You Make Beautiful Things
We have been home with Little Man for just over three months now. I fully intended to post regularly on this blog, but it seems that each month-iversary is the best I can manage. Ha!
Life has settled into a much better routine. Little Man has a firm grasp on what is to happen each day and is now able to express when he wants to get out and do different things like church or going to the store. Baby Girl seems to have completely accepted him as her brother as the sibling squabbles are becoming more regular.
The sheer number of things he has learned in such a short time astounds me. He is speaking in full sentences most of the time now. He wasn’t even doing that in his native language when we picked him up. He can hold a simple conversation with us. He can not only say the words “sad” or “happy” etc, but he can identify those emotions he is feeling and verbalize them now, and most of the time, can say why he is happy or sad. He can count to ten by himself! He asks to sing specific songs and can sing them on his own. He has a favorite TV show: Daniel Tiger. In the past month or so, he has begun to ask for things. That sounds silly to count that as a major milestone, but it is huge for a newly adopted child. It signifies that he trusts us to ask for things like juice, food, or to go bye-bye. And not only that he feels safe to ask for things, but assured and confident that we will give him all of the things he needs. That is a REALLY big deal for him.
His physical strength has improved drastically! He can sit up with out propping up on his arms. In fact, last night, he took his first bath without his bath chair. That takes a lot of core strength and balance to sit upright in the tub, especially while everything is slippery- strength and balance that he did not have three months ago. Last night I chuckled to myself at the dark-haired kid splashing and popping bubbles when I thought about how different this was from his first bath. The day we brought him out of the orphanage, we gave him a bath in the hotel and he cried through the whole thing. He was petrified! I am not sure he had ever been in water before. I know that most kids coming from orphanages only stand or sit under a shower head, however often they are bathed, but because of his disability, I think it is possible he only ever had sponge baths.
He army crawls through the house like he owns the place! 😉 His confidence is growing, which is wonderful to see. I was amazed at how easily he can do a puzzle on the iPad, and how proud he is when he does it by himself. “I did it, Mommy! I did it!” He is currently scooting around in a circle on the floor screaming, “Watch me! Watch me!” In the last few weeks, he has even managed to get up onto all fours and rock back and forth! Honestly, we didn’t know that was physically possible for him. We are so proud of his determination.
Little Man has developed a little attitude along with that confidence. I am sure Baby Girl would adamantly deny that he could have possibly learned that from her. 🙂
While he has made tremendous progress, there have been struggles. As the weight and finality of being ripped from everything he has ever known begins to drop onto his little shoulders, we have seen his behaviors change some. While he is a happy little guy, we do see the emotionally scarred, terrified child with a past of hurt, come out sometimes. He did so well after we got home, that all of the social workers we work with warned us that the “honeymoon” may be over soon and without warning. One social worker reminded us that anything could trigger a memory of his past and cause him to act out in grief. It could be a happy memory, or a very sad, hurtful memory. Unfortunately, there is no way to predict what will trigger a memory or in what moment his brain will again process all of the changes he has had to undergo. It is agonizing to watch your baby sob and ache over pains he can’t express, or bite his tongue to the point of having sores, bang his head against furniture, or slap his own face and know that, in that moment, you can’t heal the hurt. That is a pain that, as a mother, is impossible to describe to someone who is not walking the same path.
When a child is physically born into a family, there is immense pain and a messy, but glorious intertwining of lives as a baby becomes family. When a child is adopted, there is pain for all members of the family, especially the child, and a mess that cannot be washed away with water. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can clean this kind of mess.
The depths of the pain that comes from a child being displaced from his birth family, whether by death, abandonment, or legal intervention, is so tender that I don’t think it is possible to be written. In the adoption process, there is a longing so intense that it can’t be put into words. That waiting for Little Man was easily the most difficult and painful thing I have ever done.
But this mending of broken hearts that we are living now is so intricate and raw that it was impossible to comprehend in the waiting. It is like walking straight into a burning building to salvage the life inside the crumbling walls. We knew that any child we adopted would have struggles related to coming from the “hard places”, as the experts call it, but now that it is not just a child and it is instead our child, the intensity of the flames brings us to our knees at times.
I say all of that to be somewhat transparent about what adoption is truly like. But also to say that it is completely worth it.
In many ways, it feels as though Little Man has been here all along. There are painful reminders of that untruth though that seem to appear, especially in moments that I am unguarded. Surprisingly, decorating the Christmas tree was bittersweet. I had been looking forward to that for almost two years, anticipating the glow on his face as the lights blinked on for the first time. But instead, we pulled down a box of ornaments collected over the years that reminded us that for three of those years, Little Man was alone. We have matching ornaments with our names on it, but none for Little Man. Of course, that is an easy fix, but still a quick stab to the heart. It is different for other families, I am sure, who have birthed new babies over the years, for those children simply didn’t exist. Our little boy was breathing, alone in a crib while we unwrapped presents and celebrated in years past. It is hard enough for a Mama to experience that pain, and if I’m being completely transparent, that guilt, but when your son looks at pictures of Mommy, Daddy and Baby Girl, and asks, “Where’s ‘Little Man’?”, that’s when fire burns in your heart like the tears in your eyes.
Our hope is this year we can give him enough Christmas experiences to make up for a lifetime of none. Of course it is impossible to actually regain those years, but I think that is a reality that all adoptive families eventually have to accept as reality. Unfortunately, I don’t think there comes a time when the child (or parents) “come to terms” with the pain caused by needing adoption, and therefore it is a lifetime of balancing grief with blessing.
As we learn to walk in this grief, we are learning what redemption really looks like. Church folk talk a lot about becoming a new person, but this front-row seat God has given us to watch Little Man transform from a file number into a blossoming child is beyond words.
We are seeing that where grief is, redemption runs deeper.
At church on Sunday, one of our friends sang “Beautiful Things” by Gungor. There are several worship songs that really resonate with me in relation to Little Man’s adoption. But this one. It got me.
All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us
All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You
I know the song well. For a time, it was the only thing Baby Girl would fall asleep to, but this time, hugging Little Man, reflecting on another week of watching him become a new creation, was humbling. It was humbling, not only to see the work God has done in his life, but to also see a very tangible example of what He has done for us. In His perfect love, His nail-pierced, ransoming hands reach down and lift us out of our cribs of certain doom and bring us home. He transforms us from dust, from nothing, into sons and daughters.
You are making us new.
Hallelujah.
