A New Place

We are getting close to four years since we first brought our 3 children home from Ethiopia.  The memories of where we've been are still clear, but these years have been so hard and so crazy that it seems like a compilation of hard places.

It seems almost weekly I hear of a disrupted adoption or of families in great despair as they try to hang on and love there children through deep heart wounds.  I ache for them. As our family continues on this journey, I am able to feel their pain. It seems to consume every moment of every day. My own wounds have been triggered. There is no hiding from the way I feel or how I react in my most painful places. My heart is exposed. More than that, it has exposed a false view my heavenly Father.

BUT GOD is not leaving me there.

I am asking and He is listening.  I am asking for a more intimate place and He is answering.  I am asking for freedom and He is giving.  I am breaking the friendships I have made with fear, disappointment, and frustration.  I am building new friendships with joy, love, and peace. And patience, of course.  As the years go by, I ask myself, 'Why so much pain?'  Is it because we said 'yes' to three children who are deeply wounded, or is it because I am expecting God to lead me from afar while he is asking me to walk closer to Him?

I am starting to see that the issues are more embedded in the way I view and relate to Christ, and less about how my children relate to me.  He's taking me to these places for a reason.

My days are often overwhelmed with hard moments: uncontrolled emotions, inability to express true feelings, meal-time fear, hurtful words, and awkward hugs that don't quite feel at home yet. In the midst of it, I see Christ summoning me from the end of the church aisle, like walking toward Jake on our wedding day.  I am crying just like I did at my wedding, yet these tears are different.  I am crying with fear; fear to get too near to Him.

Why am I afraid of my loving Father?  On this journey, I often feel like he's a coach, asking me to do hard things from afar. Yet He's not far at all.  He wants to lead me through this from a very intimate place; our secret place.  So I take a few steps towards Him, all the while trying to carry burdens in my own strength. He continues to call me down the aisle. I stop, I stumble, holding onto the pews for support, not sure I can do it.

I know the closer I get the more broken I will be. I will let out deep cries of pain in the safety of his embrace.  I will lose it.

But, what if I don't want to lose it?

I have so many things to take care of, so many conversations to have, and so many hugs to give. He keeps calling me. I want to run but I drag my feet. I take little steps, just like my Addie when I make her practice running to me for a hug.  I am not much different then my beautiful twelve year old that spent the first eight years of her life in constant pain.

Still, he calls me down the aisle.

Sometimes, I run out and leave the church alltogether, trying to find a place where I won't feel so vulnerable. I always end up crawling back up the steps.  I just can't stay away from Him.  The closer I get, the warmer I feel.  Each pew I pass reveals new things in my heart and I have to lay it down.

I have to lay it down.

I am tired of asking God to lead me from afar. I want to be close to him. As my friend Sara Hagerty says, I want to be 'close enough to smell him.'

So, I am going to keep going. I am going to keep asking. I am going to get there. I am on my way.

This is a new place for me.