was the crisis point that I believe everyone faces at some point. Depending on the individual circumstances, it may be reached sooner or later, but it always comes. It is at this moment that the real decision is made. Our initial "decision" to adopt the children was borne out of a knowledge of right and wrong, but it took reaching the crisis point to make it become a decision of the heart. We had agreed to something that we did not fully understand, so the depth of commitment was lacking. When we reached the crisis point, it forced us to make a new decision right in the middle of the darkest part of our adjustment period. Our eyes were opened now to what we were really facing. With our knowledge of right and wrong still there to guide us, and with our faith in our God Whom we knew is much bigger than our problems, we were able to dig our heels in much more deeply and face the issues head on. Like a battle-cry from a weary soldier, our new commitment came straight from the gut, not with joy and butterfly feelings, but with fortitude and determination.
After we renewed our decision to unite our family, the feelings of being overwhelmed slowly began to give way to peace and contentment. A new sense of "normal" crept in slowly, and caught me unawares. One day, about eight months after the adoption, my husband arranged for us to go on a special date. My parents came and took the children in our van to their home to spend the night. I had three hours or so before my husband would get home from work. At first, I was ecstatic, but within thirty minutes, I was beside myself with boredom. I simply did not know what to do with myself, and I missed the children terribly. I was struck by the sudden realization that I no longer felt overwhelmed by the daily responsibilities of caring for them; I needed them, and I enjoyed their company. When the change took place, I cannot say, but I know that it did. Learning to trust God with outcomes that appeared to be hopelessly lost was not easy, but it bore some pretty amazing fruit.
When you see a child every day, you do not notice their growth for a long time; when you meet them again after a time of separation, their growth and maturation astounds you, and you find yourself thinking, "When did he get so big?" That's always how it is when I look to see the work that God is doing. Perhaps I am too busy to notice, or perhaps the daily activities of life with a large family get in the way, but I can never see God at work so clearly as I can when I look back over a period of time. Comparing the current behaviors and reactions to those of the past always gives me a shock; there is such a stark contrast each time. However, having had experience now, I rest much more easily, knowing that He is working, even when I'm not aware of it. I no longer fall to my knees and cry out in desperation, "Father, why won't You move in our lives???" Instead, I now cry out, "Father, give me the eyes to see Your Hand at work, and the ears to hear Your Voice, and the heart to understand Your purposes!!" There are many things about me that have grown and matured since we adopted the children, but out of them all, I think my faith has grown and matured the most. It's such a coincidence - or maybe not at all - that I used to pray for exactly that: for my faith to grow.
In my next and final post of this series, I will discuss the matter of looking ahead, and then I will open it up to anyone who may have questions or suggestions of any nature . . . who knows, perhaps I will find a new topic to blog about!
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