I have been hesitant to sit down and write, not quite sure of what would come pouring out on this keyboard. We lost the referral for the girls on March 8th, 6 days before we were supposed to leave. It still seems like a bad dream, I keep walking around in a daze. I wish I could pinch myself awake and fly on out to Uganda. I still cannot believe that my girls are not coming home to live with us. I close my eyes and see their faces, permanently etched in my heart and in my brain. I fight the feeling to just get back in bed and sleep the sadness away. I wander around in their room, hold their dolls, and rock in the rocking chair. I question God why?? Why 6 days before? Why did we think they were ours for 7 months? Why, why, why? None of it makes sense. I cry and grieve and wish it were different. I wish we weren't back at this place. I think it is a common refrain in my life, in everyone's life really. Being stuck and in places that you wish you weren't, places revisited, places unwelcome....
My family is my lifeline right now. Kenny is my rock and we are pulled to each other, I don't want him to leave my side and vice versa. But life goes on, one day at a time. The boys are grieving in their own way. Luke is processing out loud with so many different people, people he knows and strangers, everyone has to hear his story.
He can't figure it out. We kept the story simple and told the boys that mom was sick but got medicine and now she is better, she is going to keep her girls. I was tucking him in the other night and he asked me a lot of questions. The one that stuck out was "why is it so weird in Africa? when the mommies get sick they take their babies away? and why did they not give her medicine first?" I think he was thinking of how I get sick sometimes with a cold or bug, he knows nothing of HIV. How to answer these questions for a 5 year old boy struggling to understand? Our simple explanation actually caused a lot more questions. I explained that sometimes people change their minds, that sometimes people get better and nobody thought they would. It is a hard question though. No way to truly answer his questions right now, that would be too much of a burden for him.
So many conflicting emotions right now. So many people want a clear cut answer on what exactly happened. The simple answer is this- there were extenuating circumstances that no one knew about. There is a lot more to it but that is what it comes down to. That due to these circumstances mom has changed her mind and is taking the girls to live with her. We hope and pray that this is the best solution for these little girls. We hope with all of our heart that they will be taken care of. We are glad they can know their mom and stay with her, we just know that their circumstances will be hard, their life is about to change yet again.
And as much as we are hurting, we hurt more for Annet and Joy. We love them and long for them to be safe, happy, and healthy. And truly? We won't have those answers. We will wonder about them and pray for them and never forget them. They are part of our story. Part of our story is having our eyes open. To realize that in all of this the one's who lose the most are the children, in all of this the children are most at risk. It is a sobering reality that has changed us, it has moved us to ask what is our role in all of this? How can we make a difference in this?
It has changed our children too. Jack asks me questions too. He has been so quiet this time around. He is processing and thinking, just keeping it to himself. When we told the boys he cried and cried but his first question was, "wait, we are doing this again right?" When we did decide to move forward he said he was really sad but glad we were going to do it again. He told me that it was the right thing to do, that there were lots of kids that needed families. I was so proud of him and am praying that this time it will happen, that he will get the brothers or sisters he longs for. He also told me that now he has two cracks in his heart, that if it works out and he gets siblings that the cracks would heal up, "just a little bit". I told him he was right, that the pain will fade but will always be there.
All of this has caused me to put my money where my mouth is. I remember how I stood on stage a few weeks ago. I talked about all the pain and circumstances that had led up to that moment. How God was redeeming that pain. How He planted a desire so long ago and it came to fruition. How He was knitting our family together with girls 1/2way around the world and transforming our family. I talked about the greatness and the faithfulness of God.
And today I think about those words, I think about how the story right now is so different. Do I still have that peace? Do I still have that joy and certainty in the faithfulness of God? Yes. Yes, I do. How I do is a supernatural gift. I don't have the strength to go on, truly I don't think I have the strength to endure this again but He does. This peace I have, this hope I have is from my Heavenly Father. I like to think that when this door shut there is another door open down the road.
It comes down to this: our family and our hearts were moved and opened to this call on our lives. Our experiences and time in Africa, our love of our little family and our desire to grow, our miscarriage and hard pregnancies and reproductive issues led us to this road. We don't feel released from this path. We are beyond weary and sad. We are making it day by day. But we walk with faith, we walk in the light of the God of third, fourth, and millionth chances.
Our God is bigger and stronger than anything I could ever ask or imagine. He hems me in. He lifts my head and weeps with me. He wants to set the lost in families. It has opened our eyes to the bigger picture, the hard realities of international adoption. It has made us ask tough questions and walk with our eyes and hearts a little more wide open. We wait with anticipation, we wait to see what will happen next. We wait......
