Reflections...2017

It has been a while…this time of year brings out the emotion in me and anyone that knows me, knows I do so through documenting. This time last year we were still in the throws of adoption after-shock. We had circled the wagons and home life was tumultuous. Christmas Eve last year might go down as the hardest we have ever experienced. I remember lying on the floor of Adi’s bedroom sobbing with scratches all over my face and back. I longed to reach his heart and his pain was a heavy burden to carry.

 

We recently passed Adi’s adoption day. Most people would expect this to be a day of celebration and joy… In our house it induced tears. He remembers…he knows we were not his first parents, he can clearly understand what happened to him, and he has the added burden of not being able to express it fully as a typical child would. We looked at a picture of him and his birth parents, we talked about the way they loved him and the choice they made. We wiped away the tears and held him tight. The difference…last year he had anger…this year he had tears. Adi has learned to accept this trauma inducing change in his life but that does not remove the hurt. He is learning to forgive but that does not remove the 4 ½ years of memories he had with them. We hope that one day, he will be ready to open his heart to them again. This time of year we are watchful for signs of grief, for his need for reassurance. We lower our expectations for celebrations and allow him to lead the way in his response to them.  Adi has a firm grasp that Jesus loves him, is always taking care of him, and never leaves him. We have moved on to teaching him that God is good and wants us to make good choices. Choices is an important thing to my boy.

 

On the opposite end of the spectrum is our girl…she is every bit of twelve, almost thirteen. She is amazing, exhausting, full of life, with a heart so sensitive we fear we might break it. Finding the balance of honesty with encouragement is tricky. Daddy tends to get whiplash with the mood swings but my heart laughs a bit because I remember being the same exact way. On one hand she seems older and wiser than her typical peers and the next moment she is just the teen we expect her to be. God has gifted her with the ability to separate Adi’s responses when he is overwhelmed from Adi’s genuine love for her. She runs through the house playing hide-n-seek with him and ten minutes later recognizes he needs space. Anna Beth has spent large amounts of time studying her brother and learning him so she can love him fully. On the other hand, it is a miracle I have not broken a bone while attempting to climb over the stuff on her floor to get to her bed to kiss her good-night. We watch her caught between little girl and grown woman. She has not settled on her place in her world yet but seems confident in who she is while walking through her days. I’ve told Brian that I believe we will see her flourish once she reaches high school or college. Right now she still has that leadership personality in a middle school world that demands uniformity in order to achieve acceptance. We are proud of her as she has not fallen prey to that mind-set but continues to forge ahead, unwilling to bend to society rules. She is learning to let go of her demands for perfection out of herself but her work ethic is strong. Her friends tend to be those on the outskirts that are often overlooked. She has confidently joined another youth group on Wednesday nights that better speaks to her heart while holding onto her ties to the youth group at our church. My girl brings tears to my eyes with her genuine love of people. She is a world changer that continues to grow in her relationship with the Lord and it tends to pour out in the way she loves those around her.

 

My Love and I will be celebrating 14 years of marriage next month. This man I married is as solid as they come but gentle with our hearts. He has worked ridiculous hours and yet his moments of peace he spent investing in his family. I could not be prouder of his leadership at work and the way he daily walks with integrity. He is a lover of Jesus and is sensitive to leading his family well. Marriage with this man has not been hard….life has been hard. God continues to give us what we need and new mercies each day to face the daily onslaught of this world. I love walking through life beside this man. Choosing each other daily is both deliberate and rewarding. The best part of each day is when he walks through our front door. Our prayer is that our marriage and family is a direct reflection of God’s redemption power. We have never aspired to change the world but just to be intentional in our relationships God called us to. I recently shared with a friend that we can never model perfection because we are imperfect. God has not called us to live a life of perfection before others. Instead, he gives us the power to make the right choices and grace when we fail. I want to fail well…I want others to see Jesus’s forgiveness when I fall flat on my face. I want them to see humility in my response and I want to see that I continue to choose hard things so my Father can be glorified.

