My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

Dear daughter

Lydia with Mama 2There’s something pretty cool about us. You and I look pretty different. You’ve got dimples; I’ve only got wrinkles. You have a freckle on your tummy; the only fun thing I have on my tummy is a turtle tattoo. You’ve got long dark hair; I’ve got short brown hair with highlights of gray. You’ve got Chinese eyes that look like crescent moons; I’ve got big eyes that scrunch up when I look at you because you always make me smile. I like that we’re different. We go perfectly together, and our differences make us a really colorful and fun pair.

Some people assume that pairs are the same. They think pairs should match on the outside as well as on the inside. So, the fact that we’re different on the outside may make some people not know right away that we go together. They might do things like that man did last week and ask you where your mommy is when I’m standing right next to you. We might laugh when that happens, but sometimes, we won’t. And, that’s okay.

People may ask you other questions too. I expect they will because I’ve been asked lots and lots of questions since you became my daughter. Sometimes the questions are easy ones, and I can answer them right away without even thinking really. Other questions make me feel a little funny inside, and I have to think before I answer. And, sometimes, there are questions that make me feel a little sad or mad, and I just don’t want to answer at all. I imagine you might feel like that too. We may be different, but I bet we might feel a lot the same.

When people ask you questions or say things to you about us being different, it may be because they’re being mean. It’s true. Sometimes people are just mean for reasons I really don’t understand. But, you know what? I bet that most of the time, people will ask you questions not because they are trying to be mean at all. Maybe they are interested in the fact that we’re different because they want to have a family that looks different too. I like when that happens. Maybe they ask a question because their family already looks different, and they want to know if we’re like them. Those can be fun conversations too. Some may ask simply because they are curious, and that’s okay. We ask people questions when we’re curious too.

The thing is, we may think we can tell why people do the things we do, but a lot of times we really can’t. People’s hearts are pretty mysterious things, you know? But, regardless of what’s in their hearts and if they are curious, interested, or just plain mean, we need to respond with respect. Let me explain to you what I mean. When someone asks you a question, you have a choice to make. You can share something about your story—after all, you’re an amazing girl with an amazing story. You can respectfully answer their question and tell them something about yourself. Or, you can share something that’s not about you specifically but is about families like ours that look different from each other. That’s another good option that may be a little easier because it’s not as personal as sharing about yourself. Or, you can respond in another way entirely and not respond at all. That’s a perfectly fine option, and you don’t need my permission in advance to choose that one. I’m telling you right now that it’s fine with me. But, if you choose that option, know that you need to do it always with respect. You can tell them you don’t really like the question or ask if you can talk about something else. You can tell them they’re your friend but you’d rather not answer that question. You can even blame me if you want and tell them your mom told you not to talk about that. Don’t worry; I can take it. I’m your mom, and moms are cool like that.

I’m not expecting you to have some sort of issue tomorrow or even next week; so, you don’t need to worry. But, if you do—whenever you do—know you aren’t stuck; you have a choice to make. You’re the one in charge of how things go. And, know that even if I’m not there to help you, I’m cheering you on just like how you cheer me on when I wrestle with the kids in the living room and you yell, “Go Mommy! Go Mommy!” And, I wanna hear all about it afterwards so I can scrunch up my eyes again and smile real big at you because no matter what choice you make and how things go, I’m going to tell you I’m proud of you and that I love that we’re different and that I really, really love that you’re mine and I’m yours. I hope on those days that I need it, you can do the same thing for me because you’re my daughter; and daughters are cool like that.

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It’s not the boobs that bother me #2014top10 #4

Screen Shot 2014-01-09 at 10.46.17 AM
87 comments, 4,483 likes, and 1,094 shares as of 10:45 this morning of this image shared on Dave Thomas Foundation’s Facebook page.

Dave Thomas Foundation does great work advocating for children. But, I think they made a mistake promoting this particular image and identifying it as “a true gem.”

I appreciate the sentiment—parents love their children no matter how they joined the family. I didn’t miss that point. But, I have some fundamental problems with the communication of that sentiment here.

