Worthy

We adopted J when he was 18; he had been in our house since he was 15 through foster care. J has not lived in our house for the last 18 months and we have not seen him much. He's had periods of unemployment and homelessness. Through all of that I believe that he relied on friends to provide shelter and food. He did not ever ask us for money or for a place to stay.

J is leaving for basic training today to become a US Marine. We had talked with him enough to know that he was on track for a start date in January of next year and was working to pull the date up. We were a little surprised when he dropped in yesterday to tell us that he was leaving today.

In that conversation he also let us know that he wants to do this all by himself and doesn't want it to seem like it was something we helped him accomplish. He doesn't feel like he has any successes in his life that he can point to and say "I did that on my own."

He also said he doesn't want a family right now. He also, not so clearly, said that he doesn't feel like he can live up to our expectations (as he perceives them). As part of that he doesn't want us to come to his graduation from basic training, but admitted he may change his mind. Ultimatley he doesn't feel like a part of the family because he doesn't act like the rest of the family, and in fact has made decisions that make his life hard.

There are so many parallels in J's story to so many people's relationship to God, and I've touched on some of those (see previous posts).

J knows in his head that he is our child by adoption but and still doesn't grasp it in his heart. His perception is that we have expectations of him to be something he is not, but hopes to be, and that there is no way we can love him as he is. If I can't accept myself as I am, how can someone else accept me and even further, how can they love me? And even if J does not feel it in his heart it does not change how we feel about him as our son.

The times with J living here were not necessarily all the best times for him or us. There was a lot of tension, turmoil, and problems to help J deal with and we learned a lot. That was a decision we made and we have no regrets about sticking with him through things. Not too many other people did, except the ones that dragged him through with them.

Most of us, if we think about it, don't feel worthy of God's love. How can God love me, especially when He knows everything about me? God loves us no matter how we feel about him, whether or not we feel the need for Him in our lives or feel worthy of that love.

So many times in our lives when we have trouble we are helped by God in ways that we don't even realize. In the times we do realize it we are thankful and make promises to fix things. The other parts of our life where things are going well and we are celebrating our successes we often attribute to ourselves. We want all of that glory and don't want to give any of it to God. So we go on with our life, trying to do it alone and fix things ourselves, and we don't allow God to celebrate with us.

Please pray for J as he goes through basic, that he'll make it through and that through it all he will begin to understand that he is worthy of love and that none of us do anything alone.

Adoption day!!!

Today was David's adoption finalization. It was definitely cool and fun, even more so since we know what to expect having done it three times now. That didn't take away from the excitement or joy.

We are so glad to have David in our lives. As I mentioned in my previous post, David in a lot of ways may not live up to the world's standards or expectations; but then again he may surprise all of us and bring glory to God who brought him into our lives.

Just in the last two weeks David has started preschool and started to crawl. He also is bearing weight on his legs and can stand if someone helps him balance (which is where he started with sitting and crawling).

I believe strongly that God sees us in the same way. He doesn't see us in comparison to the world's standards, but to his own, and it is all through his love. He helps us to balance while we work through each step in our growth and rejoices for us (even more than we do ourselves) when we reach new heights.

New Experience

In the last few months we have been working on adopting our third child from foster care, and tonight we finally signed the petition to the court and will get a court date tomorrow.

As all kids, David is unique amongst our family. It isn't his skin color or his gender, it is his development. In many ways David is delayed, behind for his age; although delayed may not be the right word because that implies that there will be a point in time where he will catch up. Like a flight that is delayed can make up time in the air.

So, as a father, my expectations and points of joy will be different for David than they are for my other kids. Of course I was ecstatic when my kids learned to walk ; I will be ten times more when David walks because I know how much harder it is for him. In many areas David's potential is less than others; but that is balanced by his potential to experience and give joy to others in simple ways.

This got me to thinking about how God looks at us, his children. He gives us different gifts and combinations of gifts, he gives us different experiences, and different abilities. One person's potential to learn Bible stories, understand Greek, etc., is different than another's potential to feel God's presence. Neither is invalid, it is different. As humans it is in our nature to try to compare ourselves to others and the easiest things to compare are the tangibles.

How great that God looks at the intangibles (though He created us so all things are tangible to Him) and sees us as we truly are (through the good and bad he sees us as He created us - Good)!

For all of us, just as earthly parents, God expects us to live up to the potential he created in us!

(OK, tangent on physics and energy - potential energy is only useful when it is converted into kinetic energy (motion / work))

Slugbug!

You may have made it several years as a kid before you were introduced to the game "Slugbug!" (or some call it "Punchbug"). If you're not familiar, this is a game where your brothers / cousins / friends, while passengers in the same vehicle, look for VW beetles.
The prize for being the first to spot the car is the pleasure of slugging your competitor in the shoulder. Hard.

This game became more difficult to play in the 90's prior to the release of the new beetle. And to think that if the new beetle didn't come out the game may have died along with it.

Before the game you didn't see any of these VW bugs. Anywhere. Or at least not as many. Once the game started, they were everywhere. So if you were lucky enough to spot it first, you got to be the puncher. If you were slow, well your shoulder reminded how many VW beetles were on the road that day.

And just because you didn't see them before doesn't mean that the cars weren't on the road; you just didn't see them.

The same could be said for God's presence in the world. Once you start looking for it you will see it. And just because you didn't see it before doesn't mean it wasn't always there.

I wonder sometimes what our adopted kid's slugbugs are - what are those things that she is pre-conditioned to look for; anger, violence, yelling, arguing, physical abuse. No matter how far away she is from the game she has the sore shoulder to continually remind her that slugbugs are out there. Even though they don't make those cars where she lives now. Maybe over time she will stop looking and the ache will go away.