Excerpt from an email I wrote to answer my dear blogger sister who asked what we learned through the experience of Alayna going away for a month:
What do you feel the Lord has taught you through this?
We have learned so much in this process.......one of the best parts is that GOD CAN AND WILL heal your child, in HIS TIMING, even when you think it is no longer possible, and that they have reached an all time low, and you have too!
Secondly, I think that I have learned that for me personally,(and I cannot/will not speak for anyone else), but when God gives me a child to parent, and I have done so for 4 years, it is impossible for me to walk away from that. I am not saying that I would not consider another respite care option, or residential treatment center of some sort in the future if my child needs it, but that I don't think that I can give up the responsibility of parenting my child. That is just me, and I have not met my African girls yet!! LOL :) Who knows what kinds of things an 8 or 6 year old who has lived in Liberia in an orphanage will come up with when she gets here?
Thirdly, I learned that when I thought that my child was not bonded to us at all, and that she could and would walk away from our family and never look back, I can be very WRONG! I learned that my daughter was bonded to us by leaving her with someone else for 28 days, and seeing her reaction to us when we visited.
I had NO CLUE that she would respond to the separation the way that she did. When we went to see her and she jumped through the door and into my arms, and trembled and cried and could hardly breathe, I was dumbfounded. She spent the prior 4 years trying to keep us all away from her, (particularly me, as her mom), as her birthmom could not be trusted and she was not intending to ever let me get close to her. I don't know why this particular 'respite' care mom was what she needed to come around full circle, but GOD did, and He made sure she landed there in that home so that she could realize what she had lost! She was only 6 years old, but much older in many ways because of the neglect and abuse and the life she had lived for the first 3 years. It was supposed to be a Christian agency that we were using to help us place her, and they only work with Christian families, and A. told us 2 nights ago that she was forced to drink alcohol there during Hanukkah!! We learn more things about her time there every few days.......she was forced to call the woman 'mommy' and to hug and kiss her, and was not allowed to speak a lot of the time. She was to accept anything that was offered to her, and was expected to finish every mouthful of food and drink whether she wanted it or not. She was punished for making her letters incorrectly while homeschooling. She was punished if she asked for anything, and called ungrateful. We are now having to try to gain back some of what was lost, as she was told that I was a liar and that we should not be trusted, and that we allowed our children to watch movies that are not appropriate for children. So when the kids put a video in the player the first few days she was home, she would run out of the room hysterically crying and afraid. It will all be okay, and God has healed her in so many ways because of the experience, but there is now much work to do to convince her that there is nothing she can do to ever push us to the point we were at before she left. It is what we all needed, because by the 3rd week she was gone I was missing her so much. Never thought I could miss a child who had rejected me and caused me so much pain and stress for 4 years straight!! I also needed the time of refreshment to be able to miss her, and see that I truly needed her to be my daughter, and that I could try again to be her mommy. I have a renewed sense of love and compassion that was gone before, it was not that it was never there, just that it had been eroded by years of very hard knocks. I realize now that I was very much afraid of my own child and what the future could hold. I am not afraid of that anymore, and that is the biggest thing I gained. The enemy was fighting hard to ensure that I failed as a parent to this child, and was eroding my confidence and making us second guess ourselves with our girls in Africa. She would not look at or let her dad touch her when she left. She has already tried that again, and he will not allow that anymore......she is much more submissive and respectful than she has ever been since she arrived here. ONLY GOD could do that in her heart. She is a TOUGH little thing, a SURVIVOR because it was necessary in her past. Nothing scared her before, and nothing and nobody could intimidate her. It was very very very hard to parent this child who would chase you and scream horrible things at you if you tried to put her in time out or in her room, threatening you the whole time. I have parented many other children, and have never seen anything like this. I must say that we have the love and respect of all of the rest of our children, but this one child made us feel as though we had never been parents before!! It was crazy. She could make me cry and Scott went to the ER once with chest pain because of this child. He really thought he was having a heart attack. I am sure my goiter and thyroid issues can be attributed to the stress that this child has caused our family, but I also know that God said we would suffer if we followed HIM. Why should I be any different than any other Christian who is doing what He has called me to do? Why should I be spared? I understand a lot more about myself, having lived through this. I am just so happy that God has protected me from something worse. If I had left her there with the other single mom and her demon possessed daughter from Haiti, I cannot imagine the life that Alayna would have had to endure. I would rather suffer than live with that. I am so grateful that God used this difficult situation for His good, just like He tells us He will do. He is faithful!! I think I need to write a book! I don't want to forget what I have learned.