  • All my children are my children. Period. I would never introduce my kids to someone new and single out any as birth children or adopted children. Some might say I have read too many blog posts from adults who were adopted who vulnerably share feeling like they did not fit in. But, even one blog post, one conversation with someone who was adopted is enough for me to decide that as a mother of a little one who joined us via adoption, I will never single her out like this. She will be acutely aware as she grows that she looks different than the rest of us. She certainly doesn’t need me pointing that out any more.
  • Adopted is a past tense verb, not an adjective. My daughter Lydia is energetic, silly, determined, strong, physically fearless and yet emotionally fragile, independent yet utterly dependent, and incredibly beautiful. She is Chinese, and she was adopted. We adopted her. I know some are rolling their eyes and writing me off right now as overthinking everything. Go ahead, tell me I’m overthinking it all and overreacting as I do. I know it can be a character flaw. But, you know what? She’s my daughter; I can overthink it.
  • I have not and will never forget she was adopted. Her story is one that involves deep pain and weeps of the brokenness of our world and yet the sovereignty of God and redemption of broken things. When I sat before an officer of the Chinese government charged with legally approving a child of the state becoming a precious daughter of ours, I promised she would be our child, that we would care for all her needs as if she had been born to us. But, in between the lines, I also promised that I would not neglect to recognize her story and walk alongside her as she grows and processes that story through different seasons of her life. I will never forget the stories of each one of my children and treat them as if their needs are all one in the same.

All that on top of the fact that her boobs are completely wrong.

my adoption cartoon

 ______

A few hours after posting this, the Dave Thomas Foundation actually commented on my Facebook post.

Screen Shot 2014-01-09 at 6.23.40 PM
Apparently, they thought it was the boobs that bothered me.

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A letter to my sister the day after she returned her foster daughter #2014top10 #7

I haven’t been where you were yesterday, physically taking a child back into a life of uncertainty, a life that looks from our few as far from safe. You were her advocate for 47 days—some of which felt like they would never end as she made a permanent marker and baby powder instruments of art and some that went so fast that you’re liking pining for them now, wishing you had taken one more walk, sang one more song, read one more book.

playing with orphansWhile I’ve never fostered a child who did not belong to me, I’m not a stranger to the heartache in response to a child’s brokenness. I spent one week, only one short week, with children in China who do not have families. They called me Mama. They called every woman there Mama, a constant verbal reminder of their loss. In the first 5 minutes I spent in a room there, I was drawn to a little boy. He was maybe only a few months older than your foster daughter. In no time, he’d run to me when I entered the room. I’d hold him with his little bare hiney peeking out of his split pants, and he’d fuss when I’d try to put him down. He’d push other children away who approached me in a vain attempt to claim something that could never be his. I asked the staff about him, wondering if I could somehow share his preciousness with Mark and we could come back for him. But, that cannot happen. He had been brought to the orphanage as a victim of human trafficking. At less than a year old, someone was arrested for trying to sell him for the highest price—maybe about $5,000—like we would a possession we see no more value in beyond bringing in some extra cash. Because of his history, he can never be adopted internationally; he doesn’t qualify as an “orphan” according to the definition a committee in some board room far from Shaanxi, China secured. He will grow up in the orphanage, calling every woman there Mama, his name literally meaning “minority,” forever marked as a stranger not even qualified to be grafted into a new family. The injustice is infuriating. And, the dichotomy of his life and the lives of the children in my home at the start of a hopeful summer—one of whom may have slept in the very same bed he has slept in—makes me want to foolishly bury myself in a frivolous book or movie simply to try to put it—him and all the others he represents—out of my mind.

I got up early this morning and sipped my coffee and read before the spirit of summertime arose in four little bodies here. I read 2 Corinthians 12, a familiar passage from Paul about the thorns in his flech and boasting in his weakness. He wrote God’s words to him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I’ve read the words lots of times before but today I thought of the little one who has been in your care and the boy I grew attached to. They could be seen as tangible images of weakness, stuck because of a system designed to serve their best interests that appears to have failed them. In their young sweetness, they just smile and run and eat their goldfish crackers or oddly-flavored Chinese saltines, oblivious to all that we see. Where’s the perfect power in their weakness?

