I was a huge fan at first. It was a deep sigh of validating relief to hear the developmental and neurological how and why our children learned to relate the way they do. I took the information in, scribbled notes, did my homework, carefully pondered what we were taught, and earnestly endeavored toward the end labeled Marked Improvement. But it was creeping up on us all along, from the very first week until the last when we found ourselves at an insurmountable impasse. We just couldn't quite see eye to eye.
We weren't able to square our perspectives enough to reach that profitable zone of comfort. You know, the one where we may not agree on everything but we share a discernible measure of common ground so that I am able to glean from your considerable knowledge and vast insight and garner new truth that will benefit my life and the lives of those I love and care for.
That's why our relationship with our therapist had to end. It just did.
In meeting numero uno, I asked the kindly gentleman to please, for the love of all things sacred and Holy, counsel us in a secular manner. We are paying for his expertize in the field of childhood trauma and attachment, for tools that would better equip us to handle the particular situation with which we reside. We aren't shelling out valuable time, energy and substantial wads of hard earned cash so that he may demonize M & F's home/family of origin, express to our adopted children their imminent need for water baptism, or repeatedly relay to me how God placed them in my life to teach me what I need to learn. (All of which took place.)
He just could not resist.
Thinking back on it, my feeling is that it all boils down to one basic reality. Though he and we alike place ourselves in the line formed for Followers of Christ, there are immense chasms of difference in how we see our faith playing out as we meander about east of Eden where life is far from untarnished. We both pursue Truth, we simply find and define it in really dissimilar ways.
It was at that initial appointment, the one where I implored the man to please leave religion out of this professional arrangement, when he inquired about the state of affairs in our house regarding missing items, broken belongings, financial pressures, fuzzy or foggy thought patterns, forgetfulness, and other indications that the enemy was in our midst.
Fuzzy or foggy thoughts? Sir, have you ever lived with 7 children? They siphon out each one of your precious brain cells you used to rely so heavily on, they mush them into a ball with their perpetual flurry and return them to the confines of your head with a mere shadow of the clarity you once held. Forevermore I fear, my thoughts will fog.
Well, and our dishwasher did break last week. That was unexpected, a bit of a hassle, and it did cost several hundred dollars to replace it. Wait a second, could it be Diablo himself entering our home and destroying our family's ability to WASH DISHES WITH EASE? Say it isn't so.
I mean, it couldn't have broken because it was exasperated. Worn thin and tuckered out from being run 3X each and every 24 hour period of its sad, hopeless existence doomed to the scrubbing of plates and bowls and glasses and silverware all the livelong day. Poor thing. Washing up for a family of 9 is no joke. RIP dear dishwasher. You served us well and I fear we may have taken advantage of your tireless labor. May you find joy in the dishwasher graveyard where there's neither dirty pot nor pan to be found.
Seriously.
I know the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Yes.
But I won't look for him in all the nooks and crannies of my beautiful existence on this earth. I just can't do it.
I live a wonderful life in a free country where my refrigerator is so full of the colorful, nutritious food of my choosing that I had to buy a second one to house all the bounty we store. I have a husband I love who would honestly go to the ends of the realms of this earth for my benefit. I have borne five healthy, robust, loud and sometimes obnoxious children. My home is on 35 acres of gorgeous Colorado prairie with majestic mountain views and the sky is so big and wide and open and blue it takes my breath away.
I am afforded a life in the land of plenty, the US of A where I am free to pursue the path of my choosing and there are a myriad of resources at my fingertips to help me do just that.
I am able to raise and educate and feed and clothe my children and to instill my own values and manage to have a whole lot of fun along the way because I have so few worries about their safety or need for medical attention or general overall health. Barring unforeseen catastrophe, their futures are theirs to claim, exactly as I have carved mine.
By American standards, my life is very simple. But from my vantage point, I perceive wealth exceeding my wildest dreams.
It is our children's parents who have suffered. The ones who felt they had no better option than to place their beloveds in the hands of another to provide what they could not offer themselves. They are the ones who have lost a spouse and have no means of affording the medical attention their children needed. They live within the confines of a continual search for enough food to survive the day, the week, the month.
I am the one who was able to rally the resources necessary to facilitate an inter country adoption. By all measures of tangible measurement, I am extraordinarily rich by comparison.
If anyone could easily accuse the devil of having a stronghold in their lives, it may be them.
I refuse to give him credit for lurking around the corners of my big, beautiful, abundant life full of ample amounts of every single thing I could ever need and beyond. A life where I am the one able to raise other people's kids, because I have more than enough.
Nothing has happened to me that is worthy of great complaint. I am a fortunate, fortunate woman.
Any hardship I face I see as simply part of the toil. The sweat of the brow aspect of living in a fallen world, working hard to keep the hope of meeting Him face to face alive and well.
A little perspective, if you please.
Picnic lunch with sweet, long time friends.
Well, and our dishwasher did break last week. That was unexpected, a bit of a hassle, and it did cost several hundred dollars to replace it. Wait a second, could it be Diablo himself entering our home and destroying our family's ability to WASH DISHES WITH EASE? Say it isn't so.
I mean, it couldn't have broken because it was exasperated. Worn thin and tuckered out from being run 3X each and every 24 hour period of its sad, hopeless existence doomed to the scrubbing of plates and bowls and glasses and silverware all the livelong day. Poor thing. Washing up for a family of 9 is no joke. RIP dear dishwasher. You served us well and I fear we may have taken advantage of your tireless labor. May you find joy in the dishwasher graveyard where there's neither dirty pot nor pan to be found.
Seriously.
I know the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Yes.
But I won't look for him in all the nooks and crannies of my beautiful existence on this earth. I just can't do it.
I live a wonderful life in a free country where my refrigerator is so full of the colorful, nutritious food of my choosing that I had to buy a second one to house all the bounty we store. I have a husband I love who would honestly go to the ends of the realms of this earth for my benefit. I have borne five healthy, robust, loud and sometimes obnoxious children. My home is on 35 acres of gorgeous Colorado prairie with majestic mountain views and the sky is so big and wide and open and blue it takes my breath away.
I am afforded a life in the land of plenty, the US of A where I am free to pursue the path of my choosing and there are a myriad of resources at my fingertips to help me do just that.
I am able to raise and educate and feed and clothe my children and to instill my own values and manage to have a whole lot of fun along the way because I have so few worries about their safety or need for medical attention or general overall health. Barring unforeseen catastrophe, their futures are theirs to claim, exactly as I have carved mine.
By American standards, my life is very simple. But from my vantage point, I perceive wealth exceeding my wildest dreams.
It is our children's parents who have suffered. The ones who felt they had no better option than to place their beloveds in the hands of another to provide what they could not offer themselves. They are the ones who have lost a spouse and have no means of affording the medical attention their children needed. They live within the confines of a continual search for enough food to survive the day, the week, the month.
I am the one who was able to rally the resources necessary to facilitate an inter country adoption. By all measures of tangible measurement, I am extraordinarily rich by comparison.
If anyone could easily accuse the devil of having a stronghold in their lives, it may be them.
I refuse to give him credit for lurking around the corners of my big, beautiful, abundant life full of ample amounts of every single thing I could ever need and beyond. A life where I am the one able to raise other people's kids, because I have more than enough.
Nothing has happened to me that is worthy of great complaint. I am a fortunate, fortunate woman.
Any hardship I face I see as simply part of the toil. The sweat of the brow aspect of living in a fallen world, working hard to keep the hope of meeting Him face to face alive and well.
A little perspective, if you please.
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