Being Real

I will just come clean right now.

 

I cannot do it again.

Rob and I crossed the ocean eight times and brought home three treasures. We waded through mountains of paperwork, prayed a zillion prayers, wrote a ton of checks, lost thousands of hours of sleep, worried and cried and longed and hoped. And that was just getting them home.

The last nine years have been a wild ride and we wouldn't change a thing (except for maybe more sleep, less stress, less medical, less seizures and more date nights).

But I can't do it again.

We have our hands full.

Too full.

We look at each other sometimes realizing that we honestly are a bit in over our heads. Okay. Most days we are drowning.

I won't lie.

Having two physically disabled 15 year old sons who lived in a world of trauma has been challenging enough, but Mary's seizures and subsequent behavior that goes with that have upended our world in a way we never thought possible.

On Tuesday morning she scared us terribly as she was laying on her stomach in my bed seizing. Faceplanted. If we hadn't been there.... I can't even.....

The constant vigilance is 24/7 with her.

I'm exhausted most days.

I am hanging by a tether on the rest of the days.

Between teaching and writing full time for our curriculum (BiblioPlan for those who homeschool) and trying to maintain a house and being mom and other responsibilities that call our name - we just know that we can't adopt again.

So when I see a little boy wearing pink clothes, laying in a crib so desperate for a Mama, I grieve differently than I did a few years ago.

A few years ago the possibility of adoption inspired me to yell with the whispered knowledge in the background that maybe maybe I could be the one to claim him or her as my own.

It's different yelling this time.

It's different because for now and possibly forever, the door is closed for us.

It's different because I truly know the cost.

It's different because weariness means I don't yell as loudly or as effectively.

It's different because now more than ever I know that adoption is too often not bells and roses and rainbows and gingerbread cookies.

But I'm still yelling.

Conrad was listed on Reece's Rainbow a year ago - December 2018 - and in that time a sweet person or two donated $55.00 in his grant account. I wish I could hug them. They cared. They didn't look at the price tag of adoption - 24,000-30,000 - and say that their tiny bit wouldn't make a difference so why bother. They gave their little with faith believing that their little mattered.

Back in the summer someone sent me Conrad's picture. They cared enough to share him with me. 

Those were Conrad's Warriors. Simple people taking simple steps to advocate for a lonely little boy in a crib.

People quietly yelling in their own way for an abandoned babe.

When I was sent Conrad's picture I looked at his sweet face and his little arm that looks so much like Aaron's and the silly little pink girlie socks on his tiny little probably clubbed feet, and I said right then and there that he would be my Angel Tree boy.

I can't have him.

I cannot have Conrad. He's not mine to claim.

But he does belong to someone.

Someone reading this.

Someone who has looked around their table.

Someone willing to cross oceans, climb mountains and most of all love a little unloved boy.

His Mama is out there.  His Papa just doesn't know yet he belongs to him.

So I pray. And I shout. And I hope that someone is listening. Because the Holy Spirit sometimes just whispers quietly. And we have to stop focusing on the storms and winds and earthquakes in our lives and instead listen to the voice.

Listen.

Conrad needs you Mama. Papa.

Listen.

And for the rest of us... help me raise the funds that his Mama and Papa will need to get him home.

The goal is $1,000.

The real goal is a family.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO CONRAD