It’s a beautiful morning. My little Chinese friend is likely asleep by now, his life dictated by a tight schedule. And, I’m sure your house is very still after 47 chaotic mornings with a two-year-old. I’m sure you are wondering what she’s doing right now. The only path to peace for us is in trusting that His power isn’t always demonstrated the way we’d like it to be. In fact, I’d say it rarely is. But, his power is still there, still with them in a crowded orphanage in China and in a little house where a little girl may be watching morning cartoons. His grace is sufficient for us and somehow He is sufficient for them. And, unless we receive a specific calling from Him to fight to radically change the system—a call I’d be willing to accept if it came as you would as well—we must rest in that sufficiency, that power in what appears to us to be hopeless, trusting that He is whispering words into their hearts that man may not utter.

God called you to foster, to care, to stand in the gap in this little one’s life for 47 days. You willingly accepted that calling and now have completed it. It seems He is calling you now to something else. I trust that whatever that is, you will fulfill it more fully because of His sufficiency to you through this season.

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Where He Was

It’s his first Christmas home, his first Christmas with a family. It will take but a few minutes for him to learn that ripping pretty paper leads to special treasures. I’m sure his little Christmas jammies, sticky candy cane lips and fingers, and the smile that fills his face will speak of only delight.

We could focus on his joy and wide-eyed excitement. We could choose to sigh a happy sigh as we see him running around with his sisters and brother, experiencing it all for the first time. But, we must also remember.

He wasn’t here last year and the year before that or the year before that when he was just a helpless newborn baby boy. When he was found alone, he was taken here like other children like him in that area go. He was put in a crib that belonged to others before him where he likely lay crying until he no longer cried because the energy required to do it didn’t earn a reward. The working staff fed him as they fed the others with watered down formula to meet the goal of keeping them alive; the government gives subsidies only for living children. The wood palate in the crib was visibly wet with urine as was the layers he was bundled in as he laid tied down to keep him from climbing out as he physically grew, his body using every little bit of nutrients given and wanting more. They’d take him out and show him off when the rare visitor came; he was one of the healthier ones. When the visitors left, he went back in his crib and the ayis who only resembled parents left and locked the doors.

That’s where he was.

It’s the type of picture in my head I want to erase and replace with the joy of Christmas morning complete with a Mom and Dad who are taking hundreds of pictures with a lit up tree in the background. But, putting it out of my head doesn’t put it out of existence. His story didn’t start with them; it started in the womb of a woman who did not keep him and continued at a place that is not safe for children to be, at an orphanage much harder than ones I’ve ever seen. It was bad. The picture is messy and reeks of broken hearts and lives. But, it’s also compelling; it also demands a response; I cannot simply turn away.

The incarnation is like that. God Himself, the One creator of the universe, could have found another way, couldn’t He? He spoke things into being, surely He didn’t have to enter into our mess. Surely the One who parted the Red Sea and brought manna down from heaven to sustain His people could have done something spectacular to save us from ourselves. And, I guess He did, but not in the way any one expected. His spectacular was messy and ugly and smelled like manure and moldy hay when He became one of us and laid down His sweet head in a feeding trough for cattle.

The nativity we’re used to seeing with an angelic little Christ child complete with halo and a drape to cover his little parts, the nativity scenes that fill our home this season just don’t seem to do that event justice. God became man. And, honestly, the depth of that is so entirely hard to understand that it seems easier at times to simply focus on the pretty little nativity scene and sweet sounding songs than to dare to look longer at the reality of it all. I want to turn away from it, acknowledge that it happened and it’s true but then stop looking at it because it’s just too hard to understand the hows and whys of it all. But, I can’t turn away. It demands a response.

The joy of Christmas. The glow of the colored lights of the tree reflecting on the windows. Laughing with my family about Christmas memories from our childhood. Seeing all our Christmas cards filling our dining room with pictures of families with children from all over the world. Staying up late with my husband painstakingly making Christmas trees out of peanut butter cups and one more batch of Reindeer eyes. I am going to enjoy all of it, all that has come to fill our Christmas. But, just like how we can’t forget the reality of the earlier parts of his story even though it’s hard, I can’t and won’t forget the reality of the Christmas story even though it’s hard. Only then, when we just glimpse at the reality of the incarnation can we have a merry Christmas.

nativity scene

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