And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
Excerpt from The Gate of the Year by Minnie Louise Haskin
…………………
It is 12:05 am and I’m thankful to be 5 minutes into the New Year. I’m eager for a fresh start, a new beginning. 2014 was so full. So beautifully full. But I’m weary from a season of never-ending change, and I’m hoping 2015 is more mundane. Beautifully mundane.
It was Christmas Eve last year when China issued our approval to adopt Alea, and so for the first 3 months of the year, we were in fast-forward… a flurry of paperwork, flight arrangements, and preparations. I made several batches of cookie dough and green chili stew for our freezer. We were set; as ready as anyone can be for a new arrival.
In March we left, eerily calm considering all that lay ahead. Between the three of us, we ate a whole bag of Goldfish crackers (meant to buy Alea’s affection) in the Houston airport waiting for our plane to depart for Beijing. A week with good friends in Beijing passed far too quickly… and just like that we were in the cavernous lobby of the Henan Civil Affairs building becoming a family of four.
I don’t remember much of the year after that.
Meals from friends. Two jetlagged little ones watching Youtube videos at 3 am. A baby so chill in the swimming pool for the first time that she almost fell asleep in her float. Doctor’s visits and evil mouth viruses and ear infections and antibiotics and antivirals being forced down her throat. Hearing tests passed. Dental visits failed. Ice cream first hated and then loved. First steps, first words, first kisses.
Weight gain and her little belly getting bigger by the day. Therapy evaluations and stark categorizations of her global delays. Fear and hope, a beautiful yet terrifying mix of what is and what may be. A Velcro baby who didn’t ever want to be put down, yet made it utterly clear with her guttural, angry cries that it wasn’t me she wanted. Not to mention a toddler who wasn’t totally happy to have her only-child status usurped.
Too many episodes of Daniel Tiger and Curious George. Too many cups of cold coffee. Too little sleep. Too little alone time. Stretched thin. Worn out. Nothing left to give. But then they reach out of their car seats to hold hands while quietly looking out the window. Or she reaches her arms around my neck and squeezes tight – a real spontaneous hug! And it feels like my heart might explode with gratitude and joy. And then, just like that, she’s at my feet again – angry and pushing and crying and yelling “mamamamamamma” until it just becomes noise.
Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. Unbelievable, soul-exploding moments of joy.
Indescribable, soul-wrenching moments of sorrow. 2014 has been a roller coaster I don’t really want to keep riding.
This summer – somewhere around month 5 home, I think – I was DONE. Angry even. Shaking my fists at the heavens asking why I was brought to this place only to be left to my own devices. Left to wither and die. I was a Hebrew picking up Manna. Clearly I was in good company and Biblically justified.
Grumbling, frustrated, cynical. Looking at the eager enthusiasm of other adoptive families counting the days till their little ones came home and wanting to warn them about what it felt like 5 months in.
Looking at families home with the children for far less time than I had been who were already talking about going back for another and wondering what sort of drugs they were taking. Looking at friends with non-adopted children who offered well-meaning advice and wanting to spit back, “You have NO IDEA what this is like.” Looking at my husband who “got to go to work every day” and feeling bitter that he escaped the drudgery of my days. God and I weren’t on the best terms, and I just kept saying the same thing over and over and over again to Him… “You think I can do this. But you’re wrong. I’m giving all that I have and it clearly isn’t enough. Fix this! Show up! Do something!” It wasn’t a fervent prayer so much as a petulant demand, said in the tone of voice that earns my 3-year-old daughter a request to “try asking again, using kind words” when she pulls it with me.
It wasn’t that I was mad at Alea. Or regretting the decision to bring her into our home and knit her into our family. I have never felt regret. I was mad at myself. At my own seeming inability to try harder, to give more, to love more deeply. And I was mad at God, for what felt like calling me to this wilderness and then failing to show up with anything to help me survive.
“They spoke against God; they said, “Can God really spread a table in the wilderness? True, he struck the rock, and water gushed out, streams flowed abundantly, but can he also give us bread? Can he supply meat for his people?” (Psalm 78:19, NIV)
In the height of my anger, I sat like any good Christian church lady would in her spot one Sunday morning. And I heard our pastor’s voice read that passage from Psalm, her voice dripping with mimicking sarcasm at the tone she imagined the Hebrews took as they shook their fists at the heavens.
They were petulant children clamoring for meat and bread, when water was flowing from wilderness rocks, demanding (doubtfully) that God show up. Her words rang in my ears and I heard my own voice.
I imagined their anger and I felt my own clenched fists.
She moved to the New Testament passage for the day, one of the gospel accounts of Jesus feeding the multitudes. And she rehashed the disciples’ demands of Jesus, in that same aggravated and accusing tone I heard in myself… You let all these people follow you out here to this God-forsaken place. You spent the whole day teaching them. You knew they were far from home and without any provisions. Do something! Send them home so they can go buy food! Can’t you just see the disciples shaking their heads and rolling their eyes at the irresponsibility of Jesus in the situation; at how little forethought and preparation Jesus had put into arranging a mass gathering in the middle of nowhere? Maybe they were even getting a little angry when Jesus asks where they should buy bread when he knows the answer would be absurdly costly?
But what does Jesus say? He asks them what they have.
I’ve heard that story a million times. I’ve seen it acted out in Sunday School skits and felt-board caricatures. But in that moment, it was new and it was a question for me. And for just a moment, my anger broke away long enough for me to see what was really boiling in my heart… fear. And I heard Him ask me:
Carrie, what do you have?
