Not Okay
November and December have been filled to the top of both pure joyous moments and heaviness that takes my breath away. The appointments once again filled up the calendar. Many weeks we have had medical appointments 4 or 5 days a week. We anticipated this would be our reality. We acknowledged to our agency and all parties involved that we understood this would be our new life and fought for it. And so you may say, well you knew what you were getting into when you decided to adopt Eliana. Yes this is true, we knew, we had the head knowledge of it. But as in most things in life the actual living it out is a much different story than the intellectual knowing.
We would never change a thing. Eliana is our daughter through and through. She is an essential member of our team. This recently hit me as we went for a walk as a family. Elie and I were walking hand in hand about 50m behind the rest of our crew. Up ahead was Kevin with our other three. As I watched them from a distance, it seemed strange to imagine that that picture was our family prior to July. While we were waiting for Elie to come home I had joked that we were filling up a hole in our family due to the age gap between Faith and Tyler. However the hole goes so much deeper than just the difference in ages. I looked down at her precious hand in mine and praised God for bringing her to our family. The past five months have been so intense, but I would do it all over again to have her as my daughter.
All of the appointments, therapies, and evaluations are physically and emotionally exhausting. Not just for me, but for the entire family. Many of the answers that have come are hard to digest. My heart is grieving for my daughter, for her reality, for the difficulties she has to face, for the weaknesses in her body, for the things she will never be able to change, for the fight that is ahead of her. At the age of 5 she has already faced more loss than I have experienced in my entire life. As my heart bonds to hers the pain in my soul increases. For now her grief is not just her burden to carry but has attached itself to my heart as well. And it is heavy. So I cry out and daily remind myself to lay all this at the foot of the cross. He promises that He will take our burdens, carry them for us, and then give us Himself and rest for our souls. His Word never fails so I am claiming that promise daily.
All of our medical team is very sympathetic to the fact that Elie was just recently adopted, that English is not her first language, that we are still bonding as a family. But I think there are moments when they forget or just don't grasp the fact that this is all still so new for me. I have only been raising a special needs child for five months. The learning curve is huge. I think my emotions are similar to what a mama would feel like five months after giving birth to a child with special needs. However she is not five months old, she is five years old. Somedays it seems that I am grieving for five years of events all at once. Early this week was one of those days. I realized that I am in a season where it needs to be okay that I am not okay. It is not okay that my daughter wakes up screaming because her legs hurt. It is not okay that she cannot keep up with the other children. It is not okay that her hip is falling out and she will need major surgery in the coming year. It is not okay that she has to go to therapy multiple days every week just to learn things that come naturally to other five year olds. It is not okay that she already lost two mothers. It is not okay that I have no memories of the first five years of her life. It is not okay that she cannot truly communicate her hurt with me. It is not okay that my three year old spends all her days going to doctors offices. It is not okay that her body has been ravaged by disease that she has no control over. It is not okay that we are five years behind in therapy. It is not okay that she breaks into hysterical laughter to mask pain. It is not okay that she will attach herself to any adult that pays attention to her. And it is not okay that there are millions of children just like her who are still waiting for a family to step in and call them their own.
Although I am grieving my faith is not shaken. My trust in God remains. He is my Anchor and my Hope and the One who gives me the strength to stand on the days when I didn't think it would be possible to do so.
We would never change a thing. Eliana is our daughter through and through. She is an essential member of our team. This recently hit me as we went for a walk as a family. Elie and I were walking hand in hand about 50m behind the rest of our crew. Up ahead was Kevin with our other three. As I watched them from a distance, it seemed strange to imagine that that picture was our family prior to July. While we were waiting for Elie to come home I had joked that we were filling up a hole in our family due to the age gap between Faith and Tyler. However the hole goes so much deeper than just the difference in ages. I looked down at her precious hand in mine and praised God for bringing her to our family. The past five months have been so intense, but I would do it all over again to have her as my daughter.
All of the appointments, therapies, and evaluations are physically and emotionally exhausting. Not just for me, but for the entire family. Many of the answers that have come are hard to digest. My heart is grieving for my daughter, for her reality, for the difficulties she has to face, for the weaknesses in her body, for the things she will never be able to change, for the fight that is ahead of her. At the age of 5 she has already faced more loss than I have experienced in my entire life. As my heart bonds to hers the pain in my soul increases. For now her grief is not just her burden to carry but has attached itself to my heart as well. And it is heavy. So I cry out and daily remind myself to lay all this at the foot of the cross. He promises that He will take our burdens, carry them for us, and then give us Himself and rest for our souls. His Word never fails so I am claiming that promise daily.
All of our medical team is very sympathetic to the fact that Elie was just recently adopted, that English is not her first language, that we are still bonding as a family. But I think there are moments when they forget or just don't grasp the fact that this is all still so new for me. I have only been raising a special needs child for five months. The learning curve is huge. I think my emotions are similar to what a mama would feel like five months after giving birth to a child with special needs. However she is not five months old, she is five years old. Somedays it seems that I am grieving for five years of events all at once. Early this week was one of those days. I realized that I am in a season where it needs to be okay that I am not okay. It is not okay that my daughter wakes up screaming because her legs hurt. It is not okay that she cannot keep up with the other children. It is not okay that her hip is falling out and she will need major surgery in the coming year. It is not okay that she has to go to therapy multiple days every week just to learn things that come naturally to other five year olds. It is not okay that she already lost two mothers. It is not okay that I have no memories of the first five years of her life. It is not okay that she cannot truly communicate her hurt with me. It is not okay that my three year old spends all her days going to doctors offices. It is not okay that her body has been ravaged by disease that she has no control over. It is not okay that we are five years behind in therapy. It is not okay that she breaks into hysterical laughter to mask pain. It is not okay that she will attach herself to any adult that pays attention to her. And it is not okay that there are millions of children just like her who are still waiting for a family to step in and call them their own.
Although I am grieving my faith is not shaken. My trust in God remains. He is my Anchor and my Hope and the One who gives me the strength to stand on the days when I didn't think it would be possible to do so.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your honesty. I just have one special needs child, with therapy three times a week, plus pastoring, and the usual housecleaning and meal planning and cooking. I feel alone sometimes, and like a fish out of water most times. So even though you truly have more on your plate than I do, I so needed to read every word you wrote. I particularly loved how you ended the post...complete faith and hope in our King of Kings. I love that we do not have to despair. I will be praying for your precious family. Love to you - Heather
ReplyDeletethank you for sharing, sonya. it is SO much...much much more than you alone can handle...but you KNOW He will do it through you. He loves Elie so much more than you and He is using you to love and care for her - it is beautiful to watch! praying for you!!!
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