The Difference A Year Can Make
Reflections on adoption, motherhood, growth, and other things this year has held
I'm writing on the morning of December 29. It's Friday, but it could be any day for all I know. That week between Christmas and New Year's has a way of becoming a vortex. If done right, at least in my opinion, it's a time to linger longer in all the places, starting with bed. In fact, this morning, we all rolled out of bed after 8 am, a massive feat with a seven-year-old and a two-year-old. We stumbled into them sharing a room, and on mornings, they wake up before us, or we just want to cash in on a little more sleep; our two-year-old crawls into his sister's bed, and they play. You can hear the sound as you step out of our room. The sound is sweet, culminating in a year I have attempted to wrap my head around in this letter. I've written it over the course of this month, mainly because, as life has been this year, my days and my mind have been fragmented. Also, it has just taken time to wrap my head around 2023. I still can't believe I'm talking about having two kids. The difference a year can make.
We will call this a Christmas card. A 2023 wrap-up. A little bit of hope for the coming year. As all good Christmas cards do, I give to you a photo of us.
December 1st, 2023
We just returned home from a trip to the beach. We have been lucky enough to be able to go there for the past four years around our daughter's birthday. She has become quite sentimental about it. She's a sentimental girl, it turns out. She keeps sweet memories close to her, hoping to recreate them the following year. Now is not the time to teach her about radical acceptance and how idealism can ruin what is happening right before you. It's not the time for her, but it has been a theme for my year, no doubt.
The first year we went to the beach, she turned three. I can remember her vividly on that trip. Her personality was emerging, and I've got the photos to prove it. She's still making some of the same faces she did back then. I've been looking back at photos, as I always do around this time of the year. I'm grateful for digital timestamps.
On Waiting
Seven years ago, on her birthday, we had no idea she had been born. We drove off from visiting my in-laws post-Thanksgiving, heading south towards our Nashville home. I snapped a photo of a scene and posted it to Instagram. My caption was short, "Peaceful Scene driving out this morning."
What I didn't say in the photo was how I glanced at that scene through tears. How the culmination of hoping for children for so many years, how the process of compiling mounds of paperwork, sifting through your heart for motivations, and making sure you are ready to give your child all the things they will need, and learning about trauma and the brain, and how not to say the wrong thing, and how to properly expose them to their culture to ensure they will understand their identity, and, and. Those tears were a product of longing, learning, and wanting to do right by this child that we would one day learn of.
That day came just four days after our drive home. It turned out, as those tears were streaming down my face, that the baby who would soon become our daughter made her entrance into this world. Four days later, on a Thursday evening, we found out. The agency had called Chad to let him know the news. They wanted him to be able to surprise me, and that he did. The plan was to go to his work Christmas party that evening. I had taken a nap, only to wake up to him coming through the door much earlier than expected. In the haze of my just waking, he handed me a bag, in it some pink colored clothes and a card that said a bunch of things, but what stood out the most was, "You're going to be a mom." I was dazed, confused, shocked, and, for a moment, completely paralyzed.
Before I knew it, we were frantically packing to catch a plane. Instead of attending a Christmas party that night, we were on a plane headed to Phoenix to meet our daughter. We made a few calls to tell our loved ones the news, schlepped through the airport, hearts beating fast with anticipation and hurry, dragging a car seat and a stroller, and made our way out west. Our daughter was placed in our arms the next day, and so began our journey of raising children whose stories began before they were with us.
Something felt particularly poignant that time of year. We were entering the season of Advent, after all. As Christians, we know this time to be one of waiting with anticipation of the birth of Jesus. Ah, yes, waiting. Something I knew a thing or two about, and my guess is you do, too. Right now, there are a few significant things I am waiting on. Not so much the thing I hope to unwrap under the tree, although there is nothing wrong in my mind with child-like anticipation, but more waiting on things that have been prayed for, labored over, and yet still seem out of sight.
I can remember the particular ache of waiting on a child. Years of infertility with no real answers, baby shower after baby shower of shoving my aching heart down as I crossed the threshold of another new life celebration, holding the kind of lump in your throat tension that this kind of waiting brings. This waiting we were doing on our first child held an entirely different type of tension. The sort of tension where she has a mother who is birthing her, holding her own ache in knowing what is to come. The wondering of what that relationship will look like, if there will be one, or how that will evolve over the years. The wanting to do justice to the entirety of her life, honoring her particular culture and family and also doing the work of attachment and all the other millions of things that mothers do.
On Mothering
I have no practical advice on mothering. How could I? My kids are not yet grown, and I am smack dab in the thick of helping to shape them. I'll let them speak for my mothering one day. It's a terrifying thought if you ask me. Lord willing, I will have put tens of thousands of hours into this thing called mothering. Yet, one day, we will send them off, and no matter how much I cared, how I have evolved in my ways (hopefully more in the direction for the better), how good of a job I have done, or how many times I apologize for the times I screw up, it will still be up to them as to how they feel about me. Mothering is laying down massive portions of your life to service, holding little hearts as they slowly become more independent, finding new capacities as needs arise, and not staying married to outcomes. It's this thing where everything seems to be on the line at all times.
Mothering is mostly caring deeply and acting out of that care. My advice when people ask about parenting is this. You were given your children for a reason, and you know them better than anybody else. Mothering is acting from that place most of the time, and asking for help when needed. I ask for help, by the way, but I seldom pay attention to anything unsolicited. I've had a few instances where people have said things to me in regards to my mothering that have been deeply wounding. Most of mothering is hidden—especially how we carry and absorb the world around us, not only for ourselves but for our children too. We do this, often tired—physically tired and tired in the soul. Many days are spent underslept and overstimulated. You'll lose it in moments; some days will feel so very hard that they will bring you to your knees. It's true for you and for every mother you see. Let's choose our words carefully as we care for one another.
