I just finished reading The Shack. As I said on twitter, it wasn’t an easy read. It wasn’t. Death of children and spiritual issues that are hard to wrap your head around don’t always go down the same way as a light, summer chick-lit romance. However, it was a soul-searching, powerful read for me. Near the end of the book, a paragraph reached out and grabbed me, hard, and forced me to listen, to consider how it applied to my life.
Mack, just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn’t mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don’t ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I needed it to accomplish my purposes. That will only lead you to false notions about me. Grace doesn’t depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors.
I had to put the book down after I dog-eared the page. (Apologies to my Mother as it is her book.) I sat for a minute, really thinking about that paragraph. For those not familiar with the book in question, that particular paragraph is spoken by God. Far-fetched to be sitting down and discussing the ins and outs of how the world works with God while still alive.. or is it? I won’t debate the dramas of the book that are being had by those who are overly religious and not at all in tune with the fact that God can do whatever God pleases. I will however apply the above paragraph to my life.
To our adoption story.
It has never set well with me when adoptive parents say something like, “God meant for this child to be ours.” Those words always struck me as off, wrong somehow. I couldn’t quite argue as to why though. I mean, God knows the plans that He has for our lives. Right? As such, who am I to argue that He didn’t plan for me to become pregnant so that D could be her mother. That paragraph spoke to me and to the situation and to the reasons why the theory that God wanted me to hurt simply isn’t true.
God didn’t intend for me to be separated from my firstborn child, my only daughter. The religious but compassionless among us can claim that to be so but that’s not what was intended. I made choices, out of my free will, that lead me to a place to make a decision. Hindsight leads me to believe that I could have spent a little more time in prayer over that decision, which is not to say that I didn’t pray but, still, hindsight is very good at assuming such things. That aside, I believed that I was making the best decision I could at the time. God didn’t want me to hurt and suffer. That’s not the intent here. And I am so very thankful that he sent D.
Separating a mother and child, even in a necessary situation (abuse, neglect) is a tragedy. It just is. It causes trauma to the mother, to the child. You can debate that a newborn placed at birth and a two year old removed by CPS will have varying levels of trauma and I’ll agree with you. That aside, the traumas of the tragedy exist. From the point of my signature, the actual point of the definite decision to place, God began working through that plan, that course of action. Free will is tricky like that.
Just because we have a beautiful relationship doesn’t mean that the grief and loss I have experienced are what God intended for my life. Just because I have spoken of His healing presence in my life doesn’t mean that God’s heart didn’t break with mine when I placed her in someone else’s arms. As He continues to work through me and in me, I hope that more peace and more hope are given not only to myself but to others. But I wasn’t put on this Earth merely to be a vessel for someone else’s child. I made choices. I made decisions. And through those decisions, God worked with me and through me.
Now if I could only accept the forgiveness offered for what I feel that I have done wrong. Some days I think I have. Other days I know I have not. More work to be done.
Beautifully, incredibly stated, Jenna. It’s what I believe, but it’s so very difficult to articulate. You just have. Thank you for that.
But I’m sorry for your hurt, of course. You’ve made incredible strides working through it, but it can’t ever be completely easy-peasy. *hugs*
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Yes to what Judy said.
I too have struggled with how to explain that while I believe God had a part in bringing us to L when she made the decision for adoption, He did not plan this separation of mother and child so I could also be a mother.
It would be just like me saying that God planned for me to have cancer as a child. And while I have often struggled with whys and whether there was something inherently wrong with me because I did have cancer followed by infertility, I know that He did NOT plan it for me, though He was, and is always, there in the midst of these things in my life.
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You know, Jenna, this is EXACTLY the reason that the story of Joseph speaks to me so often, on so many different levels. God had a great plan for Joseph, but I do NOT believe that for that plan to happen, Joseph and his family needed to suffer the way they did. The suffering was brought about by choices that the family and others in Joseph’s life made. God would have found a way to bring Joseph to Egypt without him being sold into slavery, assaulted by his owner’s wife, and thrown in jail before ultimately coming before the Pharoah. And yet, the decision by his brother’s required God to come up with a plan B, and then the decision by Potiphar’s wife, and so on. And yet, God still found a way to work his plan for Joseph. And found a way for Joseph to find peace and even reconcile with the brothers who had put the whole thing into motion in the first place. It’s just this incredible story of God’s grace and ability to overcome the pain and suffering resulting from the decisions of men.
There are many other ways in which that story speaks to me, as well. But this is definitely one of them. And you’ve written such a beautiful and eloquent piece here expressing that understanding in your own situation. You brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for reminding me.
