Blogging: My Conflicting Desires

Me, astonished, at Sugarmonkey's amazing snowman that he made at his Grammy and Grandpa's house.

I struggle with blogging.  I want to write.  I feel like I'm called to write and have a desire to write.  I want to share my experiences as an adoptive parent because I feel like it's God ordained, and I want to be of some bit of help or service to others out there who may be walking similar roads as our family.  Yet the nature of our home lends me towards privacy.  Sometimes, the reactions of others towards our home makes me not only want to be private, but even secretive.  I won't lie to you when I tell you that I watch with envy sweet mamas with ideas as fun as ones I have enjoying sweet, lasting memories with their loved ones.  Our family spends lots of time trying.  We should call that the title of our book.  Trying: the art of loving those fearful of love.  

Honestly, I probably was never cut out to be an adoptive parent.  

I've never been one of those glass half-full people.  I always had an eye for weighty topics and concerns.  I asked my sister when I graduated college if she'd call all my college friends to let them know if I died one day, and she thought I was morbid.  I didn't mean to be morbid.  But I was more of a person who loved to read books and talk politics, than I was a person who shopped at chatted it up about cute boys and expensive flip flops.  

-- I didn't look down on those light-hearted folks.  I was generally too poor for the flip-flops, too self-conscious for the cute boys, and had my head somewhere else.  

In church, I would pray to God that he would make my heart after His heart.  I was cry during worship songs, asking God to take me where He would have me to go.  I just wanted God to fix me, and make me like these lovely, beautiful kind Christian gals that walked around college and spoke in gentle, hushed voices and always seemed to have southern grace flowing that I confused with Christian grace.  I wanted to be that.  (probably still do, honestly).

And then I met my darling husband.  And then we chose adoption.  And then our boys came home and our reality wasn't like the movie and the pictures of other adoptions.  Our boys struggled.  HARD.  

#rad

#anxiety

#ocd

#bipolar

#depression

So here we are 6 years and a little girl later.  And I feel like God is telling me that our stories and our lessons -- the ones darling husband and I have been learning for all this time are meant to be shared.  But I struggle with how to tell it.  At the end of the day, it's still our family.  It's our little guys who don't struggle because they are bad.  They struggle because they struggle.  And their struggle causes hubby and I to struggle.  (and the dog to struggle).  So please be patient and know this is our backdrop.  

God was never one that worried about our self-preservations, but He is ever concerned about our obedience.  I learn this anew all the time.