 

This year has changed me, it has grown me, it has exhausted me, it has encouraged me and as we wind down to the end, I can honestly say, “This was a good year.” It was hard but oh friends, God was with us. He never ceased to be good. As I tell Adi every day, God is good and wants goodness for us. It is our responsibility to see the goodness amongst the hard. If my relationships with my heavenly Father, my sweet family, and my friends has grown deeper, then it has been good.

 

Isaiah 40:31 “…but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” 

Loss...

Adi has had a rough week. We are working through our second week of fall break and each day he whines, tries to control, and demands. In most children, parents would chalk this up to just a kid being off their schedule. Our boy is more complicated than that. We have watched him each day, lash out at his sister. Tell her things like, “Anna Bet can’t ride in the car. Go away Anna Bet. I don’t want you.” He has physically attacked her. He has thrown things. I have had to sit at the table and spoon feed him as he cried his way through dinner. We have had to do extra snuggles in the bed, extra patience and lots of grace.

 

You see, this week Adi had someone else leave him. They had no idea this would affect him this way and they could not even allow this to affect their decision. The Director of his afterschool program took another position. Adi loved her…and she left him. By the age of 6, most kids are used to changing teachers in preschools, having people rotate in and out of their lives but for Adi, this is personal. He had the most central figures in his life leave him. They made a hard decision because they believed it was best for Adi but it does not change the brokenness left behind.

 

While it may seem that our son has adjusted and moved on with his life, he has not forgotten the pain. He still wears it as he walks through his day. He does not trust people in his life. He asks the same questions over and over to make sure you have not forgotten. Every time we make a promise to him and follow through, he allows a little more of his heart to be exposed. Every time one of us fails to follow through…damage is done that will have to be mended.

 

Last night was rough…Adi broke Anna Beth’s heart more than once but her response was one of grace. Brian and I were talking about why this week has been so hard on Adi and we listened as Anna Beth moved from being hurt to once again putting herself in the line of fire. She had listened to us talk…she understood that this was not about her but about his pain. She walked back into the fire, ready and willing to be hurt again because she loved her brother more than herself. I sat on the couch listening and crying. My girl sought her brother out and  demonstrated the redeeming love of Jesus to him. She portrayed forgiveness, unlimited grace, and unconditional love.

 

This road of brokenness through adoption is never ending. It is daily being aware of what is at stake. It takes all three of us loving without limits. This is not just about making Adi feel safe….this is about Adi finding Jesus. His very life is on the line and when it gets hard, and we are weary, we stop and remember the consequences. I cannot help but think of my Savior during these times. He was God in human form. He was prone to exhaustion, humanness, and temptation but each day he loved with abandon. He kept walking into the fire out of deep love for us. He worked so hard developing relationships of trust so that his followers would be free. We, as humans can never love that deeply because we are flawed but how much would our responses change when we see it in light of salvation. Would we be careful with our promises? Would we walk each day in integrity as though someone’s very eternal life depends on our witness? Would we start investing time and effort into those hard work relationships? Would we sacrifice more because our eyes were open to the hearts at stake?

 

The brokenness of adoption, the loss I hear in my son’s voice, the loss I see in the texts from birth parents…it has driven me deeper. It has changed the way I view the people around me. I fail daily. I give into my selfish frustrations but I am also seeing people more. I am taking more chances. I am showing more grace. I am slowly moving out of my comfort zone of hiding behind my introvert label. I talk to the parent on the playground and share our story when they are curious. I don’t hold back from saying the name Jesus because I have nothing to lose and that person has everything to gain. I have seen our broken, messy life as a platform to talk about the one that has changed me, my family, and others.

 

Loss is painful but it is a door to beautiful. Without loss, there is no NEED.

