Just so you know.....

I've been thinking about it and I decided Friday's post was a little on the downer side. Unfortunately, it's hard sometimes to be postive. Occasionally I think I have post pardom syndrom only for me I guess it would be post adoptive syndrome! Unfortunately again, I don't think today's post is going to be anymore positive. It's nice to blog sometimes. I think I get all these words out!

Angela Thomas quoted this in her Bible study:

Not one of us will ever wake up one morning to find that overnight we became a godly woman.

You will have to decide that you will want to become an amazing woman like that. Today, what if you say, "I have decided"?

I think Solomon is the only person who had that luxury. Waking up to be the wisest man on earth, hmmm... (1 King 3:5 - 15) Would that be a blessing or a curse? I would assume a blessing according to the words in James 1. But I'm sure life wasn't a bucket of roses for wise Solomon. Let's hope he also had a sense of humor!!

I have a ton of ideas on what I think a mom should be, how she should act, and what she should do. So far in the past three months, I have accomplished.............................NONE of them!! It's because all of these "I have decided" have all fallen by the wayside. They fall by the wayside when there is a sassy mouth for 3rd time in 5 minutes, when there is no or miscommunication (with Brent or the kids!), when dark brown eyes glare at you because you won't give them what they want, the list could go on. I am sure the same is for you too.

One of Brent's quotes pre-travel was "this is a spiritual process". I think the waiting was the easiest part now. Why? All I had to do was fill out some papers and get them to the agency and wait on the countries to do there thing. This spiritual process really took off when we took off in the airplane from Atlanta headed non-stop to Lima.

Flash back to Day 2 - we meet the kids and from that point on for about the next 4 days the only prayer I could muster was "LORD HELP!" Seriously, I didn't even know what kind of help I asking Him for. I think it was something like "LORD HELP - GET ME OUT OF HERE!" But He knew what sort of help we really needed and He sent Tom, Carol, Mark, Kim, and a whole bunch of college kids and 2 sets of houseparents to the rescue.  During these first few days, I realized how little faith I actually possessed.

A few days later I came face to face with my selfishness. That was a not fun day. It came to me over the naming of the children and we were in a car on the way to Tom's house or the orphange, I can't remember quite where we were going.

You see, everything we read, everyone we talked to said that you will need to help the children will have to deal with their losses and grief. However No one ever tells you that you will have to deal with YOUR OWN loss and grief. How are you supposed to help someone with their loss and grief, if you can't process your own?  I think that's what makes the first months so hard. Everybody has lost something and are scrambling around trying to find something familiar to hold on to. Most of the time that "something familiar" is not part of the new family and if familiar isn't found - the searcher often lashes out with hate in anger, a sassy mouth, glaring eyes, shutting down, fits of rage, whatever releases the pain of loss. This is true for the children and the adults.

This is where my selfishness comes in to play. Yesterday was a bad for me. I responded badly to Breanna and Brent and wound up leaving my little cousin's 4 year old birthday party early and in tears.

I had a random of thought of  "how am I supposed to do this?" and there was not so random word that came immediately after "sacrifice." SERIOUSLY! I mean come on, I 've already told you how selfish I am, isn't there a different way? Yes, actually there is a different way. It's the way we have been living for the past 3 months. It doesn't work very well. That war with selfishness and sacrifice is going to be a minute-by-minute battle for me. I lose WAAAY more than I win.  *Selah*

Okay, so when I started this post it was to show you this idea for a Tie-Dyed Kindness Banner on Flower Patch Farm Girl's blog. I like it. I will have to invest in some coffee filters, clothespins, and some rope. Click here or above.





Well it's time for homework.