Consider it pure joy...

Last night after dinner, I took our kids into the backyard to play while Dan cleaned up the kitchen. It's quite a production even getting our crew outside, but after a long day, my body ached and my soul was weary. I just needed to have some fun. 

So I wheeled Michael out, carried Charlie Joy to the trampoline, carried Lorelai to her swing and Max came tearing out wearing only a pair of basketball shorts. It was above 60 degrees, so we're going to enjoy the warmth, dang it.

In a family filled with kiddos who have various medical needs, it can be hard to find things we can all do together, but we quickly devised a game of seeing how far we could all kick a giant ball across the yard. Lorelai and Max tried from their swings, Michael tried from his wheelchair, and we all rolled with side splitting laughter as the ball flew all over creation --- over power lines, on top of the garage, once smacking Max's bare stomach with such force the sound made us all jump. We were overjoyed to just be having fun together laughing.

Five years ago today, I lost several friends who I thought would always be at my side, friends I thought were ride or die. We were in the process of adopting Michael and were knee deep in fundraising to bring him home. I was confronted publicly on Facebook about my abilities to care for him when I couldn't even pay for his adoption on my own. I was humiliated and hurt that these women I'd called my friends so many years didn't ask me privately or even try understand the nuance between affording adoption and affording to care for a child. Never did I imagine I'd lose friends when opening my heart to a child in desperate need of a family, but that day we severed communication. As painful as it was, I assumed it was a one-off.

Some time later, shortly after bringing another child home, we were struggling hard and we reached out for help. As we sat in our living room, pouring out our broken souls and hearts, our pastor said to us, "I think it was a mistake to adopt her, but it's done now..." Just a few weeks later, in the midst of great pain and confusion, despite our pleas to work together for solutions, we were asked to leave our church we'd called home for many years. 

Here we were again, heartbroken at the loss of our village because we said, "yes."

As I was playing this ridiculous game last night with my precious children, I thought about these words that came from others -- "mistake," "you shouldn't adopt children if you can't afford to pay the fees yourself," -- lies that I dared to give a moment's thought to.

Adoption can be brutal. I have sat in a hotel room for two weeks holding a grieving, terrified child. I have spent nights on the couch comforting a little boy who can't verbalize what's causing him to scream in agony. I have been bit, hit, cursed at, sometimes for hours on end. To choose to say yes to adoption is to choose to carry a child's trauma as your own. 

We hold these precious hands as we walk through the fire with them, and say, "I am here with you, no matter what." We love hard. We hold them through the fears of abandonment. We rock them when they can't express what hurts. We remind them as their tiny fists hit our flesh, "You don't need to fight. You are safe here."

We have been called to this sacred work of healing hearts. God didn't promise us it would be easy, but just as I was reminded last night through peals of laughter coming from four little souls that are mending, it is a great joy.

 A mistake, though? Never.