God, I have nothing. I have a couple fish and some moldy bread! God it is nothing. I’m done, finished, empty. I have nothing left to give this child or this family or you. I pictured my empty hands… full of nothing but failed attempts at mustering up more patience, too many hours of PBS cartoons, and a growing ambivalence to the number of Goldfish crackers my children consume in a day.
But you know what Jesus did with nothing? He fed over 5,000 people. And He whispered to me that nothing was enough.
A few years ago, when I was still living in that tiny Chinese village and walking to work every day behind REAL shepherds with their REAL (nasty, smelly, disgusting, pooping-non-stop) sheep, I was thunderstruck by the story of Jesus’ coming. Emmanuel. God with us… in all the muck and grime and disgusting evil we humans can contrive. I still find it shocking to think that for most of my life, I pictured a pristine Hallmark-worth scene as the place my savior came into the world. Christmas has never been the same for me after my encounter with those dirty sheep.
And this year, maybe because I’m more desperate for His presence than I’ve perhaps ever been, in these days after Christmas I’m thunderstruck that Christmas has passed. Emmanuel has arrived. He is here.
He is near.
Every now and then, I hear moms make jokes about being superheroes without capes. I get the sentiment, but thank God I don’t have to be a superhero. Thank God I don’t have to be the savior.
Thank God I can show up every day with my empty hands – with my often half-hearted attempts at getting this motherhood thing right – and that He takes my paltry and sometimes pitiful offering and turns it into abundantly more than anyone can ask or imagine.
When I find myself utterly angry and fearful and bitter and overwhelmed, and I take at a hard look at what’s going on inside of me, without fail I find that I’m trying to manufacture a lot of fishes and loaves of bread. I’m trying to get into the business of being a miracle-maker, 5,000-feeder, orphan-rescuer, superhero-mama-without-a-cape-er. I’m franticly trying to be the savior yet completely aware of the impossibility of my goal. And since I’m frantic, I get even angrier at God for failing to show up on my timeline; for failing to bring everything I think we need yesterday.
And I start doubting that He ever will.
Yesterday Alea had a massive meltdown. I’m not really sure what triggered it – post-holiday-travels, post-sickness, maybe just living up to being a two-year-old… but at one point she ran to the exact opposite corner of the house from where we had been sitting together. She sat down, never broke eye contact with me for a moment , and began angrily wailing like a hurt animal. It had been a morning of this type of behavior and I was tired, and so for a moment I contemplated locking myself in the bathroom. Instead, I tried to cajole her to come back to me. She didn’t budge. She remained planted in that corner, between the fridge and the laundry room door, tears rolling down her cheeks and heaving sobs shaking her shoulders.
“God, I have nothing left. Right now, I don’t even FEEL like going to get her.“ It was more of an admission than a prayer, I think. My hands were empty.
But empty hands are good for holding, and I think He held my hand as I walked across that room and scooped her up again. He was holding my hand as I dried off those tears and held her tight. He was there as we both bravely mustered up the courage to get on with our day and give each other a fresh start. (Sometimes isn’t that the bravest thing we can do all day?)
He is here, friends. He came – in that dirty, stinky manger – not so that we could spend our lives trying to be the miracle-workers and pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstrappers. He came, not so that we could frantically try to glue together the shards of our children’s broken lives, living in fear that everything might shatter if we fail to cradle them properly. He came, not so that we could attempt to present a polished and perfect family to the world, ready at any moment for the Christmas card photo op.
He came to hold our empty hands. To hear our angry cries. To turn our nothing into something beautiful.
And maybe in that sense, 2015 will be no different than 2014. Or 3014 or 1915. Because wherever we find ourselves, our God is near.
Have no fear. Our God is Here!
(Though I do still hope 2015 is a bit more mundane.)
Please take a few moments to watch this video, featuring the incredible Amena Brown!
Thank you for sharing your heart with us. It’s touching and refreshing as a mama who has had her baby for six months. God bless you and yours!
That was beautiful <3
We’ve been home two months today, and I greatly appreciated your words. Thanks so much!
Yes, that was beautiful and I am sure that there will be many, many who have gone before you who have had those same thoughts and struggles but never voiced them….most every blog and Facebook post show the shiny, joyful and perfect children and parents but if one hasn’t felt like this after adopting….one hasn’t been home long enough! Thank you for sharing and for reminding us that He is near!
Thank you thank you thank you! This is just want I needed to hear today and have had the same feelings of “not being enough” for quite some time. sounds like we have a similar story -two toddlers close in age
I can so relate to what you have shared! We are now at 14 1/2 months with our two boys aged 9 and 10. At 6 months I remember thinking, “We should be celebrating.” But it was one of our worst days yet, and I wondered what we had done and if it could ever get better. I have definitely struggled with feeling like a failure as an adoptive mom. So I love your quote at the beginning and your comment “But empty hands are good for holding.” When we can’t do it, He can. When we have nothing, He takes it and multiplies it. For His glory. Thank you for your encouragement to keep depending on Him. God bless you in this new year.
Beautiful, and very needed. May God bless you for your sharing!
Thank you for sharing. While we haven’t experienced the same trials during our adoption experience, we have had our share of empty hand/we’re not worthy moments. Praise God for filing our empty hands with faith and love!
Hi Carrie,
I’ve been going back and reading many of your posts. Thank you for your transparency. So refreshing. I love here in Houston as well. We have just received a referral. Was wondering if we had any local connections that we might not know of. I didn’t see an email for you or I would have tried that. My email is above if you’d be up for contacting me. Thanks!
I never saw this till today! I live in Midland and don’t have too many Houston contacts. Have you traveled now? I’m guessing you might not see this…