no hands but ours :: may post

why?

May 1, 2013 by nohandsbutours 3 Comments

So that is the question I hear out of our Thai Tornado’s mouth incessantly.

Why?

I can’t remember when our girls went through this stage. It seems they were much younger. Joel will be seven in four months. He seems old to me…but maybe I’m just old and can’t remember. Yeah, that’s more plausible.

Why does it lightning when it rains sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t?
Why do I have to do reading today?
Why are we having that for dinner?
Why is dad at church so late tonight?
Why can’t I watch TV?

And on and on they go.

He’s not being rude when he asks. Even about the dinner thing. It’s just where he is right now. He’s all about the why.

And y’all, some of these “whys”, I have no answer for. Or at best, an incomplete one.

Why do I have black hair but Kennedy and Sydney have blonde?

Why is my skin dark and your skin is white?

Why doesn’t daddy have brown eyes instead of blue?

Sure, I can tell him that he was born in Asia and we were not and so our hair and our skin and our eyes don’t look like an Asian person’s would. And that’s the truth. But is it enough?

As I’ve posted here before, he’s learning to read this year in Kindergarten. Homeschooling this 6 year old has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever attempted. But so rewarding as we come into May and see how far he’s come.

Just the other night, he was holding his favorite stuffed animal, a black cat {weird, but true} and as I tucked him into bed and walked away, I heard him say…

“Black cat, black cat what do you see? I see a brown Joel looking at me.”

And it stopped me dead in my tracks. And made my knees falter a little. Because these questions that he consistently asks me, are swirling around in his mind even at bedtime. When he puts head to pillow, even then and after nearly four years together, he is thinking about the differences between us.

Why did you come get me?

Why don’t I live in Thailand anymore?

Why am I YOUR son now?

Again, we have answers. Insufficient ones to a degree.

Because we loved you. Because we desperately wanted you. Because in God’s sovereign plan, you are one of us. And because your first mom made a heart wrenching and selfless decision.

In Thailand, by and large, children who are abandoned are not eligible for international adoption. The vast majority of orphans in that beautiful country will languish in an orphanage, without the hope of a family, until they age out as teenagers. So children, if they are to have the greatest chance of being adopted, must be relinquished rather than abandoned.

That was the case for our beautiful boy. We have the papers his first mom signed. We know the reasons for her choice. We are beyond grateful for her maturity in the face of unfathomable circumstances.

Yet, I ask again. Is this enough of an answer?

I try every month when I’m given this tiny voice at NHBO, to speak to special needs or to stretch our thinking or to encourage us all to be the hands and feet of God where the orphan is concerned. I may be failing this month because I just keep coming back to this. That special needs or healthy, abandoned or relinquished, international or domestic…there will be why questions.

And at best, our answers will be incomplete ones.

Joel is here to be our first son.

He is here to be a big brother for our little prince, Gabe, from China.

And just recently, it seems he is here to begin to realize his own sinfulness in light of God’s perfection and to wrestle with some pretty weighty questions about salvation and the Gospel. The Gospel that he himself asked the other day if he would have ever learned about in Thailand.

And though these are all good and great things, is it enough? Will it be enough for him when he’s older? Will these things satisfy the “why” questions that he has?

Only God knows the answer to that. I rest in the sovereignty of Jesus. Our sons are our sons because before the foundation of the earth, God ordained it to be. Did God cause their plight? I don’t believe so. Sin, as is always the case, is the root for pain and suffering and hardship and death. So no, He didn’t cause it.

But He ordained it.

I don’t know how to reconcile those two things. I don’t seek to do so anymore.

Rather than dwell on what I don’t know, I lean into what I do know.

Namely, that Jesus is infinitely good. That our sons needed parents and siblings and grandparents and aunts and uncles. That we needed them. To open our eyes to the Gospel of Adoption, to have a smidgeon of a bird’s eye view into the heart of God and the grafting in of us into His family.

I know of families who avoid these questions and more aptly, avoid answering them. I don’t agree with them…but I affirm their right to raise their children in the manner they deem best. I don’t ever want to be guilty of “filling in the gaps” of our sons’ beginnings with things that aren’t there. I don’t want to lead them to see or believe something that may or may not be true as far as their stories go. And I surely don’t want to be flippant about them either.

But I do want to embrace the questions. I whole heartedly want to embrace the dark skin and black hair and brown eyes questions. Not to make less of them or to elevate them. Only to help him see that he is made fearfully and wonderfully made and that those very things that are different about him, are some of our favorite things about who he is. Along with his tender heart and his unbelievably quick sense of humor and his tenacious spirit.