On Renovating
As I write to you, nearing the end of another year, my mind immediately returns to last year. I strongly sensed that we would be adding a child to our home. It was New Year's Eve of 2021; as I was reading through Isaiah, a well-known verse jumped out to me. Isaiah 43:19 says this, "Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." This verse is often quoted in the new year, but it hit me in a way that is hard to describe. It was almost as if it was giving me instructions to prepare, but for what? What became increasingly clear was that I was to make room for more. More room, literally and more room figuratively. I'll write more about this one day, but I'll say this for now. I spent 2022 and much of this year in a season of a dark night to the soul, a winter season. Any way you say it, it was a time that felt heavy and much like a sharp scalpel was carving through scar tissue to get back to the original wounds. I couldn't quite explain it, but there was a sense of urgency to face the dark night with a new level of honesty. I knew that making room for more would require the removal of debris that was covering the path.
Around the fourth quarter of 2022, I began to lose hope. I was beginning to think that I had heard wrong. As we made our way into December, I had all but given up hope. We had a friend over one night, and he spoke some words over us—they went something like this. He sensed we needed to hold onto this Christmas for a particular reason. It would be more about family than anything—how Christmas should be. I got the strong sense he knew something was coming, too. He said a few other things, but it was the first time in a while that a sense of hope had been stirred inside me. Not one based on outcomes, but one that let me know that this year of renovating had not been in vain.
On Adoption
What I could have never planned this time last year was that in just shy of two months, we would have a boy who would soon become our son in our home. His story is entirely different than that of our daughter. Another story that began before he was placed in our lives. Another one to carry with care, another to honor what I will never fully understand. These are the complex, extra dances you must learn as an adoptive parent. I care deeply about the many rings that surround both motherhood and adoption. There are, and will always be, extra things to consider in light of our children's stories.
Similar to mothering, you won't see me telling you how to do this adoptive parenting thing right. There are people out there who do a great job of providing lists of what to say and what not to, how to expose your children of other races to their culture, and how not to act like a savior. I've learned a lot from those voices. I adhere to the same thing here. Our children were placed with us, and it is our job to care deeply, to act from that care, and to ask for help when we need it. This season, help has come in the form of a speech therapist, who has become our advocate. She has helped us understand much about the brain, how it is affected by the more challenging parts of our stories, and how it can ultimately heal. It has given us space to process the unique challenges that we face. It's a judgment-free zone where we are given tools, empathy, and encouragement. It's challenging work. It requires much, some days more than I have to offer. It is as hard as it is worth it, and I'd sign up for it all over again knowing what I know now.
The Difference A Year Can Make
As we inch closer to the end of the year, I can't help but think about the difference a year can make. Though we could have never anticipated what exactly was to come this time last year, we have embraced it; we have shown up, we have stumbled, we have cleared paths, and we have made room. It's been another renovation year, and though I can't speak for the rest of the family, while some of the rooms in my heart are being redecorated, others are smack dab in the middle of demolition. There's an invigorating feeling to taking a sledgehammer to a wall you've wanted to take down for years. The problem is, you're not quite sure what's behind the wall. Sure, now you can see from the kitchen to the living room, but you can't unsee the wires that have been crossed, or the faulty construction, or the nails that were missing. Maybe things were growing there that have been slowly but surely taking you down. Ah, but you can see.
December 24th, 2023
It's Christmas Eve, and all is quiet in our home. My mind wanders to the room upstairs, now shared by two. I reflect on the words from our friend. He must have had the same sense that last Christmas would be the last one with our family looking the way it did. I remember last year—still, one foot wading in the dark. I had more questions than answers, staring at exposed walls with no clear drawings of how we would rebuild. This year, I sit, tired from the labor of it all, yet for the first time in a very long time, I can see clearly the progress we have made. I sit grateful for how far we have come, yet still looking at how much there is to do. If nothing else, this year has shown me that we can, and that is enough.
December 29, 2023
Tomorrow, Chad and I will make our way downtown for the night. We will take our journals from this past year, a book or two, and an empty notebook to hold some hopes for the coming year. We will be taking ourselves—tired in the mind, body, and soul from a year that has asked of us much—individually and collectively. I gather that we may be spending more time looking back than usual. We will reflect on the new spaces we have built and hopefully draw up plans for the rest of what we hope to develop. I'm unsure what will come this time, but I hope we can find at least a little space to dream.
I think back to two years ago, to those words from Isaiah 43. "Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." A bridge of remembrance of the old Exodus and the promise of a new one. This year, we will remember how far we have come with the freedom to say how hard it has been. We will give credit to the One who has brought us here. And we will set our sights and hopes on the coming of a new exodus. A way in the wilderness. The best news? We can do that, even, and maybe especially, when we are still weary.
What a difference a year can make.
Goodness. I love this. Beautiful. Hard, and beautiful. All of it.
Singing…
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father
There is no shadow of turning with Thee
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be
Great is Thy faithfulness
Great is Thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me
Summer and winter and springtime and harvest
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love
Great is Thy faithfulness
Great is Thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me
Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow
Blessings all mine with 10, 000 beside
Great is Thy faithfulness
Great is Thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness
Great is Thy faithfulness
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me