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.
