In Spite of My Doubt (Part 2)

Ironically, even after our children did finally come home from Haiti- even after I got what I'd been begging God for- my faith did not 'go back to the way it was.'  I continued to struggle.  I continued to feel disillusioned and hurt.

We were blessed with a honeymoon period with our new children.  Adopting older children means bringing home kids whose hearts have been shattered by the losses in their lives.  They don't have the emotional maturity or the language to talk about their massive grief, nor do they trust that anyone in their lives is safe to share with, so their pain comes out in their behavior.  We didn't start to see how broken their hearts were until about 4 or 5 months in.  And then- as they say- all hell broke loose.

Because things had gone so well at first, I had decided to believe that our kids had withstood the trauma in their lives with more strength and maybe even more of God's protection than many other kids.  I thought that maybe, since the waiting had been so hard on me, God was giving me a pass on parenting kids with difficult behavior.  So when their behavior took a nose dive I was thrown off guard and once again surprised that God would allow so much pain and difficulty along a path He had called us to walk down.  And I felt even more disillusioned and wounded by God.

At the 6 month mark we received a phone call letting us know that our Haitian children's biological sister had been relinquished to the orphanage.  She was available for adoption.  Would we bring her home to her siblings?  I was emotionally exhausted.  It seemed like too much to ask.  And yet, I had held that sweet girl on my trip to Haiti to bring our children home.  I had pictures of her with her brother and sister.  How could we not say yes?  We prayed about it and sought council and wrestled with the decision for days.  And then we said yes.  Yes, we would allow that sweet baby to grow up with her flesh and blood.  And in spite of my weary heart and massive fears, I immediately loved that girl with everything in me.

We are a helplessly hopeless people, aren't we?  And so I hoped.  I hoped that this adoption would go more quickly.  And that this girl, since she was coming to us so much younger, would have fewer hurts. I hoped that God would use this process so show me how He was redeeming all of my pain.  I just knew that He had led us to our first 2 children because ultimately He wanted to use our family to bring these 3 siblings together and that we were going to see the miracle of that take place.

I was completely leveled then, less than 2 months later, when we received a phone call letting us know that our baby girl had died very suddenly in a hospital in Haiti.  I could not have possibly known that I would feel so much grief.  I desperately wanted her.  But on top of that, I grieved the hopes and the dreams I had.  I grieved the unmet expectations that I had for all I believed she promised for me and for our family.  I grieved the added wound that her brother and sister had piled onto their already shattered hearts.

Ulitmately, as so often happens, my grief rolled into anger.  I was furious with God.  Isn't He all knowing?  Isn't He over all?  Doesn't He ultimately control all things?  He knew this was coming, right?  He knew.  And yet He still asked me to say yes to her.  He still allowed her to die.  He didn't intervene.  He didn't save her.  He didn't save me- from the pain, the disillusionment, the gut-wrenching grief.

Before deep pain happened to me- when I was ignorant and had fashioned a safe God for myself to believe in- I would have had trite answers for others whose lives were falling apart.  I would have been confident in explaining it all to them- how God had a plan and that He works all things together for good and all that stuff.  I wish I could remember and apologize to each and every one of those people.  I have no doubt that, in spite of my well-intentioned ideas, my words were completely shallow and inexperienced and they poured salt into already festering wounds.

The kids' behavior continued to deteriorate. And my behavior, fueled by hurt and anger, created an incredibly unhealthy mix.  In fact, at some times, it might have been a miracle that I didn't physically hurt them.

In Spite of My Doubt (Part 1)

I grew up in the church, and in a family where beliefs were taught as fact.  There wasn't room for questioning because, to my parents and grandparents, truth was black and white.  God could be understood.  Right and wrong was easily decipherable.  The churches we went to believed the 'right things.'  Other denominations, faiths, practices- those that didn't line up with ours- were wrong.  I was taught to defend my faith.  I was taught all the answers.  I embraced all of it strongly and proudly spoke out on those beliefs.  Doubting was for the uneducated- if you learned enough of the Bible you didn't doubt.

A few years ago, when we began the process to adopt 2 children from Haiti, my beliefs still mostly lined up with what I'd been taught as a child.  I had no idea that this journey would be the start of undoing most of what I thought was non-negotiable. 

I'm not a patient person.  Impatience is definitely a serious fault of mine.  Adoption requires waiting and offers very little control.  Adopt from a third world country and lack of control cannot begin to describe the reality of waiting and wondering while longing and worrying.  I didn't do it well- the waiting.  Maybe, in hindsight, even my weakness in this area served a greater purpose than to just make me feel like a loser as a Christian.  Maybe it was part of God's design to begin tearing apart my misconceptions of Him- to reveal a God who truly is too big for me to even try to comprehend.

Visiting a third world country will also mess with a person's mind- especially a person who has grown up believing that doing the right things will produce the right results.  Add to that that I am a person who lives in one of the wealthiest counties in the nation- which makes it, far and away, one of the wealthiest communities in the world.  Culturally- almost all of us here, even if we won't admit it to ourselves, believe that we somehow 'deserve' the things we have.  Being served a plate of food at a restaurant that has a stray hair in it can be the ruination of our entire day.  Visiting Haiti got me thinking- and wondering- is EVERYONE there just NOT doing the right thing?  Do NONE of them deserve more from God?  Does He even hear their prayers?  Why is there such a VAST difference between my contaminated but gargantuan-sized plate of steak and potatoes and their endless days of NO food?

And there I was, trying so hard to 'obey God' and bring two children out of the muck and mire to a markedly better life in suburbia USA and no matter how much I begged, He wouldn't intervene and hurry up the process.  They remained there for more than twice the amount of time we were told we'd wait.  What about that verse, 'ask and you shall receive?'  Hmmm??  What about that, God?  And wouldn't here be far better than there for these kids, God?  Why would you leave them hungry, thirsty, unloved and unsafe for so long??  I knew all the verses in the Bible that spoke to these things- verses that said God is a rescuer.  He is love.  He takes care of children and the helpless.  He demands that we, as His followers, join Him in these endeavors- and yet, at least in my understanding, He wasn't pulling His weight.  He wasn't coming through for them or for me.

And so, in spite of all that I knew that I knew, I started doubting God.  I started wondering...

Starting Again

The day after I began this blog I recieved a phone call telling me that my sweet precious baby girl in Haiti, who we were in process to adopt, had died very suddenly from an allergic reaction to some medication. I was devastated and felt completely derailed from life.

Nandinie is the biological sister to our 2 Haitian children that we adopted and brought home on February 9, 2008. You can read much more of our story about adopting Monika and John and our short story with Nandinie on my mommy blog.

Needless to say, I have been a bit distracted from posting here. But I'm ready to get started again. And, due to the journey I'm on in life right now, I think that my next post will be about grief and what I've been learning and thinking about as we have said goodbye to Nandinie and our dream to add her to our family.

God has been so good to love us and carry us during this time. I would do anything to have her back, but know that He can use even this, especially this, to mold me and shape me into someone who looks much more like Him.