I began to read back through this blog today and realized how much we have actually been through as a family. Gary and I have been married 12 years which some days feels like a lifetime. Other days, I wonder where we are headed and I wonder how much we really have accomplished. We began our marriage wanting children. We wanted at least two. It seems God has had other plans and this twelve years has seemed so long in the waiting. Now that we have Declan, we wonder where God will lead us. He has really been asking for a sibling a lot over the past year.
We made it public that we were looking into adopting again. We completed all of our paperwork last February and have been working with an agency. We had a private failed adoption a few months ago and our hearts were broken. Very soon after that, we talked to our agency and we were told they are not accepting anyone else that cannot afford at least $42,000 up front. After speaking to our social worker, this has become the norm with many agencies. It is a very sad reality.
Our agency presented a situation to us that we thought would work out for us, but we were also told we needed to travel the next day and we had to have the money available. We told our agency that was not feasible for us because of the costs. Although we haven't broken our contract with them, she has not sent any more situations to us since that conversation.
Before our trip to Hong Kong, we went to an orientation for foster care with Faithbridge. We felt good about them and we may still pursue Foster to Adopt, but we are in the waiting for God's direction and where He would have us put our efforts. We are trying to look forward.
But, always looking back has caused us (at least me) to lose a lot of my joy. We began fertility treatments in 2009 pretty soon after I had to begun to have some health issues (blacking out). The fertility treatments never worked, but we have Declan now who is a wonderful addition to our lives.
As a result of the treatments not working and my health not really improving, (severe flu when Declan was born, a bad wreck when Declan was 4 days old and Shingles when Declan was a year old) the last few years have been a search for a diagnosis and lots of money spent on treatments and alternative doctors. That money hasn't been totally wasted as I now have a lot of my health back and most of my symptoms are gone. I still have a lot of pain some days, but it is more manageable. I still also have bouts when I have anxiety attacks or when I have fatigue but that is also less now. And, I have a diagnosis (Hashimotos Thyroid Disease) which does help with treatments and food choices.
It was brought to my attention recently (God has a way of showing us things if we listen) that my life has lacked joy because I am always looking back at the past and focusing on what could've been or what was negative. I have also been looking to the future too far ahead and seeing what I want my future to look like. I know there are diseases and issues that God allows people to live with always without healing. But, I have felt a lot lately that my disease is one that can be healed if I began to have complete faith in what God can do. I spend a lot of my time being anxious and that exacerbates my symptoms.
God has been laying on my heart a lot lately through things I have read, Bible study and messages that I need to let go of a lot of things. My dad passing away in August brought to the surface a lot of hard things from my childhood and early adult life that I need to deal with. I realized that I have been holding on to a lot of anger. A lot of blame. A lot of fear. I am still dealing with the loss of my dad in the grieving process and it is very hard. But, I have realized I need some serious boundaries in my life in order to heal.
Our recent trip to Hong Kong was not at all what I thought it would be and even in a foreign country God was able to send His message home to me. One He had been trying to teach me for a long time.
This was my 4th trip. The first was soon after Gary and I were married and the cultural differences were hard especially being the new wife. The 2nd trip was great because we traveled to the site of the Olympics and climbed the Great Wall. I was also sick then and experiencing a lot of fatigue and anxiety so I had a lot of regrets that I was not able to function as well as I wanted to so I could enjoy this trip. There was a girl with our group who was in great shape and everyone raved about her. They just commented they were surprised I made it as far since I looked so ill! The 3rd trip was when Declan was 2 and traveling overseas gives a whole new meaning to the terrible 2s. It was a very stressful trip. So, with all of the history I had with traveling to Hong Kong and the fact we had moved to a new to us home in July and my dad passed in August the last thing I wanted to do was travel overseas. I had a ton of anxiety and I really really did not want to go. I would say I wasn't going, but I didn't want to send Declan overseas without me and I felt a lot of guilt at not being there for Gary with the marriage of his only brother.
So, my guilt won and I went on this trip with all the apprehension for what was to come. No joy at all about this trip. God had other plans.
This ended up being pretty long so I am going to do a second blog post on what God showed me in Hong Kong this trip.
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