SEVEN MONTHS HOME

7 months home.

The time has flown and the time has crawled.  

When we first arrived home, I was optimistic that being in our house, initiating some routine, and “normal” would be the recipe toward becoming a family of five.  I put my best foot forward in the shoe of all the adoption reading material we’d studied over the last twelve months and started marching…. I made it about six weeks before those shoes had worn through and my feet were blistered and broken.  You know, because the last post you read from me was back in the middle of May with no hint that I would be pressing pause on publishing more.

I’ve had it on my mind to post.  Really, I have.  

I have had things I wanted to say and I certainly wanted to show my gratitude to those who have supported us by updating.  But my willpower ended up succumbing to our new “normal” in which I was completely sapped of any mental, emotional, or physical margin to devote to blogging.  Something had to drop and the website was the first to fall.

You see, I started to really struggle.  Transitioning with Benjamin has been hard.  And it’s not that I didn’t anticipate that it would be (remember, we did a TON of prepping and research), it’s just that, like physical childbirth, the Lamaze classes can only prepare you for so much.  Labor itself, no matter how many classes you take, just freaking hurts.

And so life started to feel that way; hard, confusing, dark, disappointing, even grievous in some areas, and I didn’t know how to communicate it.  Why?  Because my communicating what adoption is like brings with it the story of a little boy whom I don’t quite feel privy to share.  My adoption story centers around Benjamin’s adoption story… so where is the line between what is okay for me to share because I want to and what I shouldn’t share because (maybe 15 years from now) Benjamin wouldn’t have wanted me to?

Which is more important, to share the extra vulnerable parts of our story so other adoptive parents can relate and not feel alone?  Or to protect the sanctity of Benjamin’s story knowing that it’s his to share too, not just ours?

And so I’ve hesitated posting, because what has been going on in our home over the last half year or so has been vulnerable and hard amidst the beautiful and redemptive.

I rock Benjamin to sleep before every nap and every bedtime and think: 978.

My oldest never wanted to sleep, to be separated from Brad or I period really, and so I rocked her to sleep every single time she needed to nap or sleep.  Benjamin was 978 days old before I had the opportunity to sit down with him in our rocking chair.

978 nights . If you add in one nap per day (of which infants take way more), the number doubles to 1,956.  So it’s safe to say that I would have held, rocked, and snuggled, Abilene over 2,000 times before Benjamin had the same opportunity (and that's being conservative).

Two. thousand. missed opportunities to be held.

If you dip your toe into the ocean of adoption and foster care and read even the smallest article on brain development for children in those circumstances, you’ll find that those missed opportunities are significant in the realm of physical, mental, and emotional growth.  The things we mommies do by instinct (holding, rocking, smiling, singing, playing, swinging, speaking with a singsongy voice, etc.) all contribute to significant early brain development and it’s taken for granted until you see what happens when a child didn’t have that.

Trama and grief do not manifest themselves in rainbows and gumdrops.  And neither has my response to it.  Instead, I’ve gotten mad.  Oh, have I been mad.  Madder than I ever have in my life.  Frustrated beyond what I felt I could possibly be frustrated with. 

And the last few months have looked a lot like Brooke crumbling under the sensitivity of this transition; lashing out, responding poorly, losing self-control, and going to bed under the blankets of self-defeat.  Meanwhile, we’ve been surrounded by well-meaning people who, in their kindness, say, “Well, gosh, Benjamin just couldn’t be with a better family.”  And in my weakest moments, I have totally disagreed with them.

Again, it’s not necessarily that we’ve tried to hide anything, it’s just that telling our story is complicated because “our” consists of five different contributing people.  And so who gets to decide which parts of the story get to be told?  And at what cost?

To be honest, I still don’t know.

I do know that if you were to sit down with me over coffee (always over coffee) and ask me how we were doing, I would feel free to be honest.  But the internet is not a one-on-one conversation over coffee.  And I have yet to feel like I have the freedom to fully share the story that isn’t just mine.

Benjamin is the only person in this story that has yet to have a choice.  And at three years old, he still can’t choose what he wants to have shared or not shared about his story or his transition.  As his parents, Brad and I have to make those decisions for him.  That’s a high and precious task, and certainly, one that I am not taking lightly.

I will say this though, just look at this little boy:

The left photo is Benjamin two weeks into being a Varner (first week home) and the right photo is seven months later.

Benjamin is growing (physically, mentally, and emotionally), he’s 2 ½ inches taller than the day he came home (this blows my mind), he’s attaching at his own pace, he’s learning English astonishingly fast, and he’s processing (at three years old) things that no one else in his family will ever be able to fully understand or empathize with.  And I’m. so. proud. of. him.

Because as frustrating as the transition has been for me, it’s been way harder for Benjamin, and to be honest, he’s doing a better job of it than I am.  Refer back to the title photo and see the photos at the end of this post for proof that not all is dark and grey in our house. I firmly believe that Ben is thriving and growing amidst deep grief and sorrow.  While the transition is hard, God is still good.

My frustration, anger, and pain have all stemmed from futile attempts to hang on to what I considered normal or right.  I am selfish in clinging to what used to be, valuing it more than valuing this little boy who has had no say in what his life now looks like.  I am disgusted with my lack of empathy towards him when he responds to situations in ways he only knows how to because they are learned survival mechanisms.  I look at myself in the mirror, shamed in the realization that my love for him is conditional on his behavior that day, and shout, “Brooke!  You are the adult!  You are the one who has to take the higher road and love unconditionally.  Seriously, he’s three!  What do you expect?!”  Only to return to that same mirror within the hour because I had failed to be compassionate yet again.