Guarding Hearts In Adoption

Most of you know that we have an unusually open adoption. We mutually agreed to be open and transparent between the two couples. It was a great idea in theory but as reality unfolded, I realized the layers of emotions involved. I have discovered that the relationship between birth parents and adopted parents changes and evolves over time. There is no cookies cutter formula to this relationship.

 

Our relationship started in October 2015. We were all guarded and on edge. Expectations were not spoken outwardly but they were high on both sides. We were fearful of rejection and they were fearful of making a wrong decision. After placement in May 2016 there was anger, confusion and grief on their parts. They had expectations that we would parent the same as they had even though they knew in their hearts that it was not the right choice for our family. We found ourselves circling the wagons to protect Adi but also I found myself carrying the weight of their grief. I shed many tears over their broken hearts. I found myself protecting them from knowing the truth of Adi’s anger and grief. About how it affected his interactions and development. I had to hide truth from them to protect them from carrying an even heavier burden of guilt. Most of their interaction was between birth mom and myself. It was many times harsh, accusatory, and insulting. God walked me through some very long , dark days of grief.

 

Depression and guilt walked with me daily for months. I watched for weeks on end  as Adi rejected me. He punished me for taking “her” place. I listened as birth mom laid her grief at my door. I refused to tell her how hard this was for our son. Her heart could not handle it and I believed God would/was enabling me to carry it for both of them. The amazing thing about leaning into Jesus…He carries the heavy stuff. He puts people in your path to encourage you. He is HOPE. At this time, our birth parents don’t have that HOPE although we pray they will one day see the gift that could so easily be theirs.

 

God has used time to soften hearts and heal wounds. We recently had an almost 2 hour facetime session with our birth parents. It had been right around a year since we had seen their faces. Since we looked into each other’s eyes and spoke truth. We all text on a fairly consistent basis but even those conversations have changed. Birth mom and I had even had phone calls occasionally and we email updates monthly…but this was different. There was nowhere to hide from the emotion when you are staring each other down. It was beautifully hard and all of us walked away from that call exhausted but rejoicing.

 

Birth mom had requested a phone call with me around Adi’s birthday. She needed time to catch up, ask questions on his development and hear my momma’s heart. Instead I suggested we facetime and get the dad’s involved. Their hearts needed the exchange as much as ours. The night of the call we planned for Adi to hang with his sister downstairs. He fought me on it till I told him who we were going to be talking to and he headed right down. He is no longer angry but neither is he ready to see them, interact with them, and give them what they long for. I pray often that he will one day be ready to extend grace and forgiveness. He must first understand that God has done that for him.

 

That conversation between the four of us was healing. We finally could share Adi’s grief with them and they could face the truth. They could own and acknowledge the brokenness in all of this. They could also see how God is making things new. They recognized and acknowledged that Adi is changing, growing, and advancing beyond where they thought he would be now. They could see and commented on how happy he is which they had not really seen in him before. There was a moment in that conversation when I realized that we now know their son more intimately than they do. That for them, Adi is stuck in time. He still feels like that little 4 ½ year old that they left in our care over a year ago.

 

As we wound down our call, we had a tour of their new home. A home in which they will continue to move forward and heal. We rejoiced with them and celebrated the good they are embracing. As Brian and I hung up, we both talked about how much we craved for the time when we can unite them all again. When Adi will be ready to see them and it will not harm or disrupt his development. We hope for the day that they can see Adi as God’s perfect design. Our relationship has moved from being hard and painful to sharing recipes, gardening tips, and laughing over Adi’s antics. Only God can do that. Only God can heal broken and breathe new life into it. Not only that but He delights in the laughter in our home. He celebrates with us as we see another goal accomplished. Something as small as being able to completely dress himself to watching our children giggle and play, HE delights in. Sometimes I imagine my heavenly Father sitting on his throne, belly laughing with joy at the happiness in our home.  It is not perfect. Our home is and life is often messy and full of mistakes but it is God’s.