What do you feel the Lord has taught you through this?
We have learned so much in this process.......one of the best parts is that GOD CAN AND WILL heal your child, in HIS TIMING, even when you think it is no longer possible, and that they have reached an all time low, and you have too!
Secondly, I think that I have learned that for me personally,(and I cannot/will not speak for anyone else), but when God gives me a child to parent, and I have done so for 4 years, it is impossible for me to walk away from that. I am not saying that I would not consider another respite care option, or residential treatment center of some sort in the future if my child needs it, but that I don't think that I can give up the responsibility of parenting my child. That is just me, and I have not met my African girls yet!! LOL :) Who knows what kinds of things an 8 or 6 year old who has lived in Liberia in an orphanage will come up with when she gets here?
Thirdly, I learned that when I thought that my child was not bonded to us at all, and that she could and would walk away from our family and never look back, I can be very WRONG! I learned that my daughter was bonded to us by leaving her with someone else for 28 days, and seeing her reaction to us when we visited.
I had NO CLUE that she would respond to the separation the way that she did. When we went to see her and she jumped through the door and into my arms, and trembled and cried and could hardly breathe, I was dumbfounded. She spent the prior 4 years trying to keep us all away from her, (particularly me, as her mom), as her birthmom could not be trusted and she was not intending to ever let me get close to her. I don't know why this particular 'respite' care mom was what she needed to come around full circle, but GOD did, and He made sure she landed there in that home so that she could realize what she had lost! She was only 6 years old, but much older in many ways because of the neglect and abuse and the life she had lived for the first 3 years. It was supposed to be a Christian agency that we were using to help us place her, and they only work with Christian families, and A. told us 2 nights ago that she was forced to drink alcohol there during Hanukkah!! We learn more things about her time there every few days.......she was forced to call the woman 'mommy' and to hug and kiss her, and was not allowed to speak a lot of the time. She was to accept anything that was offered to her, and was expected to finish every mouthful of food and drink whether she wanted it or not. She was punished for making her letters incorrectly while homeschooling. She was punished if she asked for anything, and called ungrateful. We are now having to try to gain back some of what was lost, as she was told that I was a liar and that we should not be trusted, and that we allowed our children to watch movies that are not appropriate for children. So when the kids put a video in the player the first few days she was home, she would run out of the room hysterically crying and afraid. It will all be okay, and God has healed her in so many ways because of the experience, but there is now much work to do to convince her that there is nothing she can do to ever push us to the point we were at before she left. It is what we all needed, because by the 3rd week she was gone I was missing her so much. Never thought I could miss a child who had rejected me and caused me so much pain and stress for 4 years straight!! I also needed the time of refreshment to be able to miss her, and see that I truly needed her to be my daughter, and that I could try again to be her mommy. I have a renewed sense of love and compassion that was gone before, it was not that it was never there, just that it had been eroded by years of very hard knocks. I realize now that I was very much afraid of my own child and what the future could hold. I am not afraid of that anymore, and that is the biggest thing I gained. The enemy was fighting hard to ensure that I failed as a parent to this child, and was eroding my confidence and making us second guess ourselves with our girls in Africa. She would not look at or let her dad touch her when she left. She has already tried that again, and he will not allow that anymore......she is much more submissive and respectful than she has ever been since she arrived here. ONLY GOD could do that in her heart. She is a TOUGH little thing, a SURVIVOR because it was necessary in her past. Nothing scared her before, and nothing and nobody could intimidate her. It was very very very hard to parent this child who would chase you and scream horrible things at you if you tried to put her in time out or in her room, threatening you the whole time. I have parented many other children, and have never seen anything like this. I must say that we have the love and respect of all of the rest of our children, but this one child made us feel as though we had never been parents before!! It was crazy. She could make me cry and Scott went to the ER once with chest pain because of this child. He really thought he was having a heart attack. I am sure my goiter and thyroid issues can be attributed to the stress that this child has caused our family, but I also know that God said we would suffer if we followed HIM. Why should I be any different than any other Christian who is doing what He has called me to do? Why should I be spared? I understand a lot more about myself, having lived through this. I am just so happy that God has protected me from something worse. If I had left her there with the other single mom and her demon possessed daughter from Haiti, I cannot imagine the life that Alayna would have had to endure. I would rather suffer than live with that. I am so grateful that God used this difficult situation for His good, just like He tells us He will do. He is faithful!! I think I need to write a book! I don't want to forget what I have learned.
No comments:
Post a Comment