Archives for October 2014

The power of transparency always amazes me. I often get myself into a tizzy in my head about how something will turn out, particularly when I share words here, and then it turns out that sharing was the best thing I could have done. Satan likes things in the dark because they can stew and hide and make us miserable. Bringing things into the light, even when it scares you is what heals. Maybe you don’t share your words in writing and for the public, but I am sure you can relate to feeling better after talking with a spouse, friend or counselor.

After writing yesterday’s post, my friend shared a sermon series from Andy Stanley called In the Meantime. It is encouragement for people in hard situations that have no end in sight—for those diagnosed with an incurable but not deadly disease, those in failing marriages who don’t want to divorce, those who didn’t  get into the colleges they wanted. And for my own purposes, those that have just adopted and are in the trenches with transition.

And by the way, I feel so lame complaining about the adoption. God led us to it, we waited expectantly for years and were so excited. It makes me feel ungrateful to talk about the hard stuff. And yet, I cannot deny it is much harder than I imagined.

And so here we are, “in the meantime”. I ended up coming down with a fever last night and could barely move, achy and hot. I took the opportunity to let the sermons play through. It was just the right thing at just the right time. And that’s what I love about bringing things into the light—people can’t help you and offer you what they have if they don’t know what’s going on. I’m not suggesting that everyone write a public blog, but please tell someone if you are struggling.

In the opening sermon, Andy relayed a few thoughts I will cling to for a long time. First, God is not absent, apathetic or angry. God did not drop Jac0b in our laps and then disappear. He sees and knows what is going on and if he’s not changing anything, then our everyday lives that are so hard have been given as a gift for us to continue through. He summarized the sermon with three truths to combat the lies we believe when we are going through hard times:

• I can be happy again
• Something good can come from this
• There’s a purpose to this pain

I think it’s clear all these are true, particularly in our case. I mean, the transition won’t last forever and there’s already so much good that’s been done with a wonderful purpose. I guess just hearing and saying these things helped to view everything with a bigger lens again.

After listening to these, I saw Jacque Watkins had posted a new Mud Stories podcast. Are you listening to these yet? They are a balm to the soul. And of course, the latest is with Jennifer Dukes Lee all about approval and perfectionism. There was one line in the podcast that brought me to tears. Jennifer is relaying something God said to her. She shares His words, “Jennifer, you are only responsible for obedience and I am responsible for the results.” This hit home so strongly because I feel this heavy need to make everything turn out just-so for Jac0b. My perfectionistic tendency is to imagine Perfect Jac0b and then do everything I can to get him to that. And really, God led us to adopt in the first place, he’s opening doors as we go and that means the journey is all up to Him. My only job is to be obedient and whether or not the results look like my expectations are irrelevant to Him. He’s the one with the good plans for Jac0b and my only responsibility is to lead him as a parent as God leads. I think this is true for any parent, not just adoptive ones.

This morning I was scrolling through Facebook and ran into an article that states they’ve found some old documents describing an eyewitness account of a healing miracle of Jesus. This is the first outside of the Gospels. The account states he brought a stillborn baby to life. Of course, there is debate on the authenticity, but I was just so struck once again about the power of God. Whether that particular account is true, we have many more in the Gospels to be believed. We serve a big, powerful God. He is mighty to save. All of these concerns I have are nothing to Him. Nothing. He can heal all of us instantly and if He does not, he is using it for his good. The amazing thing about Jesus is not that he prevented bad things from happening, but that he walked right in the midst of the messes and performed a miracle. I’m not sure what our miracle will look like. Perhaps our miracle is the simple fact that Jac0b now has a family.

Did I tell you that Jac0b found 32 feathers on Sunday? Yes, 32! That was the day that was so difficult for me this weekend. And then, yesterday Lexi found 2 more and then Scott brought home our biggest feather yet today. Even though it is hard to get through the days, and staring my junk down is not fun, what I’m sure of right now is we’re right where we’re supposed to be and our God is with us.

jtkunley

I want to try to describe to you what is going on in our house. I had a lovely post last Monday about love on the move in our house. It is. But also, it is hard-won.

Friday afternoon I had my first counseling session. We talked a lot about the adoption and my perfectionism. She suggested some reasoning behind it and I did not connect the dots at all with what she said. But, spending the weekend with it, I see that it’s the truth.

My perfectionism is not so much a need for approval, although I do think that’s a resulting addiction of perfectionism. The perfectionism, at its roots, is a way to avoid negative emotions, both in myself and in others. I will go through hell and high water so you don’t get mad at me or be disappointed in me. I would not know what to do with such emotions.

I  do not like feeling angry, out of control, disappointed, or sad. These are not ok emotions, I tell myself. I am a good girl. I will forgive quickly and have patience and move on. So I did the perfect thing, the right thing, instead of the true thing so no one felt anything bad.

This worked out nicely for everyone up until now because when I tried to be perfect, I got good grades, and put others first, and volunteered, and worked extra, and said nice things, and went the extra mile. They were happy, I was happy and we were all good. Except I wasn’t being true to myself. I was doing things I didn’t really want to do. I was angry inside and stuffed it all in because I didn’t know what else to do.

God forbid I would actually say no to a request or confront someone when they did something wrong. That might make them mad and that is not ok at all!

So here comes Jac0b. He actually doesn’t care if I’m happy or sad. He has zero filter and enough issues that whatever he is feeling is coming out. There was no more room for me to manage his feelings. I’ve been trying to be a perfect mom with the perfect meal he likes and the perfect clothes and the perfect toys and I’ll be patient and kind and guess what? He still gets mad and frustrated and doesn’t do what I say. This makes me so entirely angry and I’ve been trying to stuff it down, really, but there was no more room for stuffing.

I feel like I’m imploding. My joy is gone. I can’t feel any good because I’m so busy stuffing the bad.

Sunday morning after the 3rd time telling him to do something and him ignoring him, I yelled a guttural yell I have never yelled in my entire life. Frankly, it surprised and scared me.

I’m not exactly proud of yelling, but I am proud for once in my life that the emotions on the inside matched the actions on the outside. At the very least, it was my truth in the moment.

And the big surprise to me was no one hated me the rest of the day. No one turned on me. In fact, everyone got their stuff together for the rest of the day.

I went to bed Sunday night in tears. I was trying to tell Scott all I was seeing—that Jac0b is showing me who I really am. How he exhausts me and I’m not really sure I can do it. He tells me of course that I’m being hard on myself, but I feel like I have to be right now because I’m starting to wonder who I really am. And I don’t mean that in a way to say I’m lost and should I really be in this family and am I really Christian? I’m just truly wondering what life would look like if I wasn’t hiding from all the emotions.

I have to learn how to bring my true self to the table, not just with Jac0b, but with everyone. I need to learn how to handle all the negative emotions in a healthy manner. I need to learn to feel the emotions first, actually.

I think the Lord has been trying to teach me this over the years through Brene Brown and Emily Freeman and Momastery. But I think it’s going to take parenting a little boy for me to learn it.

I thought when we adopted that we’d be saving a little boy, but as it turns out, I think he’s saving me.