Another woman's words

The waiting is getting unbearable. I seem to be struggling to even be myself anymore. I feel as though my personality has changed. I am way more blunt than I have ever been before. My work is suffering as I can't seem to be detailed anymore. My head feels blank but yet can't accomplish tasks that used to be so easy for me just months ago.

Today I read this blog post http://redemptionwhispers.blogspot.com/2013/06/letters-to-home.html

It is a long post, you should probably read the whole thing...but here is the dark excerpt that I found moving. I am sorry if the truth is hard for you to take....it is hard for me to take that is why we are adopting. It is not because we are saints, my husband and I aren't some super noble people. We are people that believe in Jesus, who believe in HIS love, HIS strength and HIS acceptance. When we found out about these situations, we HAD to act.

From the post:
"Finally, I have debated and prayed over and over again whether to share a few of the emails I sent just to Handsome, but I think that they are very important to the whole picture....they are very raw and emotional:


So many things rattling in the brain. I wish we could just sit and talk things thru together. Wish you were here to see things first hand and give your perspective. I am sure that some things seem overly dramatic or exaggerated, but in reality, they are much worse. I just can't find the words to paint an accurate picture.

I feel like I am losing part of my humanity - the shock and horror just become part of the day. We sit and eat while a "little" boy(in reality probably 16 or so) screams this terrible scream like demons are crawling in his soul. He bats his hands and screams at things no one else can see. NONE of theses kids original needs were so bad that they should now be as they are - it is the result of the horrors of institutional life. Another is curled up in a wheelchair with his body contorted permanently into an odd position. He cannot really eat, so they just force his mouth open and pour it down as he gags. There is no other way to feed him at this point. It could have been so different.

Before I had the courage to interact with {the blind girl}, I asked Mr. A if he thought being in a family now, after so many years would help her. (I am horrified now that we had this "polite" intellectual conversation about a soul! A child as important as each of our own!). He shrugs his shoulders and says no. That maybe if someone had gotten her when she was little...later, as I touched her and hugged her, I realized that I had lost the heart of the matter. It didn't matter if a family changed her, it only mattered that she should be loved and cherished, regardless of her needs or progress.

I am sure to survive emotionally in the special needs orphan arena, there has to be some manner of detachment - but I don't want that! I don't ever want the horror to lessen - but it already has. I think it takes that horror being fresh to keep from categorizing people into the "should be saved" and the "not worth the effort" - which is really saying they are trash to be thrown away. That is how they end up forgotten at the end of a dusty road like this.

I feel completely torn in half. On one side I think, "we can only do so much" and we have to take care of the kids we have. That we can't save them all and are already carrying a heavy load. That I need to focus on the ones we have. But then I see these children, knowing that they are only a drop of an eye dropper in an ocean full of need. That each of their lives is just as precious as mine. That I can save one more child from a life of literal hell....and I remember that God will provide for everything we need. That He loved each of us to send His very own Son to die a horrific death on our behalf. Do I choose to sacrifice my life for them or keep it safe and help a little. We have jumped off so many cliffs by faith...but how high of a cliff am I willing to jump off of? Do I trust Him to protect all my children at home as we leap or is it my job too to keep them safe? To not push them too far. I know what my American Christian culture would say. I hear their voices whispering to my heart with tantalizing arguments as to why I should walk away....oh, how easy it would be to just walk away. To not feel the horror or despair or urgency...to just walk away, brushing it off my soul like mud that has caked on.

But I know that not a single one of those voices has sat here in the heat watching children scream in torment or lie in their vomit because no one wants to clean it up, or only be blind but be a complete invalid because no one took the time to teach her. I cannot be any angrier at the workers here than I can be at each of the comfortable Christians in the US. They are all casting the same judgement on each of this lives...that they are not worthy of the time, money, sacrifice, or cup of cold water to ease their sufferings. That 401ks and vacations and spoiled kids and the worry (or more politely the "planning" for the future) are sooo much more important than a little blind girl that continually asks for her "Baba" - grandmother to come get her.

Have to go....pray that we hear God's voice loud and clear over all the worthless "noise".\

That evening:


After all my fine words to you in the last email, tonight I am swinging the other way. I am too tired and hot. Tonight, I just want to bring my daughters home, close our gate and forget there is a world beyond our little family. I don't want to smell any more smells, see any more vomit, hear any more hellish shrieks, see any more vacant eyes full of sorrow beyond imagining. Tonight, I just want to be selfish and give up what seems to be an impossible task - to shine God 's light in the darkest places."
END OF EXERPT

I think I have been feeling this way lately. I have lost the drive to explain the conditions of my son's orphanage, of the truth of the plight of special needs orphans in eastern european institutions...I just want my son home. My messages have been all about our process, about when we might get our son home. Perhaps it is because I don't feel like I can take anymore....I can't think about the hundreds I leave behind at his orphanage, the thousands in his country or the millions in the world. I am saving one star fish....and it is NOT ENOUGH.

Pray for us. This is hard. But I want you to know...that if you are moved by the plight of these abandoned, neglected and abused orphans....you could do it too. Give up the dream house and the boat and rescue a child from starvation and abuse. Good night.