Happy Birthday to Huckleberry!

My itty bitty baby boy, Huckleberry, is now 11.  I cannot believe it.

 How do they grow up so fast?

 We had lots of food, family, and friends--actually 1 friend.

The matching number of presents with lots of helpers.

We bought him binoculars per his request and to go with his "Invention" themed party.  People tried to answer the questions on his Inventor's Quiz (he made it himself.)

We also had cake.  Red Velvet bought from Costco.  Do you know how less stressful a party is for me when we buy a cake?  I associate decorating a cake with love, but I sure love skipping that part and my son!

 Eleven candles!  Are we certain?  I think we counted wrong somewhere, but he wasn't buying it.  Be sure to catch the smoke!

Mostly the kids just played and played and we heard a lot of thumping from upstairs.  It was a welcome relief when they went outside to play.  (Though the other adults made me shut the door before I could take too many pictures from the doorway.)

I didn't want to put my shoes on.

Happy Birthday, my darling son!

To Judge Does Not Mean To Hate--a sermon

Judgment does not equal hate.  God loves everyone and He expects His children to do so also.

One reason I have been thinking about this recently is because I am realizing how delicate internet conversations are.  When we only see one dimension of a person it is easy to be a little more critical of them or misunderstand what they are trying to say.  It is not helped that we are not always careful in what we say and how we say it.  Often we use words that are not exactly what we mean.  Sometimes that is because we don't understand that we are using the wrong word.

Let me be more clear.   I have been involved in a few conversations in the last few months about sin.  The conversation is usually at some point shut down with the phrase "we should not judge."  Occasionally the conversation goes on about maybe we are to judge in certain situations, etc.  But the original question of "is this a sin" and if it is "what do we do" is buried in defending our right to judge sin at all.  Now I realize many Christians actually think we are not to judge, but before you judge me for judging, I promise to get into the scriptures on this later, but it is not my current point.  When someone shuts down a conversation with "we should not judge" I actually believe the intent of their comment is "we should love!"  Judgment is so closely associated with being hateful that even Christians use the words interchangeably.  "We should not hate" becomes "we should not judge" and "you are judging inappropriately here" becomes "you are showing hate."

As usual we put ourselves in two camps--those who believes it is okay to judge and those who think it is not okay--and we judge each other for being in their camp.  As usual the answer is a lot more complicated.  We cannot judge the heart.  Only One knows the heart (1 Corinthians 4:4-6).  We are not to judge the gray areas (Romans 14).  We are not to judge the world (I Corinthians 5:9-13) or at least not at this time (1 Corinthians 6:1-4).  Then there are many passages that just say: "Do not judge" (Matthew 7:1-3, Luke 6:36-38, and James 4:10-12).  So what does that leave us judging?  "Do you not judge those who are within the church?" 1 Corinthians 5.  

But again we get into trouble because we still define the word judge poorly.  Perhaps we really do believe it means hate or more kindly--criticize and find wanting.  But the Greek lexicon on the word judge in 1 Corinthians 5:12 says:

1. to separate, put asunder, to pick out, select, choose
2. to approve, esteem, to prefer
3. to be of opinion, deem, think, to be of opinion
4. to determine, resolve, decree
5. to judge
6. to pronounce an opinion concerning right and wrong
7. to be judged, i.e. summoned to trial that one's case may be examined and judgment passed upon it
8. to pronounce judgment, to subject to censure
9. of those who act the part of judges or arbiters in matters of common life, or pass judgment on the deeds and words of others
10. to rule, govern
11. to preside over with the power of giving judicial decisions, because it was the prerogative of kings and rulers to pass judgment
12. to contend together, of warriors and combatants
13. to dispute
14. in a forensic sense
15. to go to law, have suit at law

15 different things.  Not one of them is hate, criticize, or find wanting.  But we are called to pronounce an opinion concerning right and wrong.  We are to read the Bible and determine what is sin (a whole lot more things than we usually "judge" others on).  If we see a brother or sister in Christ sinning, the Bible gives us nice clear instructions.  "Go and show him his fault in private" (Matthew 18:15-17).  "Do not regard him as an enemy" (2 Thessalonians 3:6-15).  Instead "restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness" (Galatians 6:1-5). (For the really curious here are some more cross references.)

