I recently met with a family who has had their daughter home for two years now. Things are going really well, she is working through healing and learning and growing through having a family to live in. It hasn’t been easy, and she has had to work through a lot of control and stubbornness, but she is settling into allowing someone to care for her and her ability to give and receive care is exponentially greater than it was just two years ago.
Through this meeting I heard a revelation from this couple that I had not taken into consideration before. They struggle with “gotcha day” because of how much their family changed after their adopted child came home. As adoptive parents, they are going through what many children go through when approaching the day their life changed. Many kids struggle around “gotcha day” and I had not stopped to consider how this day and time period also can impact adoptive parents. Life was much easier for this family before having a child enter that has a lot of loss and hurt to work through. Parenting children who have come through love and nurture is a much different game than parenting a child who has come through early trauma. Working with families each day who are parenting children through trauma can leave me feeling drained and empty and feeling like sometimes there is ruin … that I have been a part of. I know that it isn’t “my” doing and I also know that the reality is, there is redemption and that is what it is all about.
I was sharing this with my sister who is parenting five children that came home after experiencing much early life trauma. Their life is a challenge each day with the early trauma still impacting their children almost five years after being home. I was expressing to her that I get concerned about families being ruined and she shared with me some wise words that I wanted to share with you all. She said, “It is through the hard things that God teaches us and allows us to grab on to Him to survive. That’s what this life is supposed to be about. We can float through and not make a difference or we can try and make a difference while we are on this earth. Keep shining God’s light for all to see. He has you here for a reason.” Being ruined forces us to cling to our Lord and through that, redemption and His difference is made in others. Be encouraged today … even through the ruin of hard days … God is there and He wants you to cling to Him for the ultimate support system … beauty will rise!
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. ~ Isaiah 61:1-3
