Thoughts and life that has been brewing in me :)

Next week, we'll celebrate having had Selah for 3 months.... Mentally, I prepared myself that in 3 months, Selah will have learned that we are not just another transitional family.....Let me explain...

Selah was left at the front gate of Maoming SWI in Maoming, Guangdong on October 18, 2008. I can't even imagine the sadness in her heart as she was left out there alone.... only God knows how long she was there before someone found her.... the thought of that breaks my heart, but I have to trust that God was comforting her through this because the moment we decided to pursue adopting from China, I began to pray that God would comfort Selah in the day she is abandoned... I can only imagine that her parents must have loved her.... it stated in her referral paperwork that she "worn a pretty flowery dress" on the day they found her...Ok, my heart hurts now just writing that....back to my explanation.... Selah was born with cleft lip and palate, and, the SWI she resided in knew that she would need surgery, so they found a new home for her and on May 4, 2009, she moved from Maoming SWI in Maoming to a city named Dongguan (about 7-8 hours away). She was a little over 7 months old.... (Anna's age when we adopted her). True Children's Home became her place of residence for the next 10 months of her life. The caretaker to child ratio is/was excellent at this wonderful facility. She was put on the list to get surgeries for both her lip and palate. She had wonderful caretakers there and began to blossom. I often wonder if there was any particular caretaker she loved more than others? I wonder if she thought this was a permanent home for her? On December 19, 2009, she had surgery for her lip. She was not released from the hospital until early January 2010, which meant that she spent her 2nd Christmas in a hospital.....She had a wonderful caretaker that took care of her while she recovered from her lip surgery. On March 24, 2010, she was sent to live with a foster family through True Children's Home. The foster family consisted of a mom, dad, and two grown children. On April 24, 2010 (the 23rd in the US...the DAY we received her referral!) she had surgery to correct her palate. Her foster mother took great care of her during that recovery.

In total, she has had 4 transitions.... first when she was abandoned at the front gate of Maoming SWI, second, when she was taken from Maoming SWI to True Children's Home, third when she was moved from True Children's Home to a TCH foster family, and lastly, when she was brought to us on June 21, 2010 to become part of our family.

Selah is overall a happy little girl and most people that see our family and see her interact with Anna and her brothers will say she is adjusting remarkably well, and I would have to say they are partly right.... but there is the part of her that they don't see and only the ones that are faced with her daily will know.... it's that deep mistrust in her eyes that I see sometimes.... it's that look in her eyes that says to me..."Will you love me even if I'm not perfect?"

When we got back home from China, there was one particular night where Aaron & I were so exhausted from the trip, parenting, feeding, cleaning, that we collapsed on our bed and said to each other...." Did we make a big mistake?" In our hearts, ofcourse, we knew that this was a God thing, but we were coming from a place of complete honesty and the reality that we truly DON'T have what it takes to parent not only Selah, but even Noah, Calvin, Michael & Anna....I even said to Aaron through tears that I wonder if Selah would have been better off in a family that could really focus on "just her" and not a family that already has 4 children!... In that moment of crying out and being broken, God did the most amazing thing (as He often does when we completely surrender and honestly say we can't do it on our own) He gave me this PEACE that surpasses all understanding.... our understanding at that moment was that we were underqualified, overspent, incapable and unable to love EACH and every one of our children the way we want to.... it really was a sad place for me, as I realized that I could never give each of my children what they would need from me because I am ONE person and sometimes a very broken ONE person at that. In that moment that Aaron & I were able to let go of all our expectations and our striving to be "good" parents, God gave us incredible peace and a knowing that He will carry us through and will guide us to becoming much MORE of parents than even our minds could think up what "good" parents are.

Selah is trusting us more and more everyday. I have to be honest.... as wonderful as she has adjusted to us, we were very much spoiled by Anna and her easy transition to us 2 years ago... Life is so much more challenging now and I find there are many things that take the backburner, like blogging, for instance :). I've had to put all my "ideals" out the window and begin to treasure the gifts God has given us. So, back to my hope that Selah will not begin to see us as a transitional family.... As I write this, we've had Selah in our life as long as her foster family did prior to our adoption. Although I wish I could say she is 100% adjusted to us, I know that she isn't.... I know that trusting takes time and it requires that we extend her alot of grace... God is doing a new thing in us.... He is showing us how to love someone the way He loves us. It is easy to love someone that loves us back.... it is hard to naturally love someone when they don't trust us.....There is something wonderful that will come out of this if we allow God to do a work in our hearts.... God is using Selah to show us how to love each of our family members.... unconditionally.... and perhaps one day when we've allowed Him to accomplish that in our family, we'll find that we love the rest of His children the same way. What a journey He has us on.