But is this what we see played out?  Sometimes, certainly.  But the church as a whole has a reputation for judging and a judging that means hating.  I am not just talking about the truly hateful acts like bombing abortion clinics, protesting funerals, and holding signs in public that say "God hates homosexuals" or "God hates anyone" for that matter.  There is also the gossip about the divorced mom, the refusal to shake a hand because he has a boyfriend, and the seeking out the better dressed or more attractive person after service.  These are played out in churches all across the country in main stream Christianity.  We sneer at the word "tolerance" but do we really want to be the "intolerant?"

Yesterday in my Bible Study a woman was talking about how she felt homosexual marriage was wrong and her friend had responded with "but God loves everyone."  Another woman immediately piped up with "that is a lie straight from the devil" and continued on with how we are to shake the dust off our feet like the apostles did. The first woman responded with "God does love everyone, but He does discipline sin."  My teacher clarified further so I think most of the group went away knowing that God does love everyone--even those who are far from Him and will never choose Him (not defining homosexuals as such, just saying EVERYONE (Romans 5:6-10)).  But I do not think this woman's attitude was unusual.  Often we say "hate the sin not the sinner" but act as if we hate the sinner.

As we get farther from Christ's resurrection and closer to His return, the world is only going to get further from the morality of the Bible (Romans 1:18-32).  It will be all that more important that we stand firm (Philippians 1:26-28) and shine as a light in the darkness (Romans 2:18-20).  Maybe your church is does this very well.  I actually feel happy to be a part of my church as we strive to love our community even given this lady's comment.  But I think the world as a whole is seeing churches as a place that condemns the world's sin and is really, really good at their sin of choice--hate.  God is love (1 John 4:7-8).  The original church in Acts grew because what they had was something others wanted.  Don't worry, they dealt with sin (Acts 5:1-11) but for the most part they just followed Paul's advice:

 ^"Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

 Let all that you do be done in love."

                                                         1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Is this not a worthy goal for us all?

Not Useless Photos

Yesterday I took the kids outside so I could take pictures. 

I thought it was a great day to try out my "kid's vibrant color" setting on my camera since Sunflower had chosen this outfit for the day.  (Her undies are blue and her socks are yellow).


If I was planning to hide my children's faces on my blog this is the picture I would have picked to share with you:

After I was done the kids stayed outside another hour to play.  Since they were outside I had to stay in the back of the house so I spent the time doing dishes and folding laundry.  Good deal all around.  We have now had two extra play times outside and a trip to the zoo all because we bought a camera.  Who would have thought a camera could improve your life and not just your memories?

Loss--Again. I am sorry.

It has happened again.  Every time I post something I think is deep and profound, two things happen.  I remember the eight other things I meant to say and I read a post on the same topic only it is deeper and more profound.

Usually I just suck it up and accept that others write better than I do.  I've known this for a long time; ever since my professors in college told me I had a casual writing style and steered me to creative writing.  Personally, I think I would write better and have a better chance of realizing my now-not-so-secret dream of being on Sunday Linkage if I used a smaller font.  However, my husband won't read my blog if my font is smaller and I cannot bear to lose even one reader.

But this time I really want to link you to the more profound post on loss.  I really do feel like my post is a bad plagiarism of hers, but I promise I did not see hers until after I had posted.  If you want to hear how one adult adoptee feels about loss, this is a good post to read.  She also gets into the universal stages of grief which is one of the 8 things I forgot to mention.

 I Cannot Deny It at The adopted ones blog by shadowtheadoptee.

The other most important things I left out are:

Adoption loss is not the only loss that is ignored and dismissed.  As a society we do not take the time to grieve, and we do not always give sympathy where we should.  However, while everyone experiences insensitive comments at times, it is a consistent, persistent problem for adoptees.

For my friends who have lost their mothers more recently than I, the grief is less intense as time passes.  When you get to the stage of acceptance you don't forget your mother and stop feeling sad about all the could have beens.  Instead, the sadness over your loss becomes like a comfortable blanket.  You start to recognize it for what it is and personally I find it comforting.  It says my mother mattered to me and I will not forget her.  It gives me hope that I matter to my daughter.  It shows me the importance of connections between humans, and I find that beautiful.  I don't know how it applies if your relationship was more painful and complicated, but I want everyone to know there is hope.

And speaking of hope, I do believe God can heal and will comfort anyone who seeks it from Him.  Sometimes we have scars that will not be completely healed on this side of Heaven, but God knows and He cares.
 

Cedar's New Blog

Okay, I am now completely insane.  I decided that since I have a full 11 readers now I should expand and create another blog.  

It is Cedar's Photography Blog--yes, I have expanded into more creativity with naming things, also.  

