Internal Injuries

Do you think that we are given situations in life to help us better understand others?  I do.  We are in the middle of our fifth year after adoption of our two youngest children.  I remember what people said to me when we added to our family.  There were people that were afraid for us, “Do you know what you are doing?!”  Of course we did not know what we were doing!  If we knew all the struggles that would come beforehand we would have had fear and may never have acted.  God placed it on our hearts to move quickly to bring these children into our home.  He had already brought them into our lives through fostering by family members.  Our party of five felt it was what we were called to do.  Others told us, “God will reward you greatly for this.”  I believe we are blessed with love through all children.  The ultimate reward of sacrificing His Son, so that we may have eternal life, has already been given.

Adoption is glorified as a wonderful experience.  Until now, it ranked as one of the most difficult experiences in my life.  I have found that anything worth doing is never easy.  Fighting to get them here was a full time job.  By God’s grace, this only took us three months.  For me, understanding sales and customer service served it’s purpose.  Persistence and follow up, along with many prayers, brought them to us in only one miraculous summer!  Merging lives together in happiness, even in a loving family, does not happen quickly and often not at all.  We work on this daily, moment by moment just as many other families.

Internal injuries were Connor’s cause of death.  I know what this means all too well.  At first it meant understanding neglect and loss for my youngest two children’s past life.  Their humble beginnings were filled with passion just to survive, eat, sleep and stay safe.  For people blessed by birth, into a safe, secure home, filled with love this life is unfathomable.  Our family was not trained in counseling.  We only had faith that love and stability would be able to turn life around for them.  The longer children are in situations such as theirs, the longer time needed for healing and trust, that may never come.  In addition to incomprehensible circumstances, the loss of birth parents, siblings, foster parents, and now a brother is overwhelming.  The only time I thought, “why” was only moments after learning of our son’s passing and it was due to their previous losses, “why them?”

We cannot give them the first five years of their lives over.  These most important years of developing core beliefs and social skills.  I pray their internal injuries will heal and others will be kind to them. Only time will tell.  Many days I think, “It’s been over four years!  Why do they still question us everyday?”   I struggled with understanding grief and loss that our youngest two deal with daily.  I tried, but until you experience it, even my empathy did not give a clear path to their deep loss.  Without pain or tragedy, there is no need for adoption.  God has given us the opportunity to understand His loss and a bit of their loss.  My prayer for clearer understanding has been answered and for that I am grateful.  MamaC

“I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.”  John 14:18