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You’re right. There is trauma in ALL adoptions. Now matter how they came about. It took me a while as an adoptive mom to see this. And yes, there are times I struggle with my feelings towards my son’s birth mother because of the lasting damage caused to him. J struggles everyday because of things that happened before he was even born. Most of the time I feel incredibly sad for her. W is missing out on an amazing, sweet, beautiful boy that lights my life up. Her choices prevent us from having a relationship. There are legal and emotional reasons we can’t. But rarely a day goes by that I don’t think of the gift I have because of her.
While I do believe that God worked the good out of the bad, I think in His perfect plan, things would be different.
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Yes, the religious “rainbow farters” tend to be the most lost in the adopto-land fog. When they claim God planned their adopted child to be removed from his/her mother and given to them is absurd and blasphemous. God does not commit or condone evil acts. I have a really hard time hearing people spew that garbage, because that would mean that God wanted me to be abused.
God can and does work blessings into tragedies. However, he does not tamper with the free will of man. So, not every child will be blessed with a good home/life whether relinquished or not.
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Jenna your gentleness and openness enrich my life.
God’s plans are definitely beyond my imaginings. I think pretending to know God’s plans is rationalizing uncomfortable situations. It can be hurtful to hear because it sounds like some kind of inside information when really it’s just trying to rationalize what happened.
It may be a crutch to help accept what’s going on in one’s life. How we deal with what is going on — what our next move is, is where we work with God.
Everything that is, is part of God. We get to make choices and God loves us anyway. The trick is making choices that I can love.
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We adopted my daughter when she was 8 and had been in foster care for 5 years. She has experienced more loss in her short life than I probably ever will, and she asked me once why God had her go through those things. My heart flutters now to even think of her feeling as if something she did at the age of three might have caused it all.
Did God make her suffer so long so WE could have her as our daughter? Of course not. Never. But I do know that we were meant to adopt her once she was there and available. I believe that with ever fiber of my being. We had an incredible journey to have her placed and miracles happened. But none of it was to make my life complete.
I told her that in a perfect world, we would have no adoption. She asked, “What would happen to the kids in foster care?” Bless her. There would be none of that either. But here, on this side of heaven things can be a mess. God did NOT want her to suffer, nor you. All we can do is use what we have to bring Him what is His.
My daughter is a miracle. She is now 11, straight A student, beautiful,sings, and is learning to play the organ so she can play in our small church. She is even having a story published in a Chicken Soup For The Soul book. Yes, a miracle. (Sorry, I can’t help but brag)
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Jenna, beautiful post. As an adoptee, I struggle with the same issue. My parents, my whole family in fact, are sure it was God that placed me in their family. They are positive beyond a doubt that I was meant to be with them. ON many levels I like this idea- I love my family dearly, and I really do fit in very well with them.
But then I talk to my birthfather on the phone, or I read my birthmother’s letters to me, or I hear about the pain my birthgrandparents have felt for the past 20 years in regards to my placement.
And I think
“How could God have MEANT for this to happen?”
It works out well for my adoptive family, of course. It even worked out well for me, in that I am in a loving family who provides and cares for me, and who support me and love me in everything I do.
But my birthfamily is loving too..who’s to say THEY couldn’t have done this for me too? I have a fairly good idea of what my life might have been like had I remained with my birthfamily- I have 9 siblings, none of whom are currently being raised by them, and many who are in foster care.
Sometimes I think it WAS meant to be. I look at my family and love them so fully that I can’t imagine anything else. But my life almost WAS something else. And I certainly don’t think that God chose my birthparents to feel sad just so my adoptive parents could be happy (huge simplification.) But other times I feel like God just knew in his heart that my birthparents were going to relinquish, and did the best he could while still respecting their free will.
I’m not always sure what God’s doing- but he’s always there. Of that we can be sure of.
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Amen. Nicely said.
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When I wrote the Tongginator’s lifebook, I spent hours agonizing how to explain this concept. You stated it so beautifully. I simply wrote that God did not want her to be separated from her first family, but that – once that separation did occur – He began working to bring us together as a family. (We adopted her from China when she was a year. She was found abandoned as a newborn.) God did NOT allow my daughter to experience such pain and loss just so that I could be a mother.
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I read The Shack, too, and it WAS hard to read because it hurt to read. And like you, I believe God hurts right along with you. I hope you feel forgiveness in every pore of your being – because I’m sure God’s grace has long since covered you.
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