"They are so lucky!" How many times have I heard this. People say this all the time when they hear my children are adopted. I have had a standard answer I have used since our first adoptions in 1996. It is, "No, we are the lucky ones. This was not a selfless act. We wanted children and God brought them to us." yep, I got that one down pat. Through my prayer time though, God has brought a differ notion to me, maybe it is just a change in thinking, or maybe I am just tired of the same old answers. Nonetheless, in the last few days I have unpacked this automatic pilot answer and began to really think about it.
First, I thought about luck. What does that mean exactly? Luck. I think in our society people think they have escaped poverty. They now have opportunity. In Grace and Alex's case they are leaving a country where the average salary is $250 a year. If she were going to remain in her village, Grace would soon be carrying water to and from the stream. There would not be school in her case, simply moving into the role that girls take. First water getter, eventually clothes washer, child care provider and just basic survival. Alex would have been better off. His village has school and he just might have had some better opportunities should he overcome one basic obstacle, his mother's ability to feed him. She cannot. Yep, they are lucky, by our standards.
There was something nagging at me. I began to consider all the things they have been through. Grace was an infant when the earthquake hit devastating the whole country. They have been through multiple hurricanes, lack of food, no electricity, on and on...I began to think about that they just may have gone through more in the first years than most adults. Yep, seem lucky to me...or do they? Maybe it is not so simple.
What if tragedy after tragedy was normal? Hurricanes and poverty are a way of life for them. It is all they know. As another wise mama shared with me (yes, Denise, it is you) these children grieve. Grace lived with her mama until she was two. She was given up, separated from her siblings. Alex was given up at birth, the orphanage children have become his siblings. We are blessed to have a wonderful coordinator my children call Nana, they will lose their daily contact with her too. No, poverty and natural disasters sound terrible to us, it is their normal, and they will be losing all they know soon to join us.
Yes, I realize they will appreciate all of this one day. They will understand the difference between being raised here versus Haiti, and I even think one day they will feel lucky when the grief passes. For now, and for a time when they come home, yes, they will be lucky but not for what they are gaining. They are lucky to have one another. Lucky to be able to share their grief and travel through unchartered waters together. I have never understood God's plan for us to adopt two children at this juncture, I just tried to be obedient. Maybe, just maybe, now that my sticks are put down as I mentioned in my previous blog, and I have joined the audience and waited for God to lift the curtain on his show (not mine) I am starting to see God's fireworks, a special bond these babies will always have. Instead of my boring old spinning plates. Ok, so I always thought my ability to multitask was superhuman with my amazing spinning plates metaphor. Turns out my show is quite amateur-ish. I guess I will let Him continue to hold my sticks a while.
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