It has been easier than I had expected. It always is in retrospect. But truly, the color, the joy, the thousand decibels of giggles they paint the picture of parenting in full splendor.
On the flip side, being a parent has brought to light my human nature, which up until that point was tamed and locked away. But the daily grind, the defiance, the uncertainty in the slew of choices for our girl, boundary setting and boundaries being reset, the sleep deprivation during certain seasons have made me realize how hard it is to be a parent, if you try in earnest. Parenting has been equally beautiful rewarding and humbling.
Jaclyn doesn’t get preferential treatment. We love lavishly, we enjoy life, we correct and we scold age appropriate. And we course correct as we go. And everything we’ve said and done this far, we’ve believed to be right and good in our heart.
We’ve been very open about our hearts desire to adopt years before one could see anything happen in this direction. And we had to tread through questions, distrust, even impatience and keep the course.
Today we seem to be a resource, an open book, and in retrospection I realize that many battles have been won and filed away. Adoption is still viewed with reluctance, and we still hear second hand stories that a year ago would have discouraged us, but not today. Every adoption journey is different. Every biological child is different though too. Children are gifts, be that they join your family through birth or adoption. We are responsible for them, to the best of our ability, for a season. We do our best and the rest we entrust to God.
I have one blessing from another adoptive mom, that I want to share here.
“My hope is that you will cherish God’s welcome invitation to know Him increasingly as you answer the high calling that is motherhood. No matter how He has enabled you to be a mom—in marriage, in singleness, through foster care, through childbirth, as a mother of one, as a mother of many—keep being faithful to Him as you parent your children. He’s shaping them through you, and He is shaping you through them. And to the mother who has given her foster children to forever families but still has a child-shaped hole in her own heart; to the mother now called “birth mom” who has given her child into a better life out of love; to the mother whose baby now rests in the arms of Jesus: you are brave, you are beautiful, and you are loved.”