The last month has been nothing like I planned.
We spent almost half a year preparing for a major spinal surgery for my son, whose scoliosis suddenly curved to 100 degrees and was in the beginning stages of compromising his heart and lungs.
CJ carries on his small shoulders a massive load of trauma. Adopted at 3 from Eastern Europe and a lifetime of medical complications has not spared his little body or mind from burdens that would cripple a grown man.
The Sunday before surgery, our church gathered around to pray over him. Despite his frequent surgeries and procedures, he was terrified of this one. His loud sobs were echoed by most of the adults kneeling around us.
We arrived at the hospital, got checked in, but when we lifted him to put him into the pre-op bed, we noticed a blister on his foot and his other leg turning red.
Any wound is a disqualification from this particular type of surgery.
Over the next hours, more and more blisters appeared. We were admitted to the hospital while a multitude of tests were run, all of which came back normal. We still do not know the cause of the blisters and we are currently waiting for them to finish healing so we can reschedule the spine surgery.
While at the hospital, he continued to develop more symptoms such as severe head and abdominal pain and double vision. We spent a lot of time working on coping skills, and reading and re-reading one of his favorite books. (I’ll list it on the resource page- it is a MUST for adoptive families!)
It was a week with very little hope, a lot of questions, and pure physical and emotional exhaustion.
One particular night, after my husband had traveled 4 hours home to care for our daughters, CJ suddenly became extremely agitated. He clung to me screaming that his head hurt the most it had ever hurt and begging me to tell his dad and sisters that he loved them and would miss them.
Thankfully, the nurses jumped into action, he was given stronger medications, and the doctor began ordering scans.
I have never witnessed such a sense of impending doom before, and by the time he cried himself to sleep in my arms, I had tears streaking my own face.
We went home a few days later when he stabilized, but with more questions than answers. More exhaustion than eagerness for our normal routine. And more desperation than hope.
I think most adoptive families set out on the journey with honorable intentions. Thanks to the rise in trauma research, families are able to start the process with more resources. But like most things in life, you really can’t understand it until you have lived it.
CJ’s trauma has radically changed every aspect of our lives. Forever.
That’s ok. He is absolutely worth the extra skills we’ve had to learn to parent him. But it does not mean it has become easier, even a decade later.
We can spot his trauma responses versus typical childish behavior in an instant. It does complicate advocating for him with practitioners who are not trauma-informed though.
So in our time home, we have spent the days trying to solve the mysteries of what was medical and what was trauma. Trauma causes the mind to sometimes not live in the confines of reality, especially during seasons of extreme stress, like living in a hospital after a life-altering surgery was suddenly cancelled.
Our pastor sat with Chris and me to counsel through the exhaustion of the hospitalization and muster the perseverance to repeat it in a few weeks when surgery is rescheduled.
I told him I felt so incredibly guilty.
Our church- they’re our people. And they love more like Jesus than I’ve ever seen in my life. Right before we left for the hospital, a friend posted asking church members to sign up to pray in 30 minute increments over EIGHTEEN HOURS during CJ’s pre-op, surgery, and immediate recovery.
The list filled up so fast, people were doubling up, or just committing to pray the whole day.
And the tears pour down my face now as I type as I think of the love they showered over us. Their prayers echo even now in heaven on our behalf.
We didn’t know what that day was going to hold for us, but they were carrying us to the Throne Room anyway.
As the blisters crawled up CJ’s legs, they prayed harder.
While they prayed, CJ cried, and I panicked, a therapist walked into our room. A therapist who had married a man from a family of pastors in CJ’s birth country.
She took one look at him, and listed every trauma she suspected he had endured because of her experience and thorough knowledge of the orphanage systems and racism there. She knelt beside CJ and spoke gently to him in his birth language and winked at me saying sometimes, even when things go wrong, God puts His people in the same room together just to remind them that He’s still in control.
And our church kept praying.
Back home, my pastor asked why I felt guilty. I told him so many had sacrificed so selflessly, carrying us through, and we still haven’t even gotten to the battle yet. The actual surgery will be a thousand times harder.
