What you're about to read is a notebook entry from more than 2 years ago.
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4/27/2023
Everything I read, everything I see, and all that I hear, it all goes through one filter: Will they come here? Worse than that, I'm trying to figure out what I need to do to make it happen, really I'm trying to figure out what I need to do to make God make it happen. Did I just write that? Yeah... If I do this... If I just TRUST or have more faith or if... I feel like I'm trying to find the right formula or recipe or piece of advice that says if I do this, this, and this, or put this, this, and this together, or... THEN God will bring them here. If I just believe such-n-such, then things will change. If I just believe in it hard enough... I've come to realize I can't bring them here, but I think I can make God make it happen? I'm still trying to make it happen. I'm still feeling like if they don't come here that it'll be my fault they didn't come. Why? Because I didn't convince God that they should. Or. Or I am terrified that maybe God has promised that they'll come here, but His promises come with conditions? He will do this, IF we do that. If we don't? He won't. No matter which way you look at it, I'm afraid if they don't come it'll be my fault.
I'm afraid it's my fault they left, and I'm afraid it'll be my fault if they never return.
You told me not to fight,
and I did.
I fought as hard as I could for them to not leave!
And they left.
I've begged and I've pleaded for their return,
and they're not here.
I've tried to "move on",
but that didn't last for long.
I've tried to just go with the flow and not meddle, and not stalk, and...
And something always pops up!
And then I don't know how to hold my tongue,
and after all is said, still nothing is done.
What can I do? What should I say?
What should I not do? What should I not say? How can I...
Make it happen? Aghhh...
God I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing!!! Jared fasted and prayed asking that very question, wanting to know what he should be doing. Instead of an answer You gave him a question, "Am I enough?". I hear that and fear they'll never come our way. "Why am I not enough?" He wrote that in relation to the spies who didn't want to go into the promised land. Why didn't they want to go in? Why isn't God enough? It was the fear of giants. Fear of what they'd have to face. Fear that God wasn't big enough to give them what He had promised? Fear that it would be too hard? Afraid what was waiting on the other side wouldn't be worth it? What they would need to do to obtain God's promise to them, it wasn't worth it. Giants!
Has God promised us their return? Are there giants I'm unwilling to face? Does that second question have anything at all to do with them in the first place? The giant that makes me feel sick is the word: "reunification". What if they get another chance? Again? Only once have I truly fought against reunification, and that's when it happened. Only once did I fight it, God told me not to fight, I fought, and it happened. And I wonder if it's because I fought. If I hadn't of fought, would they have stayed? Would they have returned? Would reunification been unsuccessful if we'd have been supportive? I'll never know.
Reunification, what if that's the goal? What if You want us to support reunification again? I said that my greatest hope for the future isn't to see all the kids adopted here, but to see their birth parents whole. Is that true? What would it take? Supporting them in reunification again... I don't know if I can do it. Supporting them? Maybe. I think I can? But supporting them in getting their kids back should they come to us? I don't know if I can do that.
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I wrote that in April 2023, less than two months shy of them having been gone from our home for two years. For two years I'd been grieving them being gone and still not wanting to let go of the thought of them being ours. Two years pass and I'm still struggling feeling somehow it was "my fault" that they left us. And feeling like somehow it could be "my fault" if they never came back. Have I mentioned I struggle with feeling things are my fault? Yeah, I struggle with that a lot. But anyway....
Last time that they left us, God told me not to fight, and I fought. I fought tooth and nail for them to not leave us. Know that scene in Despicable Me when Gru tells Margo to jump and that he'll catch her? He tells her that he promises he will catch her, and that he'll never let her go again. That was me! I'd already said goodbye to brother and sister once, and on the night that they came back to us I was laying down in their room after I'd just gotten them to fall asleep and I was looking at my sleeping little girl.... "I'll never let you go again. Never, never. I'll never let you go again.".
Don't make promises you can't keep. Especially ones you have no control over whether or not you can keep them.
I was told not to fight, and I fought, and they left, and I wondered if it was because I fought that they left. Now we're on the other side of them leaving us again, and this time we didn't fight, and they still left. I think God told me not to fight last time not because it would effect whether or not they would stay or return, but because He cares about me and He cares about my heart. I felt so ugly and two-faced as I fought. Eventually I owned up to it and I've confessed to their birth dad that I fought him the last time, and I'm sorry. I told him that's the only time I've ever fought against reunification, and I refused/refuse to let that be me again.
Two days before I wrote that notebook entry in April 2023, I had written out a prayer for their birth parents that is similar to the prayer I shared in my last post. I won't share that old prayer here, there's too many details of their lives that I prayed specifically for that you don't need to know. But I will share how that prayer ended: "Help us to show love to them if/when the others come here. My greatest hope for the future isn't to see all the kids adopted here, but to see their birth parents whole."
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Thank You God for working on my heart. Thank You that I can pray a prayer like that for them now, today, only months into them being gone instead of years later like it took me last time. Thank You for breaking my heart for them, and not just for me. Thank You for removing those feelings of it being "my fault" that we had to say goodbye, that my family had to face that heartache last time, that somehow You were punishing me for not obeying when I fought and You told me not to fight... Thank You for me knowing now that it wasn't my fault. That it was never my fault. And that it's not my fault this time either that they've left us again. And I know, I KNOW that it's not my fault if they ever do or don't return to our home again someday. That's not on me. That's on them, and that's on You, and I have no control. I believe You will protect those children here or there. I know IF things ever turn, You'll bring them here again. BUT I pray this time You will help THEM for it to not happen. Instead of begging Lord this time for WHEN it happens, Lord I pray against the IF. I pray not for when things fall apart, but I pray that it never even happens. Thank You Lord for breaking my heart for them, and help me learn to rejoice in seeing them do well. Amen