Found a great blog article today that really stood out to me. Here is a small clip of the article. I just grabbed the last half that specifically talks about relationship with birth family. I felt like the experience this family went through in a very small way prepared me for the journey. -Toni
Clip from the site “Storing Up Our Treasures” picking up midway through an adoption story :
Our time in the hospital with Xander and the birth family were some of the richest days of our lives. We experienced the full gamut of emotions: excitement, fear, love, heartache, joy, peace, grief, worry, confusion, hope, hopelessness…it was all there, and all real. And in it all we saw the hand of God.
We expected several things of the time we would spend in the hospital while Xander was waiting to come home – getting to hold him and feed him, adoption paperwork, nurses and social workers…those type of things.
But there were two things we couldn’t have anticipated:
- Getting to spend countless precious hours with Xander’s birth family and falling in love with them
- Experiencing the grief of the birth family.
We simply were not prepared for #2 – I don’t think one can prepare for it. For months I’ had this “pie in the sky” screenplay in my head of how we would bundle our new babe into his car seat and walk out of the hospital radiating joy. Ready to stop at every friend’s house on the way home.
But instead leaving the hospital with our sweet boy was the hardest thing I have ever done…and it doesn’t even compare to the level of “hard” the birth family faced in giving him to us. It was just plain gut wrenching.
Xander’s birth family, they love him, they love him fiercely. Giving a baby, a son, a grandson, a nephew up for adoption wasn’t something they had dreamed of or hoped for. It wasn’t something they planned or even wanted to do. They did it because life has them in a place where adoption was the best option for Xander.
The sacrifice they made was one of love. It was heroic. My God, it was hard – I saw grief on their faces that day that overwhelmed me. It got the best of me. At one point, while they handed Xander to Brett, I walked away. I couldn’t bear their grief. Or make any sense out of their sorrow being our joy.
The first 4 nights of having Xander home I dreamt I was sitting at my kitchen table, Bible open, crying and pouring over and over these two verses:
He (Jesus) withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Luke: 22:41 – 42
I’m sure our birth families prayers and thoughts we extremely similar to Jesus prayer and grief in this passage – Take this cup God – please, if there is any way for this to be good without us giving up this child, make it happen – but if this is best we will do it.
While no sacrifice is equal to Jesus’ death on the cross – but to give a child that you love away for others to raise, and call mom and dad, so that he or she may have the life you aren’t able to provide, resonates with similarities that I cannot not ignore.
Adoption is beautiful. It is a miracle. It is the heart of the Lord. It comes with great joy and anticipation. But it also comes with sorrow and grief. Let us not forget the birth families that make such a sacrifice as this. The birth families matter. They matter as much as the child. It is our prayer that in time joy would come from their sorrow and that birth families would experience beauty from ashes by the goodness of the Lord.
Through all of this I will celebrate this Easter with a greater understanding and humility for the sacrifice God made when he had his own son die so that I could have hope and life, and know love.
Friends, don’t forget the cross this Easter, but look to the resurrection for the promise of hope.
Please feel free to use the comment buttons and share your thoughts. Happy Easter to all! -Toni
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