It's all about love....

I was recently asked to speak at a MOPS gathering about our adoption journey.  To say I didn't want to do it was a huge understatement.  I love my sweet MOPS ladies but I certainly didn't want to tell them that I've been struggling for the last few months and I was the LAST person who needed to share my testimony.  Adopting Marlee has been the single greatest blessing of my life (apart from the gift of salvation) but it has caused me to expose a brokeness that I would have rather kept to myself.  Some things I'm learning about adoption is that you can't come face to face with someone who is broken without facing your own brokeness.  All adoptions begin with loss and that was certainly the case for Marlee.  She had suffered the loss of her birth parents and again the loss of her foster mother on that beautiful, Dec. 3rd morning.  Although we had 6 glorious years of preparing for, praying and longing for her, she didn't ask for any of this and was certainly caught off guard when "Nana" handed her over in the lobby of the hotel and we walked away.  This baby was, and is, broken.  She is healing more and more each day and is growing into a joyful, pleasant and independent toddler.  We all love her with all of our heart and she's going to be ok, but right now, she's grieving a loss that I'll never understand.  I've had some hard days with her.  For the most part, I am the only one she wants and it wears on me day after day after day.  The crying has been the most difficult because it's a panic-stricken screaming/crying.  I get it.  She needs comfort and we, as her parents, are not her comfort yet.  She feels very alone.  But, in these times of crying, I've exposed my bitterness and frustration at things not being perfect.  What I'm realizing about myself is that I'm not a very loving person.  The Bible tells us over and over to love one another and I fail at that miserably.  I see things in a very black & white perspective and often have very cold emotions.  This really came to the surface for me when I was acting in unloving ways to this precious baby who only needed her Mom to LOVE her.  She needed me and I was failing her.  Instead of the mindset that we were here for her, we would care for her, we would help her heal,  I'm realing that we'll be with each other, take care of each other and heal together.   This is a process that instead of us doing for her, we'll work through with her.  And, you know what, that's what family is all about.