“Thank God it’s Friday” may be a popular saying, but around here, I thank God it’s Monday more often. I especially thank Him for Mondays after a long holiday weekend. Thanksgiving, as one of my trauma mama friends so aptly put it, is one of the hardest times of the year for our kids. Everyone is talking about being thankful. For our hurt, adopted kids, being thankful is hard! For what are they supposed to be thankful? Being adopted? For my kids, that means also being thankful that their biological mother neglected them while she took care of her own vices and their father left them in a way no parent should ever leave a child. Be thankful? Yeah, right.My Evangelical Christian friends will need to hold onto their hats here, but I’m going to write what I know as truth in our family. Here goes: The expectation to be thankful AND be part of a Christian household adds even more stress to our kids’ hurt lives. Everyone is telling them to be thankful for what GOD has given them – that GOD has set them into a family – that GOD is ready to meet their need – that God is good. For children who have been raised to believe that God is for rich Americans with no real need, and who know reality to be that they must take whatever they can to survive, this is fantasy. For children who were set into a family the way God’s design intended – for kids to be raised and loved and cared for by the people who bore them – only to be ripped from that family against their will (however dysfunctional and toxic), God seems cruel. For children who rummaged through dumpsters and begged from neighbors to put food into their bellies and the belly of a baby sister (that a corrupt government took away from them and placed with a family without their knowledge), believing God will meet their need is ludicrous.
EVEN THOUGH they are loved, well cared for, fed, clothed, and given many of the things middle-class Americans enjoy (even as they take those things for granted), EVEN THOUGH they have been “redeemed” in a sense and brought out of poverty, and EVEN THOUGH they have come to believe in Salvation through Jesus Christ, they cannot believe – not deep down – that God is good. If God were good, then he would not have taken them from their family, their life, their culture, their language, their heritage and placed them in a family they did not choose, in a country they did not choose, dealing with the most absurd language on the face of the planet. This is my kids’ truth, even for all the “right teaching” and “sacrificial love.”
If I can get just ONE of my Christian friends to truly “get” all this (one who is not also an adoptive parent raising a hurt child – especially a child adopted at a much older age), then I will be amazed. If just one person not walking this walk can fully understand what my kids have been through and how it affects them and their life on this earth – and how the core of that WILL NOT CHANGE, even by “coming to Jesus,” then I will feel as though I’ve met a part of my mission on this earth. Why? Because if just ONE of these folks can get it, then maybe others in the Church (universal) can begin to “get it” – REALLY GET IT, too.
3 comments:
Uh huh. I get it completely. But, as you said, I'm also a trauma mama raising hurt kids.
Right now, my biggest challenge isn't that GOD isn't good...it's that we have family members, in the effort to offer redemption and forgiveness to one of their own, are preaching very strongly and very loudly that someone my children know in the flesh and made choices that shattered children (indirectly including mine) is a "good guy."
Oh, if only they knew how muddy those lines still are for my kids!! We've spent 4 years and thousands of dollars in therapy trying to conquer this one simple concept of who the good guys really are. They still literally don't know the difference. According to their life scripts, the bad guys are sometimes kind of nice, but it's usually because they want something in return, and the good guys always end up hurting people in pretty violent and invasive ways.
Um, uh uh. No way will I preach to my kids that someone who does things that deliberately hurts kids is still a "good guy." He might have good left in him, and he might be able to turn away from evil and repent and time may prove that he can once again be a good guy (even though my kids will still be taught to be cautious). But right now, NO, he's not a "good guy!"
Diana, As you know, I am so sorry you're having to go through this with family. We're wired to want our families, of all people, to "get it," and when they don't - when they cannot trust us and the experience we've gained (not to mention those thousands of dollars in therapy and medication bills), it is so hard. You're such a good mom and you've worked so hard with your kids. It's so amazing that one of your little men was able to identify his fear. If they cannot listen to a child, then who will they listen to?
I am so thankful you've been there for me and are one of those "sisters" who truly "gets it."
I will pray that somehow, someway, someday, your family gets it, too.
No, I can't be the first Christian to understand, either, unfortunately. I actually read that one of the "red flags" for adoption disruption are the Christian families who adopt children to "save" them.....just the kind of Christian folks who are big into "honoring" parents, not aparing the rod, etc. I shudder to think of it.
I am really sad that neither Anastasia nor Ilya can have any faith in God. But, I also know that the first way God connects with children is through their loving parents. That was always one of my strongest emphasis when I taught the baptism classes - and, heh! I didn't have traumatized kids back then, so maybe I did kind-of "get it".
So, while I understand why they can't have faith, it makes me so sad for them. Yet, I think they do have the potential to develop faith. God certainly can act in their lives! He has. I hope they will respond; meanwhile I need to love the heck out of them, be His hands and feet, and more for them. As cloase as I can muster. Annie
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