To be honest, and don’t tell my social worker, I had to put the adoption books down.  They left me feeling defeated, with a tornado of variables f5-ing through my head, and a back-breaking list of to-do’s to “try”.   I traded my adoption books for my Bible and One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.

And just like He always does, in the early morning darkness of quiet and self-defeat the last few months, God has met me. 

He started with Luke 18:1, the very first piece of scripture I read in my heaviest moment of desperation.

"Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up."* - Luke 18:1

My eyes welled with tears, knowing God saw me.  He saw me in my ugly, and in my struggle, and in my pain, and in my questioning, and in my fear.  And he simply reminded me:  “Don’t stop talking to me and don’t give up.”

And so I didn’t.  A few weeks later as I continued through Luke, I reread the story of Jesus in the garden.  The cross is within sight and Jesus prays that the cup would be taken from him, if at all possible, but that he would be obedient even unto death if that was the only way. 

After he confesses this, vs. 43 and 44 say:

“An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.  And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”  - Luke 22:43-44*

Wait.  Are those verses in the right order?  

An angel strengthened him and then his anguish manifested itself in sweat like drops of blood??

Is God saying that it is possible to be strengthened by God yet still be in anguish?  If so, I shouldn’t confuse all anguish for weakness or failure or a mishearing of God’s call.  It is more than possible to be exactly where God wants us to be, doing exactly what God wants us to do, and still experience anguish to the degree of sweating “drops of blood”.  (Please don't get me wrong, I'm not at all equating our circumstances to those of Jesus, but instead, the underlying idea that simple obedience can most certainly be the hardest thing a person has ever done.)

Then a few weeks later, reading in Philippians, I was reminded by Paul that hardship and suffering are marks of a believer, to the degree that (and I know I’m being strong in saying this) we might even use it as a plumb line in determining where we stand in our relationship with the Lord.

Paul’s life was anything but comfortable.  The same can be said of the 11 disciples.  And the same can most certainly be said of any of the prophets (poor guys).  So why, oh why, do I keep believing the lie that I am supposed to be comfortable or that comfortable is the goal??  Why, oh why, do I think that if I do right, right will be done to me?? And why, oh why, do I associate what is right with what is comfortable?

Was any of that reflected in Jesus’ earthly life?  The God I proclaim to want to be like in my own day-to-day?  Absolutely not, and worse even. 

Chapter 2 of Philippians is the classic “and how should we act” as believers manifesto.  And after all is laid out with Jesus as our sole example, there’s a “therefore” in vs. 12.

“Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”  Philippians 2:12-13*

I believe the “therefore” is “there for” because Christ has been lifted up as our example in the prior 11 verses yet we do not have to ability in our own strength to copy that example.

“Therefore”, since Christ’s example is unattainable in our earthly bodies, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you…”, not you who works in you. (paraphase mine)

 I looked up the original Greek words for “fear” and “trembling”.  The Greek word for “fear” connotates what you would expect in English.  The Greek word for “trembling” is actually “tromos” and means:

1.     a trembling or quaking with fear

2.     with fear and trembling, used to describe the anxiety of one who distrusts his ability completely to meet all requirements, but religiously does his utmost to fulfill his duty

Wait, what?  Is the second definition of tromos actually describing anxiety in a positive light?  That anxiety within the context of knowing you don’t have the capacity to adhere to a Christ-like way of living within your own means but wake up every day striving to do so anyway?  Could there possibly be an appropriate form of anxiety to have within ourselves as believers?

Anxiety, uncomfortable, stress, struggle, fear, anguish; those are all four letter words in our world to be avoided at all costs.  But I’m reading something differently in my Bible.  Somehow, there is such a thing as holy anxiety, holy uncomfortable, holy stress, holy struggle, holy fear, and holy anguish.  And my job as a believer is to let God be God in all that anxiety, uncomfortable, stress, struggle, fear, and anguish through me because “it is God who works in [me] to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”

So in the midst of what has become the hardest season of my life, I’m realizing that my previously self-sabotaging beliefs that Satan wants me to believe – that I’m a failure, that things are going from bad to worse, that my mistakes fall outside of God’s grace-circle, and that Benjamin would indeed be better off with a different mother – are lies.  Every single last one of them.

Because I know, that I know, that I know, that I know, that God called us to this [read Brooke's story here and Brad's story here].  And God does not make mistakes.  And it is very possible for our obedience to Him to look like anxiety and anguish and that still be the completely appropriate response to His call.

Alongside all of this, there are smiles and there are laughs and there is much, much growth.  See the photos below.  I have also learned that while I need, need, need time with Jesus every day, exercising is also a significant stress-reliever, as well as taking time to work on Adirondack Peach.  All three of those are things I took for granted before adopting.

For all the reasons at the beginning of this post, I’m not sure when the next time I will blog is. But in the meantime, I’m going to “continue to work out [my] salvation with fear and trembling” because “it is God who works in [me] to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”  And, while some days feel like I’m sweating drops like blood, I’m thankful to know God better in this way and to be able to trust in his great promise to me and to Benjamin and our family.   

Thanks for your patience and grace with us during this time.  And never be afraid to ask questions, especially if it’s over coffee 😉

*Scripture referenced from the TNIV version of the Bible.