Here is the real problem I am trying to solve.  According to The Life Cycle of the China Adoption Blog my blog should not morph into a photo blog until I am actually home from China.  However, that is a long way away...probably.  In the meantime I really want to prove (to myself) that our camera splurge was not a waste.  I do not want to dilute this blog with hundreds and hundreds of useless photos while improving my photo skills.  So...

I have created a new blog to dilute.  I will still use photos here, but only as they pertain to the story I am trying to tell and to document our life.  Over there I can explore and participate in photo challenges.  I did my first challenge today.  I don't really expect to win any challenges, but I like the idea of participating so I can learn from others and get ideas to try.  I seriously can only take so many pictures of Sunflower as cute as she is.

So feel free to visit me over there or not.  However, if you do, I think I'll count you as two readers--one here and one there.  Super exciting to my inflated and easily deceived ego!

Loss, Loss, Loss, and Adoption

You cannot be part of the adoption community for very long before you hear about loss and how it applies to adoption.  It is in every book that discusses adoption.  "Your child will have experienced a great loss, great trauma, sometimes more than once so..."  This is progress since adoption starting with a loss use to be never acknowledged.  However, we really are not where we need to be yet.

For one thing, although the books talk about loss as if it is a given, I haven't found a lot of information on what to do with it. The broad topic books cannot give enough advice and I have yet to find a book specific to grief and loss in adoption*.  On the other hand, I can find books with other similarly narrow fields--transracial adoption, older children adoption, and attachment to name a few. 

Perhaps that is the issue.  Perhaps authors feel the generic books out about loss and grief can apply to adoption loss.  Or perhaps they feel everyone's grief is so varied that there is no way to write a book to help adoptive parents and their adopted children.  Or perhaps, as some adult adoptees claim, we still don't truly get it.

I say, I kind of agree.  Certainly many families who are home** with their child and have come smack up against their child's grief get it.  Even if the only advice they heed on how to help their child with grief was to listen, acknowledge, and not become defensive and shut-down the conversation, it should help.  However, as a pre-adoptive parent, I'm not there yet.  So I have been thinking and reading and trying to figure things out; and I have come to a few conclusions.

One is that as a society we tend to treat loss as a one time event that eventually we can get over.  I'm sorry, but that isn't how it works.  I was going to say the loss itself only occurs once while the grief is on-going, but I don't believe that is even true.  

I lost my mother 23 years ago yesterday.  Yes, her death was a one time event (though if God had raised her from the dead like I asked Him, I might have lost her twice).  However, at age 15, I lost my mom.  At my graduation from college, I lost my mom's congratulations.  At my wedding I lost my chance to plan my wedding with my mom and to hear her advice on being a wife.  At the birth of my children I lost her presence and help.  And so on and so on.

For a person who is adopted her loss is also on-going and repeated.  She has also lost all of the same things I have and this is ignoring the additional losses of culture and language which occurs in International adoption plus the loss of the rest of her family and heritage.  A gain of something good does not replace the loss, my SnapDragon's opinion not-withstanding.  I am not saying that all adoptees feel pain at these losses (this is just as serious a transgression as saying they all don't) nor do I claim to know what level of grief any specific person feels.

However, here is the thing.  If I say I am sad that my mom died noone, seriously noone, says "but that was 23 years ago" or "but then you wouldn't have had your step-mother" or "would you have rather she was ill and miserable."  Every single person says, "I'm sorry."

If an adopted person says they are sad not to have/know the mom who gave them birth they may hear "I'm sorry."  They may also hear "what does that matter now that you are an adult" or "but don't you like your adopted family?" or "would you rather have been raised by her and been poor or possibly abused?" (I find this last one in particular poor taste since I know children who are poor and happy to be with their parents and I know children who have been removed from their parents due to abuse and they just want their mom!)

These are just some of the ways an adoptee's grief can be treated as invalid, but you get the idea.  Yes, I may comfort myself that although I lost my mother, I gained a very nice step-mother (whom I have now also lost), but no one would dare step on my grief in that way.  They may not understand my grief, but they respect it.  If a friend loses a pet, I say "I'm sorry for your loss" because while I cannot understand being attached to an animal, I respect their grief.

Adoptees do not receive the same respect.  They just do not.  Times are changing and the current generation of adoptees are being raised by parents who were told to acknowledge their child's loss and listen.  I have read many blog posts proving that many families are doing just that.  However, society still swallows whole the idea that adoption is solely positive and "what loss?"

