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Once a friend told me of how he and his family moved south. When work didn’t fall into his lap, he spent months preparing to be a realtor. He studied the books, took the tests. But just as he finally reached the point of almost becoming a realtor, something else came along. Something better.

What struck me about this story was his take on it.

“I kind of wonder,” he said slowly, “if God didn’t mean for those three months to be a time of rest for me. If I wouldn’t have tried to take control of where I was going, I could have simply enjoyed those months.”

But instead he spent that time hurrying, striving, moving, and in the end all was for naught. He took three months that could have been a slow grace, and turned them into frantic activity that went no where.

I have done that. I do that.

* * * * *

I sit up with the older two kids in their room as they fall asleep, not because they need me to be here with them, but mostly just because it’s where I want to be right now. There’s a fan roaring white noise. Outside the room, the hall light outlines the almost closed door in a rectangle of yellow.

These are warm, heavy days. August days. In a few weeks the farmers will start to bring down the corn. The hay will be cut one last time and the barns will be full. The nights and mornings will grow cooler. I’ll start to smell woodsmoke in the evening. Stray leaves will blow across the street.

I spend 75% of the year waiting for autumn. It’s been thirteen years since I was last in school, but September still feels more like a new beginning than January. A fresh start. Summer has always felt like the culmination of things, the season when things reach their peak. And then comes Fall, with a return to cooler temperatures, a return to normal life, a return to the things that make me happy.

Waiting for fall.

* * * * *

“One of the greatest strains in life is the strain of waiting for God.” Oswald Chambers

* * * * *

I have been waiting for quite some time. Or so it feels. In reality, we have only been back from our cross country adventure for two months, the blink of an eye. I have an upcoming trip to Sri Lanka, then the Frederick Fair that we go to every year, and then October. The heart of autumn. By then we will know which way to go, which ways have opened up, which ways perhaps have closed.

And I fight in me an urge to skip to the end. To lay waste to this middle that feels endless, this waiting. But I do not want to miss the small blessings! So tonight I sit in this room, and I peer through the darkness, trying to pay closer attention to my now sleeping children. When I finish typing this I will lay down on the scratchy carpet, in front of the fan, like I used to do as a child. Perhaps I’ll fall asleep there.

Because waiting can be okay, if I let it happen. And this darkness is so temporary. So fleeting. I want to stop pushing so many days aside.

The sun is hot. The air is heavy. I hear the roar of the rear sliding door, like distant thunder. I cross the kitchen, cool linoleum under my feet, and I peek through the small window, past the screen, and into the haze.

My littlest boy stands at attention, a yellow foam baseball bat propped on his shoulder. This is only his fourth summer – he was born in Virginia three days before the fireworks. Most people who can remember me as a three year old say that he is me, but I know better: the fireworks that exploded during his fourth day on earth became part of him. He is fiery and emotive and insistent in ways that I have never been. He is a bottle rocket, an M80, a Roman Candle. He is a one inch Black Match lit by life.

My father tosses a soft, white ball through the heavy air and my son connects with it maybe one in five? One in ten? There is much more reaching and tossing and cheering and leaning than there is hitting, but the two of them go back and forth, their pitches and misses and tosses and hits like an old conversation conducted in letters, occasionally unopened but always answered.

I remember the white of the ball, the torque of the swing, the weight of a hot summer day. I remember the smell of harvested hay and the last billowing waves of massive tobacco plants before the leaves are cut. I remember how hope rose with each big hit, how my dad would laugh and scamper after the ball, pleased that I hit it so far, even if it meant crossing the stone driveway in his bare feet.

Thirty summers have passed. I know so much more than I want to know about everything. I walk away from the window, away from the view of my father and his grandson. Would I return to those days if given the choice? Would I relive the last 30 summers, if by some magical contraption I could go back? What if by some miraculous method this white-haired beard could grow backwards, these moles and marks be washed away, replaced by new skin?

That would be a ridiculous thing to do, circle back and relive a life. It would be silly to start over. What folly! What recklessness!

Still, I’m glad I do not have the choice.