 

The further we are from that painful day, (the day after mother’s day), when we signed some papers, I see more goodness than hard. I recently ran across something that reminded me of our adoption. The Japanese used to repair their broken art with gold. They viewed it as having even more beauty once broken and repaired than when it was in its original state. Oh how our Father must view us the same! The more broken we are, the more beauty he sees! We run from pain but God just wants us to lean into it and see the beauty it creates.

Adi Is Not Autism

I know that many of our friends are afraid to ask questions but are curious about Adi and how autism affects his daily life. I would like to share with you something that happened last Saturday as a way for you to better understand him and others with the same diagnosis.

 

After Adi’s baseball game last Saturday, our family and grandparents headed to Chick Fil A for lunch. Adi loves it there. Near the end of lunch, Adi’s drink was accidentally knocked out of his hand. Now if you know Adi, that boy LOVES his soda. We have an argument with him over it just about every day so on special occasions; he gets his coveted Sprite or Root Beer. He was heart-broken and too upset to listen that the sweet employee was going to replace it for him. Adi turned around during his tears and realized that the older couple sitting next to us was staring at him because of his tears. He then looked over at another table and noticed that another couple was doing the same. Adi turned his back on them and went into full melt-down. You see, Adi realized that they were judging him. He understood that they did not approve of his response but what they did not get was that he literally could not help it. What they saw was a spoiled brat getting upset over a drink. The reality…was a high functioning autistic boy that is super sensitive to others emotions and does not know how to deal with it was absolutely embarrassed and just wanted to be alone. Brian and I moved him outside as quickly as we could but Adi was deeply hurt.

 

I do not blame anyone for their stares…if you are not aware of what special needs looks like, then you tend to jump to conclusions. Adi does not “look” like he has challenges. On a playground, you would be hard pressed to even realize he is constantly fighting to be what we would characterize as typical. Autism is hard to understand. It does not present itself in a wheelchair, with special adaptive equipment, unusual facial features. It appears completely typical until all of the sudden it is not… My boy wants friends but the art of conversation is something that is elusive to him. You may ask him a question and he will stare right past you but he is thrilled that you noticed him. Adi may repeat the words of a song to you that don’t make sense but he can read on a 3^rd grade level at the age of 5. Adi may sound like he is speaking gibberish but in reality his mind is moving so fast that he cannot get the words out so he is giving you about every 3^rd word going through his head. He may be giggling at a door but in reality he is trying to decode the mechanism of the door. When you see tears in Adi’s eyes and he is repeating his schedule to you over and over….in reality he is just trying to bring order back to his world because we have asked him to do something he was not prepped for. Adi may not appear as though he is listening in choir but when he gets home he can sing every word back to us and in perfect pitch. Adi cannot follow 3 step directions and gets lost during the process but he can add and subtract. Adi may appear to be completely oblivious to your conversations but he is aware of every word.

 

My challenge to you…don’t stop leaning down and saying hi to him. One day he will surprise you and respond back because he has learned to trust that you really want to know him. Don’t be afraid of his little quirks. One day he will learn to better control/hide them and you will forget he has a unique perception of the world. Don’t just stare at him but engage him, even if it is a one-sided conversation for a while. One day he will open up to you and you will understand just how much your acceptance of him impacted him. Please don’t talk about him in his presence as though he is not capable of understanding because he will never trust you and you will miss out on getting to know a very special person. Most of all, if you are a believer, please be careful with my son’s heart. He is learning about Jesus by observing you and witnessing the way you accept and love him. Adi has a hard time understanding things he cannot see so the concept of God is hard for him to understand. If you do not represent Jesus well, you may very well be teaching him that Jesus loves with limits. We love sharing our boy with you and want you to see how precious and unique God made him. God did not make a mistake…he created Adi for a very special purpose and his autism will help him one day to have an impact in a way a typical person never could. Please don’t look at Adi as someone with limits…view him as someone that can witness things that are completely blind to others. He actually takes delight in tiny things that we often overlook. Recently we were in the car and out of the blue Adi stated, “God is with me…God is everywhere.” My boy understands this simple concept now and a year ago he had never heard the name Jesus. We want you to be Adi’s village and pour truth into his life.