He chuckled a little and said, “So you feel badly that our church is becoming a church of praying people?”
Even as someone that struggles to accept help, I could laugh at my own foolishness there.
I’ve spent the last few weeks replaying the hospitalization in my mind. I hear the hurtful comment from the impatient professional that pulled me into the hall, “Mom, he’s a psych patient. That’s the care he needs.”
All of my years of caring for CJ and loving through his biggest hurts crashed down around me in that moment.
Hopelessness washed over me.
Have all of our effort been in vain? Is this all there is for him? For us? Are we wrong in advocating that something is not right and he needs medical care? Am I completely misreading the situation?
She made me doubt my intuition. That woman did not know it, she was giving a quick opinion in the midst of caring for dozens of kids, but she was unknowingly speaking a lie that hit a raw nerve. And it has ached ever since.
I’m so thankful for our pastor, who is constantly in our corner, turning our faces back to the light of truth. I’ve seen him on more than one occasion take his shepherd’s staff and whack the head of a wolf circling his sheep. Even if it is just a whisper of a lie taking root in a fragile heart.
I’m thankful for the gift to gather with our people again. There’s something supernatural about standing in the midst of them as the music plays, closing my eyes, and hearing all of their voices lift as one to this God we’ve petitioned together. This little church has carried each of its members through various difficult seasons, and I long for the day that our joy will be made complete when we stand together as our faith becomes sight.
And I’m also thankful that although God did not have to, He dropped the thought on our regular pediatrician to run one last, simple test when we got home. It was positive. A simple answer that explained almost every single physical symptom CJ experienced in the hospital. Now, it has run its course and is gone.
The blisters are still a mystery. But his pain was real.
Even though one person made me doubt it, our efforts to love him well and advocate hard in this upside down week weren’t in vain.
When I let myself take a step back and survey what God is doing in all aspects of my life currently, I should not be surprised. I am a fierce advocate for CJ- always have been and always will be. Why did this week rattle me so much?
I think about the posts on the blog as I’m going through each book of the Old Testament. I keep writing about these characters who have seen the glory of God, and all it takes is one whiff of hunger, one swelling of anger, one doubt of the promise, and they’re ready to run for the hills. I’m still somehow surprised every single time.
No matter how many times I’ve read these stories, I’m appalled at how fickle these characters are.
I sat one morning on the hospital couch, in the dark of the morning, my eyes wide in realization that I am exactly the same.
Whew. It stings.
I’ve got all of these examples in Scripture to learn from and my heart is just as stubborn and untrusting as theirs.
The difference is, the One they hoped for, we know by name. Jesus.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12: 1 & 2
The author of Hebrews has just finished listing the great heroes of the faith. Some of the men I’ve already written about, and more that came later that the world was not worthy of (Hebrews 11:38).
He is giving us this picture of the ones who have already finished the race, almost cheering us on. He encourages us to lay down the burdens and sins that cling to our hearts so tightly so that we can run our own races, our faces fixed on the glory of Jesus before us.
And I think this is part of the gift of living on this side of the resurrection. We aren’t running alone.
We stand in the sanctuary surrounded by witnesses of our own. They’ve witnessed both the goodness of God and the struggles of the people sitting on the same pew.
So when we gather as the Body, and we hear the voices around us, our hearts can quiet in awe of the sound of the abused, the addict, the broken, the repentant, the hurt, and the healed all lifted at the same time. This is part of why God gave us the Church. Because sometimes the race is hard to run.
Sometimes our fellow runners have to carry us along for a bit. And there are days we bring them to sit in the cool of the shade to refresh their hearts.
For me, hopelessness has been driving my heart more than faith has this month. But next month, it will be my turn to help shoulder the burden of someone else bending under the weight of whatever the enemy throws at them.
Dear friend, if you are the one carrying or the one being carried right now, I hope you take a moment to lift your eyes to the hills. Don’t give up, even when the hurt is real and the road is hard.
Grab the hand of the Church, your witnesses, and move forward in confidence that He completes what He starts, even for those who have the hardest journeys.
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; He Who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
Psalm 121
Cheering for you, friend, as we march (and sometimes crawl) forward,