Not too many days ago I was at Angela’s Cafe (where I do a lot of writing), and I came around a corner, only to be (nearly) taken out at the knees by one of the cutest toddlers I’d ever seen. Later that day I got an email message:

“Okay, so I should have introduced myself but I didn’t. That was my daughter that almost impaled you with silverware at Angela’s.”

I guess you never know where a potential guest post might come from.

So today Rebecca Wenrich, mom of the toddler who nearly took me out, gets honest about some of the feelings she’s experienced towards the birth mom of her adopted baby girl. I love the honesty and grace with which she approaches the subject. 

* * * * *

Right after M was born, while we were still out of state waiting for our ICPC clearance, we attended a church service with M’s birth mom (C). She asked if she could hold M during the service. I wish I could say my first thought was how wonderful for her to hold this sweet baby that she may not see again for a long long time.

Nope. Instead my heart began to race at the thought of my daughter being taken. Instantly I saw worst case scenarios in my head where C was fleeing the church with M in her arms, never to be seen again. I am ashamed. All C did was hold baby M, watching wide-eyed as people were baptized, asking if we would do the same with M.

A few months later, a card from C arrived. It was signed “All our love, Mommy and Daddy.” I wish I could say that my first thought was how it must be hard for C to be separated from the child that grew under her heart.

Nope. Instead my heart began to race at the thought of my position being “threatened.” I picked up M and whispered fiercely, “You are MY baby!” And I wrote a carefully worded letter asking what C would like to be called – other than Mommy. I am ashamed. As a fellow adoptive mother said, “If mommies can love more than one child, why can’t a child love more than one mommy?”

As M’s first birthday approached, C expressed some interest in visiting for the birthday party. I wish I could say my first thought was that their family was welcome to stay with us.

Nope. Instead my heart began to race at the thought of having to share my daughter with her birth family in my own home. I told them they were welcome to come and that there are several nice hotels/motels in the area. I am ashamed. They didn’t come. Was it because of my response? I don’t know.

Recently I have thought a lot about how I need to extend grace to M’s birth family instead of focusing on my fears.

Shortly after M’s second birthday, I wrote C a letter. I told her that I love her more than I ever thought possible. No matter what decisions she has made, is making or will make – I could never love her less.

I wish it hadn’t taken me this long to love C so much. I wish that I had not been so selfish and fearful about my role as mommy to this dear girl that C miraculously chose to place with me.

All I can do is pray that going forward I can remember to extend grace to M’s birth family. Over and over. Just like God does for me every day.

Amen.

* * * * *

Please check out Rebecca’s blog HERE.

If you’d like to submit a post telling the story of a poignant moment that occurred during adoption or foster care, please email your 500-word submission to shawnsmucker@yahoo.com. Thanks!

Prior adoption and foster care posts include:

I Saw Our New Son and the Voice Said, “Run Away” – Adoption Stories With Kim Van Brunt
Checking ‘Yes’ to Everything: Adoption Stories With Sonya Judkins
Because Someone Has To: Adoption Stories With Shar Halvorsen
Momma For a Moment: A Foster Care Story, With Tamara Out Loud

“Have you ever passed out while getting a shot?” the kind old lady asked me, picking up each of the needles and examining their contents.

“Uh, no,” I said. But for some reason I suddenly felt not-so-great. My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t stop biting my lip.

It was taking way too long, giving me even more time to wonder what three, small doses of disease (Hepatitis A, Tetanus, and Typhoid) would feel like going into my arm. I tried to breathe slowly. I’m such a wimp.

I craned my neck to look as far away from the shots as I could. There were various travel warnings on the wall, and a small fridge from where she had pulled the vaccines. On the nurse’s desk was a map of Sri Lanka.

* * * * *

Maile and I thought it would be amazing if we sponsored a child who I could actually meet during my trip to Sri Lanka. We just got a picture of him the other day (which I’m having trouble linking to at the moment): he’s got big brown eyes, wispy dark hair, and a knack for very serious expressions.

“Are you there, dad?”

