Adopted

When we first began to discuss marriage I asked Tim [I was desperate to know] “Do you really want to adopt children? Are you just saying you want to because you know it’s important to me?”

I know that with all the qualities needed to be a godly husband it is odd that I would center on having a heart for adoption as a deal-maker/breaker. It’s just that a desire to reach out to orphans has been growing in the core of my being since I can remember. To never adopt a child would be to deny a part of the purposes God has for me. The question was not meant as manipulation, but a fleece.

Tim’s “yes, I really do,” was part of my hearts confirmation that God was the One bringing us together. We’re not just crazy young adults compelled by our hormones. Our marriage is going to serve the Church and the world. We are going to create a home for God’s children.

Last Monday as I was talking with Liz this discussion of adoption came up:

“All those years with an eating disorder where hard on my body. Sometimes I get really afraid that I will not be able to have children,” I confide, “but we want to adopt so it’s okay.”

I catch the lie and correct myself,

“what I mean is it is the dream of my heart to have Tim’s children. To find out I am infertile would be shameful and devastating…”

Minutes past before I continue,

“...But we want to adopt whether or not we have biological children… and our hearts are large enough to love any child that God gives us.”

I know that is true. I am at the age were most of my friends are having children and I want that, but then I think “what if I don’t have a baby?” and I know that there would be purpose in that too because we would be interested in foster-care and adoption earlier in life if we were to find out that we are unable to conceive. If that is the path we are meant to take--- I know it will be beautiful.

The more I get to know my husband the more impressed I am with the man that he is, and the leader he is becoming. My heart has no doubt-- Tim is going to a fantastic father someday. He has a huge heart filled with tremendous amounts of love.

Interestingly enough, though I am the one feels compelled towards adoption and parenthood, Tim is teaching me about the parent’s responsibility to affirm their child’s soul.

Here’s how: In many areas my husband’s affirmation of me is the first time truth has stuck to my soul. Before I got married Tim [or anybody else for that matter] could tell me all day long---

“Sarah,”

• “You’re beautiful.”
• “You’re not fat.”
• “You’re intelligent.”
• “You’re kind and good.”

--- and I would not be able to accept any truth in what they said. Addicted to affirmation I would do anything to please, but once I received a compliment my mind would immediately begin to devise reasons why I couldn’t be lovable and lovely.

In some miraculous way marriage has pierced through this self-hatred complex.

Now I have this theory --- little girls must be taught that they are smart, beautiful, and worthy of love by a man in their family. Since these were not truths I received from my father, Tim is the first man in my life with the proximity to teach me. Stasi Eldredge echoes this in her book Captivating, "Women learn from mothers what it means to be a woman, and from their fathers the value that woman has - the value they have as a woman."

My dad is a good man, but relationships are not intuitive to him and nobody taught my father how to affirm a little-girl’s soul. The result has been that though my dad has provided for me throughout my life, we began with a rather detached relationship. This tentative relationship shattered in 94 when things in my biological family temporarily fell apart. Efforts have since been made to heal the break in our relationship, but they have been short-lived.

I used to blame this on myself. If only I were a better daughter and worked harder at understanding Dad, I would have a good relationship with him. It took a lot of truth-facing for me to realize that the damage done was not “all my fault” and that it really was beyond my ability to repair.

Once out of denial I started to blame the rift in our relationship and the father-hole-in-my-soul on the current impossibility of time-travel. Right now if you’re a father needing to make amends with an adult daughter who you betrayed as a child you’re out of luck:

• You can’t go back to when your daughter was being teased and tell her “you are beautiful.”

• You can’t go back to when separation took her far from you and tell her “it’s not your fault.”

• You can’t take back the time you hit her and the poisonous things you said in your anger, and choose instead to hold her, to comfort her, to reach out to her in her shame and whisper in her ear “I love you anyway. You’re my treasure. You’re going to make it through this. I love you,” as you hug her to your chest.

And that love and attention in those formative moments is the only cure I can imagine for the pain that was caused.

Of course, this kind of blame it on the “what ifs” thinking is even more depressing than thinking the void is all your fault. You’re helpless, but so is he. In this place there is nothing anyone can do.

So I’m shifting again… Rearranging the thoughts in my mind to grieve what could have been and to forgive. What I realized is that our parents represent God to us as children, we rightly look to them for affirmation, protection, and comfort; but since they are human they will always fall short. As we grow into a knowledge of God’s love, our demand that our parents be God to us becomes idolatry. Instead of allowing God to satisfy us, we look to man who cannot.

God has taken me in His arms and is slowly teaching me that He is the only perfect father. Here I have found hope in this for me [and for my dad] because God able to nurture and affirm our wounded souls in ways that help us correctly interpret history. He delights in teaching our hearts His healing truth and love.

It’s hard for me to learn though because when my heart is quiet I get sleepy, I doze off or I day-dream. Plus I am not used to tuning into the Father heart of God, and when I do feel His love I have to fight to believe it’s true, just like I have to fight to believe that my husband loves me, or that the Schiros love me.

I told Linda about how “love always seems too good to be true” and her reply struck me as wisdom, “Sarah we all feel that way when we are loved, especially when we are loved by someone who doesn’t seem to need our love. That’s why it is so hard to understand God’s love because he doesn’t in anyway need us.”

As I have skeptically researched the grace of Divine adoption, my eyes have been opened to the overwhelming evidence of scripture: I am a penniless orphan and God has chosen to lavish his love on me. I must choose to open my wounded heart and rest in it.

The Apostle John describes the extravagant love of adoption this way,

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears,[a]we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1-2)

In my husband God has given me a companion to audibly speak His affirmation to my heart. This ability to speak life to the soul of a woman is the most powerful part of a man. It is how I know with every fiber of my being my husband’s strength.

I resonate with the way Stasi Eldredge describes strength in Captivating,

"To experience the strength of a man is to have him speak on our behalf. For when men abuse with words, we are pierced. When they are silent, we are starved. They have offered us no strength, they have abandoned us. but, when they speak with us, hear us, offer their words to us and on our behalf, something in our hearts is able to rest. We long for the protection masculine strength offers,... but also to have them shield us from emotional hard and spiritual attack...as women we long for someone strong to stand between us and the vicious assault of our Enemy."

That's exactly how it works for me. Through consistently speaking the truth over me Tim is helping me to see myself through God’s eyes instead of giving in to the lies and distortion of the enemy. As I open up his family is teaching me this too. It is "weird" because they don’t need me, but they love me anyway. I am praying for them and hope to become a blessing in return.

When I consider my life, I know from experience that God really does place “the lonely in families (Ps 68:6)” This is a main contributor to my passion for adoption. Some people estimate that there are as many as 163 million orphans around the world. It’s heart-breaking and overwhelming. Tim and I want to extend the family of God to the next child in need of a Father.

A Child's Voice from Discover The Journey on Vimeo.

For right now we are sponsoring a Alexandria a three year old little girl in Haiti so that her family can afford to provide for her and we pray for the opportunity to adopt.