Held Together

He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

Colossians 1:17

We came home to a huge welcoming crew at the airport at 10pm on a school night....a house decorated by my precious neighbors with streamers, balloons, posters and signs with scripture....a tree in our front yard was adorned with adorable laminated hearts with scripture and love notes...a refrigerator full of meals and home cooked meals scheduled to come every day until Easter....we've had a steady stream of visitors who can't wait to lay eyes on these sweet children....offers to help from friends and family in ways that I had not even thought of....we have tons of saints praying for us!.....God continues to send the right friends and the right time....we are supported and held together in every possible way that I could ever imagine....and we are so grateful! 

But....there is nothing that could have prepared me for what our children are experiencing now.  As my precious friend Sarah, who came into our house yesterday and was in tears in about a minute at the pain she saw, said, "You just don't read about this on the blogs."  Well, before you see us out in public, or stop by the house at any given time and draw your own conclusions..... I can explain exactly what is going on.  

Our children are deeply wounded.  And they are beginning to heal.  So far we've only seen it in two of them.  But, the outward expression of what they are feeling inwardly is not pretty.  I can only try to imagine what it feels like to them.  Russell Moore totally pegs it as "the scream of the crucified identity."  It's only after we've been crucified that we can cry out to our "ABBA FATHER." Romans 8:15-16.  Indeed they do share in His sufferings.  

And now, they have a new name---beloved, a new home--- someday heaven, a new nature---belonging.  All of it hard to receive when they have so many layers of anger, loneliness, and deprivation to be peeled off.  So they scream, and fight, and break things and try to hurt themselves and they run away.  They can be defiant and disobedient.  Sound familiar?  No difference at all than in every one of our adoptions by God.

Here's the part where I want to be like them--- in the middle of a massive fit---when I can't take it anymore, I will break down and cry, too.  Hard.  That has been what snaps them out of it....when they see me crying.  They stop and turn.  They wipe my tears and kiss me and beg, "no mama, no mama, sorry mama, so sorry!"  My broken heart, breaks theirs.  

.....and nothing they do could make me love them any less.