That for some reason we may not fully know on this side, there is a means to the ends.

The whys are swirling around at our house these days.

And really, that’s just fine.

one thing remains

*This post was written for my monthly contribution to No Hands But Ours.*

Well, February came and went like a flash, didn’t it? And I don’t know about you, or what the neck of the woods you call home feels like today…but my neck and my woods feel COLD!

So, Hello March! This mama is soooo happy to see you. Because March means spring is just around the corner and with spring comes some of my favorite kind of stuff.

Easter. He is risen, He is risen indeed!

Spring Break. Can I get a “holla” from all of the mamas out there!

And the end of the school year.

All of these make me happy, happy, happy.

The talk of new dresses and daffodils blooming and flip flops lining shelves where there  were just knee high boots…gets a lady beside herself with spring fever. But I can’t get all excited just yet. We still have  52 days of school left {but who’s counting, right?},  another month before spring break and Easter is yet a few weeks away.

And my resolve to finish strong is taking a hit. Mostly because homeschooling a son through kindergarten is HARD.

Add to that scenario, that said son was adopted internationally after having spent three years in an institution and one who was NOT speaking his own language at the time we came for him.

I distinctly remember sitting in the orphanage in September of ’09, listening to his pediatrician {super nice orphanage with a pedi on staff!} tell us that Joel’s special needs were nearly completely resolved. That though we began the process for a sick little boy with RAD {Reactive Airway Disorder} because of  premature birth at 29 weeks, NEC {Necrolizing EnteroColitis with ileal peforation, ileosotomy}& PDA {Patent Ductus Arteriosis}…he would be considered non-special needs if he were to be put on the list for adoption that day.

And had that been the case, he wouldn’t have been available for us to adopt because of that fact.

She went on to say that Joel had one remaining special need…lack of language. He wasn’t speaking at all.

We kinda glossed over that fact to be perfectly honest. I mean, who cares? So he can’t talk yet! Big deal, right?

Wrong.

Big, big deal.

Because though our beautiful boy was doing wonderfully medically speaking, his language deficiencies would prove to be an ongoing daily struggle.

Three and a half years.

We’ve been home three and a half years and every single day, we work and work and work on speech and language issues. He’s been in speech  therapy for 2 years {it took me nearly a year to get him qualified for help…grrrr}.

Teaching him to read has been exhausting and as frustrating as anything I’ve ever attempted to do. We have a unique school situation…we private school two days a week and home school the remaining three. It’s not a co-op…we don’t choose certain outside classes for our kids to take. They are taught every subject by degreed teachers each week for 2 days and then I facilitate the carrying out of their daily assignments {given by their teachers} on the other three days. But as you can imagine, kindergarten is a lot more “hands on” than say, my 7^th grader is.

Honestly, some days, I feel like throwing in the towel. I’m discouraged and beaten it seems. And others, he reads like he’s been doing it perfectly for years.  I’ve called his teacher sobbing…and called his daddy elated with the day’s progress. I’ve prayed, cried, laughed and had to walk away. I’ve nearly called the public school to see if a 5 day week program would be better for him, though I know between the four of us {his teacher, me, his reading instructor {2 days a week} and his speech therapist {also 2 days a week},  he is getting a fantastic education and is doing so much better than he was a few months ago.

I’ve listened as his God honoring, precious teacher told me that when we have a bad morning, to just love him, to pour into his heart and to not let it get to me. Because it’s kindergarten. Not life and death. Wise, wise is this woman. Still, it’s easier to say than to do.

And at this point, I’m not sure if he or I are going to make it! 

Make it to 1^st grade, that is.

The jury is still out on what’s best for Joel. He is showing good improvement and making steady progress, just not as much as we would like to see. And he’s an “old” kindergartener…having turned 6 just after school started. So next year, if he repeats, he will be a 7 year old kindergartener. Again.

I’ve had to repent of my pride and my fear of failure. I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s not my fault…and it’s most assuredly not Joel’s. He tries soooo hard. He doesn’t have a learning disability that anyone suspects. It’s not that he’s lazy or doesn’t want to try. It’s not that we aren’t providing adequate help to him.

It all comes down to language.

And sometimes, that just takes a long time to sort through and figure out. In the meantime, our Joel is happy as can be, healthy as can be, and handsome as can be. So we give God glory for the work he’s done in Joel physically and emotionally.

Only one thing remains. Substantial speech deficits. And  praise God, it’s not life and death. But it is certainly life as we know it.