Mental Combat

This past week, I haven't been able to write. I know that everyone get writer's block sometimes. I started several posts. Maybe they will be good to use in the near future...if I can finish them. They may get scrapped. They were good practice if nothing else, I guess. The real problem was not my inability to write. Rather, it was my mind playing distracting games. I wasn't focused. I was off the path, lost.

Recently, I began discussing our adoption journey. I do want to continue giving details of the process, but today I want to jump to now, the current, the pressing issue that veered me into some dark woods last week.

Over Thanksgiving, I was home with my parents. One night, my rear end parked on the couch, my mother sat down with me and wanted to ask about the adoption. My family is still learning the "appropriate" adoption language and so the questions sometimes seem....odd. However, my mom raised a really good point and made a seemingly great suggestion. Adoption costs are expensive (as I have previously discussed) and so my mom was brainstorming ways to lessen the burdens that an adoption can cause.

She asked me, "have you, or did you and Mike, consider fostering?" Wow, I wasn't expecting that question. "Yes," I replied, "but we are young and the kids who need homes are much older. It just didn't seem appropriate." My answer seemed simple enough to understand.

When we began researching adoption, we had to consider what type of adoption we would want to pursue. We decided against foster to adopt because we knew that we wanted a baby. That was that. Going further, we are going to be first time parents. We need some experience before jumping into the teenage years. Even going through the adoption education, I told Mike I didn't like to think that far ahead right now. For one, I'll be "old" and two, we don't even have a baby to hold yet. I didn't want to picture a full grown teenager. Talk about them growing up too fast.

But then my mom told me that there are a lot of babies that go straight to foster homes from the hospital. She is right, there are. She sees them come into the doctor's office all the time. I did a little digging, and found that maybe we could pursue fostering while we raised our adoption support. Who knows, maybe we would be able to adopt a child from the state. We might even be able to save a lot of money and move on to adoption number two more quickly. That could be a huge blessing. It was exciting to think about the possibilities.

So I finally got around to calling DCS (Department of Children Services) last week. I called three different numbers before being able to leave a message. Then I had to wait. During the waiting, I got a little depressed. Okay....maybe it was a lot depressed. For two or three days, I finally mourned my reproductive failures. I cried a lot. I'm a big cry baby so that part isn't surprising. What really made me upset was that I started to believe lies about myself. Things I knew were untrue, but they stabbed so deep I didn't have the strength for mental combat.

"you're broken"  "you'll never be a real mother" "you've disappointed your husband"

It was bad. Admitting this now is still emotionally difficult, but I know better. I am equipped with the truth. I know that I have been broken and made humbled before the Lord so that I can be used for His will and purpose. I will bring joy to my children. I have been blessed because my husband loves and respects me.

I vented in an email to Mike, and he wrote back reassuring his love for me. "i dont understand why this process is going to be so hard for us but there is a reason and God will show it to us one day"  I love my husband, and his poor grammar skills.

So I pressed forward. These low, mental moments are those that we all have to get through when facing challenges. I spoke with several people from the state this week and learned that fostering (now called resource parenting) isn't in the cards for us. Mostly because Mike is deployed. I'm not allowed to foster on my own because I am married even though single people do it all the time. It is a government run agency so there is no fighting it. It is what it is.

It was a rough week, but the Word packs a punch. I'm glad that I know we are living out the life we were meant for. I just have to look at this as God making firm the steps we have taken with our adoption agency.  He is building the confidence that we need to fulfill His purpose and to make sure that we take care of the children he planned for us.