“When are you coming up to say good-night, dad?”

“How many hours will you be gone, dad?”

“You will come back to pick me up, right dad?”

“You won’t forget me, will you dad?”

* * * * *

It seems we’ve returned from our cross-country trip with a suddenly insecure child. There are now few situations where this young one doesn’t get a little teary-eyed, a little nervous, a little clingy.

My response to this wasn’t great in the beginning. Patience is not one of my virtues.

Seriously? Are you kidding me? I thought to myself. Are you three years old? You can deal with this. I know you can.

But no amount of cajoling or pushing or motivating brought peace to that little mind.

And as I think back over the last seven months of our life as a family, I cannot blame this child for feeling insecure. In February, we moved out of a house that all six of us adored. Two weeks later, we ventured out in a big blue bus for four months, changing locations every two to three days, meeting new people and walking strange streets. Now we live in my parents’ basement, looking for a new place, not knowing where we might end up.

So this dear child cries out for some sense of belonging, some reassurance that everything will be okay. I suck it up and encourage my child, through my own frustration.

“It’s going to be okay,” I say.

“I’m always here if you need me,” I say.

“I would never forget you,” I say.

And I am reminded of this:

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

* * * * *

I am terribly insecure these days. Every five minutes I find myself doubting or questioning, wondering or searching, changing my mind or growing angry. One moment I am encouraged and motivated. The next I am heavy-hearted and deflated. But God doesn’t care how many times I need to be reminded. After I shout out or scream or whisper or complain, there is always The Voice – so long as I take the time to listen.

It’s going to be okay.

I’m always here if you need me.

I would never forget you.

Sam screamed again. It was late, and he was exhausted, and through that thin veil of tiredness his anger broke through. He sat in his bed, and he wailed. Sometimes his cries took the form of a long, drawn-out “Nooooooooooo” to no one in particular – at other times they came out in short, staccato bursts.

I heard him from the kitchen and flew into the room, prepared to drop the hammer. I couldn’t imagine any situation in which this kind of screaming was necessary or acceptable. Then I turned the corner.

His little face was red, his jaw clenched. Hot tears filled his eyes. I scooped him from his bed and stared at him, prepared to say, once again, “No! This is not cool!” But I found myself saying something entirely different.

First I hugged him. His legs stuck straight down like tiny two-by-fours, and his arms stayed stiff at his side. I held him as close as I could, and I whispered into his ear.

“Sam, it’s okay, you can be angry. I’m just going to hold you.”

* * * * *

I’m learning this: it’s okay to be angry.

I grew up in a charismatic, evangelical church in an Anabaptist community – anger has always been totally unacceptable. Displays of anger were considered a complete loss of control. We tried to pretend to accept anger by saying, “Anger’s okay as long as you don’t act on it,” but that’s just another way of saying that anger isn’t okay, because anger nearly always drives us to some sort of action.

For years I’ve denied my anger toward other people, whether it be the guy who took my parking space or the person who disagreed with my way of thinking. Don’t get angry. Anger isn’t the right way to respond. I’ve denied my anger towards those I love. I’ve denied my anger towards God.

But all this denying has only fostered a form of passive-aggressive behavior – anger can’t be held inside. It always emerges, usually later, usually misdirected.

I’m learning this: it’s okay to be angry.

* * * * *

“Sammy, it’s okay if you’re angry. I’m just going to hold you.”

And each time I said that, I felt his little muscles loosen. His enraged screams turned to heartfelt whimpers and then those trembling sobs. I know it’s a worn out cliche, but he literally melted in my arms.

Then I slid into the bed with him on my chest. Every so often, his little body would seize up as the anger resurfaced, then he would shudder, take a deep breath, and sigh again. Relax.

“It’s okay,” I whispered again and again. “You can be angry if you want to. I’m just going to hold you.”

* * * * *

You can approach God honestly. You can scream at him and tell him how unfair your life is and how it doesn’t seem like he’s there. You can question him and demand answers. You can weep and blame him for your tears.

You can get angry at God.

He can handle it.