#Woodfam4...A Year Later

Msy 9th, 2016

Today marks one year since the day we were finally able to share with you a picture of our little boy. I think if you were to talk to each of us, you would hear that it has been the hardest year in the life of our little Wood family. Each of us has experienced this adoption through a different lens. Each of us in this puzzle… no less important to the final outcome but each fitting into our roles differently.  Last night I spent almost 2 hours on the phone with birth momma. We laughed together, we cried together, and we had some very raw conversation about the reality of this last year.

I remember sitting in that family room in our agency in New Jersey. The case worker sitting down, looking us in the eye, and saying, “They finished their paperwork.” Just like that and it was done…after months of conversations, debates, and acceptance, birth parents had signed their rights away to Adi. I looked over at Brian and a sense of complete brokenness overwhelmed me. Conflicted is the only word I can think to describe my emotions that day. I struggled to find happiness in those moments. What I was taking part in, was the destruction of one family unit and the building of another.  It was not my choice to dismantle a family but I felt the weight of it. I felt the responsibility of it. I felt the burden of those choices. We both knew, that no matter how much we thought we were prepared for this moment…it would not be enough…we were not enough…but we had JESUS to fill the gaps.

The first 6 months…you guys, I don’t even know how to explain the pain of it..the joy if it…the exhaustion of it. To this day, I cannot tell you how we walked through it. I carried the grief of birth momma on my shoulders. I heard it in phone calls, texts, and emails. I carried the grief of Adi as he isolated himself, became consumed with the rage of grief, he wept in my arms and then drew my blood with his fingers. There was no manual for this. This adoption is everything we never wanted but it is exactly what God called us to do. There were no pretty pictures of a happy baby and birth parent visits. This adoption was raw and my heart has been ravaged because of it. My sweet girl was not left untouched. She longed for this dear boy…she had prayed for exactly this and yet she wept over the loss of our unit of three. She grieved the brother she had expected and was faced daily with a brother that was enraged when he laid eyes on her. Brian was the only one that Adi felt completely safe with and he carried the weight of caring for him, protecting us from Adi’s anger, and loving that little traumatized heart with the intensity of a warrior. If you could have spent one week in those first 6 months with us, you would be stunned realizing where we are today.  Those first 6 months carried more tears than smiles. We celebrated Adi’s choice to not strike in anger more than we celebrated laughter. We walked the balancing act of protecting birth parents from the truth of Adi’s grief and their anger at us for not complying with their expectations. The only choice we had was to love with abandon and persistently chase Adi’s little heart.

A year later I still weep when I think of those daily moments of holding my new son, while he raged, and softly whispering to him…”You are safe, I will not leave you, you are home.” The pain of that time is still fresh and yet the intensity of love for him cannot be explained. He is so incredibly tough and yet deeply sensitive. He loves to pull pranks and gets hurt when he hears people talking about him or feels as though he is being laughed at.  I cannot share our story without tears appearing. It is not because of how hard it was…it is because those moments God has redeemed. My little boy squeals with delight when I pick him up from school. He will climb in my arms and wrap his arms around me, saying, “I love you mommy.” He will run through the house to look for his sister because he missed her. Brian and I are finding time for us again…for months we would nod our heads at each other from across the room, in solidarity. As if to say, “I see you…I love you…I am praying for you and when the time comes, I will be here.” That fog of grief is lifting. Birth parents are moving forward slowly and celebrating the victories we share with them. We are able to find peaceful ground and share little bits of Jesus with them.

My family is solidifying as a unit and becoming established in our new roles/titles. There are more peaceful days than unrest. I can see my children physically relaxing and feeling safe. I see us smiling, laughing and delighting in each other. I cannot tell you how many times my heart was shattered and my Savior restored me. Those burdens are starting to fall off my shoulders and I am learning how to not live in survival mode anymore.