Do I think that when one says, "I'm adopted" the polite response should become "I'm sorry for your loss?"  No.  That would also be presumptuous.  Instead of making any assumptions perhaps the politely social response should be "how do you feel about that?"  Maybe.  But certainly if someone says, "I am sad that I do not know who on my side of the family my new baby girl looks like" it would be appropriate to say "I'm sorry for your loss" or something else that acknowledges the pain.

The general public are not the only ones at fault.  Many adoptive parents dismiss what adult adoptees say and some do still believe that loss is a one time event that is fixed with the adoption and forever okay after the initial intense grief fades away.  Certainly no one I know, but I've read enough discussions to believe this to be the case.  I spend time pondering on this because it seems obvious to me that if a loss has occurred the grief can reappear at any time and in any context forever.  No one expects me to "be over" the loss of my mom.

Again, I have some speculations as to why this may be.  First, when we start to argue with an adult adoptee that "our daughter won't feel that way" or "people can be happy even if they suffered loss" we are not trying to dismiss their pain.  We are trying to defend our decision to adopt.  Let's face it, some adult adoptees reach the conclusion that because their pain is so intense and ignored, adoption itself is a horrible thing to do*** no matter what.  As a parent planning to add to our family through adoption I must shout you down or I might have to grieve the loss of a child--and it will be a loss.  While I have come to my own conclusions that adoption is an imperfect solution to a "gaping wound" (Thanks, Tonggu Momma), I have a lot of empathy for the defensive position. 

Secondly, parents, and adoptive parents especially, want to believe there is a way to raise perfect children--not tiger perfect--but happy, healthy, socially contributing citizens who will follow our beliefs.    While every child can become a fully functioning, loving and content adult, it will not be because nothing went wrong in her past.  We will do things wrong in our parenting because at minimum the odds are against us.  Not a single one of us was raised by a perfect parent, yet we believe we can do it.  

Acknowledging that the losses that occur before and during adoption may impact our child's heart for her entire life puts us in the position of having to admit there are some things we cannot fix.  We want a book that says if you do x, y, and z then by day 27 your daughter will be healed from all pain never to experience pain again--if you are particularly slow it will take 53 days.  We know intellectually this is not possible. But don't we wish it were.

That isn't to say I believe that because the losses an adopted child suffers are so great she cannot have a life of joy, of purpose, and of love.  Even though my mother died and just last week I cried for her (after a particularly hectic day with Sunflower), I am not dissatisfied with my life.  I don't think anyone would describe me as a chipper person, but I am who I am and people like me, darn it!  I like me.  In the day to day I am more concerned for my friends who are looking for jobs or struggling in their marriages.  My grief is ever present but it is not always at the forefront of my life--most days it is wrapped in a neat box and shoved under the couch.  But you know what, the wound in my heart is soothed a little more every time someone says to me "it must have been hard to lose your mother at 15."

You know, yes, yes it was.

So to all the adult adoptees who feel loss, to my friend's children who were adopted, to my eventual daughter:

I am sorry for your losses.

 "You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
   you have loosed my sackcloth
   and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.
   O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever!"

Psalm 30:11-12

* I have not yet read "Primal Wound" but my understanding is that it is a book that shouts adoptees suffer loss (specifically loss of first mother) but not about how to cope with the grief (please forgive me if I am wrong).
**home--I've thought about it and I do not feel that claiming a child is home in any way dismisses all previous homes in a child's life.  My home is here with my husband, but growing up home was with my parents.  I want to be sensitive to people's feelings, but I cannot find another natural way of expressing the same concept.
***I am not speaking about the need for family preservation, ethical reform, and adoptee rights--just the blanket statement that adoption should never, ever occur.

Laughing Again or At Least I am

My Sunflower has started calling me "My Mommy."  "My Mommy come here."  "My Mommy, I watch Dora?"

I found it very puzzling.  But this week I figured out why.  When I picked her up from child care at Bible Study she waved to her teachers (one a grandma and one a high school student) and said: 

"Bye-bye, two mommies."

I guess when you classify all grown-up women as being mommy it is good to clarify that this one is My Mommy.

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Last week we found a cordless phone dropped by our mail box.  The battery is low, so we don't know how to contact the owner.  My husband put it in a plastic bag with some dry-z-air and set it on top of our mailbox.  So far no one has claimed it.

Today SnapDragon had an idea of what to do about it.

"Why don't you turn it into the lost and found?"

"There is no global lost and found, honey."

"Then why is there some buildings that say lost and found on them?"

This had us stumped for a bit until he remembered he saw the building at the zoo.  The zoo being 25 minutes away from here probably means it isn't the best place to turn in our little lost phone.