Our family is goal oriented people. I jokingly said recently to friends that a trip to Walmart requires a white board to write out lists and a plan of action. All four of us live our life by lists so that we can keep order and feel safe. We often measure our accomplishments by these lists. When I stand before God someday, I kind of expect my legacy to be in a list format but in reality this is not what I want. I want my legacy to be that I chose faith…trust…redemption…forgiveness…and that I lived out love and grace. I don’t want anyone to look at me and say, she survived cancer well…she worked hard…she adopted. I want them to say, she loved well…she extended grace…she showed mercy…she intimately knew Jesus. I don’t want to walk away from this past year with my family feeling like they survived a hard transition. I want them to walk away knowing that God was present, He carried us, we trusted Him, He redeemed us, we were witness to His power.

I stand in amazement as I spent a year of witnessing God’s restoring power. He generously bestowed His covering over us as we went into battle over hearts. We are weary and still recovering BUT I would choose this again. Knowing what I know now…I would still choose it. I cannot imagine our family without having walked this adoption story. We will have years ahead to continue the healing process. We will face questions of rejection, grief of brokenness, and at some point…it is our hope that some restoration of a relationship with Adi and his birth parents will happen. We are praying that God will reveal himself as very real and true to our little boy someday. We have hope that he will be able to one day see his birth parents again and understand their choices. That he will be able to extend grace when they need it. That God will one day capture their hearts as well. This began with a stirring in our hearts almost 5 years ago and today we celebrate that with a quiet joy while also acknowledging the brokenness that brought us together. . #Woodfam4

Thirteen Years of Choosing Each Other...

Thirteen years we have lived life together. Those years were not full of butterflies and roses but they were full of truth. The truth that no matter how much we disappoint one another, disagree, and face hard things, we fight together for us. We have more wrinkles, gray hair, more belly but we also have more memories, more trust, more love, more faith.

This past year has probably been the hardest out of all of them. There has been a lot less time for us. We have worked hard to remind each other that “we” are important even when we could not stop for dates and flowery expressions of love. Daily emails to pour our hearts out to each other, connect, and pray over the hurts/challenges. It was a year full of anticipation, joy, grief, and exhaustion. Sometimes our emotions were raw as we raced about the busyness of the day but each day there was a conscious choice to choose each other...to remain steadfast to the covenant promise of our marriage.

I was reminded today, that there is no one else on earth that knows the details, the decisions, the hold your breath moments of our family story but you and I. You are the only other person that is witness to all the God moments, the exhaustion, the tears, the pushing through the day and barely making it moments. I am grateful it was you. I am thankful that we had so much history with each other that we could look across the room and check each other’s hearts without words being spoken. That the burden of this year did not break us because we trusted God to strengthen us. I am grateful that when my tongue was sharp and your patience was ending, we could extend grace.

For thirteen years you have chased me, protected me, served me, and loved me beyond what the world expects. Marriage to you has never been incredibly hard. Life has been hard. Instead of letting life consume us, you have gently reminded me that God put us together so we did not have to do it alone. Together we carry our family forward while holding the memories of yesterday in our hearts.

I want you to know that I am proud to be yours and will do my very best to always honor you. That I remain resolute to lift you up in prayer and support you. You are my dearest friend and I do not take lightly the trust you have in me. Daily we will continue to fight against the things of this world that try to destroy “US” and we will sharpen one another as iron sharpens iron. You will make me laugh at myself when I grow too serious and I will remind you that I do in fact, “love you more!” We will discuss large and small decisions over baskets of laundry. We will laugh at the inside jokes, we will flirt while cleaning the house, we will roll our eyes at each other over homework tears. We will do this thing called life together because thirteen years ago we made a covenant. Thank you for remaining true, honest, and upright. You are the man my heart desires and I celebrate that today.