Things you shouldn't say....

The holidays have been full and my goals of writing weekly have not been met. Now you know my new years resolution for 2011. :)

But for those who haven't read this, here is link to a series of postings I did on my old blog about things you shouldn't say to families who have adopted. And if you have said any of these things to me...I still like you. :) Most people I know say these things, that is why I am writing about it. Education cures ignorance.

Numbers 1 & 2: http://exploringlove.blogspot.com/2009/10/8-things-you-should-never-say-to-family.html

Numbers 3 & 4: http://exploringlove.blogspot.com/2009/10/things-you-should-never-say-to-family.html

Numbers 5 & 6: http://exploringlove.blogspot.com/2009/10/things-you-should-never-say-to-family_09.html

Numbers 7 & 8:http://exploringlove.blogspot.com/2009/10/things-you-should-never-say-to-family_16.html

My Favorite Name

I never get sick of hearing the words “Mommy” or “Mama.”  It seems like a lifetime ago that Marcel and Mya called me anything else, but several times a week I smile and quietly praise the Lord for knitting our children’s hearts to ours and making them mine.

The name “mommy” was not an instant title for me.  Mya, who was four at the time, had (and does still!) such a strong, independent, and wonderful personality. Mya loves being the center of attention, loves making people laugh, and loves saying things that you would hear out of the mouth of a teenager.  If Mya loves someone, she often jumps up and down and runs into their arms when she sees them. But, if she isn’t your “friend” (which she has no problem telling you) and you ask Mya for a hug, she will politely (most of the time) tell you “no thank you” and walk away. Mya’s favorite phrase when we met her was “I can do it by myself” and almost two years later, she still loves trying to do things on her own and proudly displays her skills to all who will watch.  

We had a different transition then most foster families to become their parents.  When we decided to become Marcel and Mya’s foster parents (with the intention of adoption), we had to wait three long months to actually have them move in with us.  During this time, they lived with us all weekend and their poor little hearts were confused and unsettled as they tried to figure out what was in store for their future.

We told the children about a month and a half into the “transition” period that we would be their new mommy and daddy, but never told them what to call us.  Since we had such a long/strange "in-transition" stage where we weren't their parents, but were trying to be...we figured they were confused and when the dust settled, would instinctively know what to call us. First, our names were Mr. Vermon and Ms. Dennae. Then, Dennae and Vermon. By the time they moved in with us, they were calling us Mommy Dennae and Daddy Vermon.

Within days of living with us, Marcel and Mya were calling Vermon "daddy." It was so precious to hear and I loved seeing Vermon's big smile every time they heard it...it did not go so quickly with me. I figured, it would take longer to start calling me "mom," but knew it would happen. Even though I was slightly jealous of Vermon, I figured, even mother of infants don't get to hear themselves called mom for almost a year--and even then, for some reason, "da da" is among babies first words.  The Lord just filled me with a pursuing love for them that longed for them to feel and know that I was their mom.

The journey of becoming "Mommy" went something like this...

Mya would be having a tantrum and I would be disciplining her, explaining her sin and hard heart and her need for Jesus. "You'll NNNNNEEEEEEVVVVVEEEERRR be my mommy!" She would scream at the top of her lungs.

Later in the day, Vermon would home, "Daddy!" and then she'd look over at me and stick her hand on her hip and say, "he's my daddy! You're not my mommy!"

Other times we would be playing dolls or with stuffed animals and she would "make-believe" I was her mommy...and giggle or laugh every time she called me it, but made sure to tell me it was just a game. She wanted to test it out, but wasn't ready to commit. 

"Dennae" she would say, "yes, daughter" "You can be my mommy yesterday (she mixes up yesterday and tomorrow)" I would gently explain that I already am her mommy, just like God is my Father, even when I don’t act like he is. 

Our entire first month and a half was like this. I knew Mya desperately wanted a mommy, she longed to call me mommy and longed to belong to me. She would desperately want me to hold her, but would resist asking me with every bone in her body. I could see the turmoil within her.

Then, on Mother's Day, Mya started calling me "Mommy" and instantly began acting like I was her mommy. The transformation in her heart was beautiful. Vermon and I (and everyone around us) kept remarking that she became more and more beautiful in the  first months she was living with us.  As she grew more confidence that we were her forever family and as she realized that she belonged to us, she physically and emotionally transformed before our eyes.

It is getting harder to remember the Mya who would not call me “Mommy.” Now, I can't even go into the bathroom without Mya wanting to follow me in. Several times a day, Mya runs up to me, kisses me, and says, "You're the best Mommy in the WHOLE world." When she's in time out, now she argues, "But Mommy, I need you to be with me. But Mommy, I won't be able to see you!"

I LOVE my new name.  

Understanding YOUR adoption shapes your child’s understanding of THEIR adoption, part 4

A New Family.

In this series we have looked at how understanding YOUR adoption will impact your child’s understanding of THEIR adoption.

First, if you don’t understand who you were before Christ, then you are going to be full of doubt and questions and probably worry about your child’s DNA makeup or biological background. Once we understand that Satan was our first father, then it makes it much easier to put our thoughts to ease as we consider our adopted children’s biological past.

Second, if you don’t understand how your adoption by God has made ALL things new in your life then it is going to be hard for you to relate to your child as completely, 100%, entirely YOUR OWN child. Once we understand that who we are because of our adoption is entirely different then who we were before our adoption, we can then in turn let go of our fears and anxieties about our children’s future.  We can trust that since they are a part of a NEW family they too are a NEW individual.  This will eliminate the awful speech spoken by too many Christians that they don’t know if they could love a child that isn’t “their own” and it gives us a beautiful platform to help our children see their past through a gospel lens. 

Finally, we need to understand that because of our adoption we have a new family. When you understand who your new family is, you are then able to relate to your church family in a way that beautifully models to your children that they are a part of a new family too.

It is inconsistent to ask your adopted child to view your family as their family if you do not first view your church as your family.  When we adopt, we are making a public declaration that blood and DNA are meaningless when it comes to fatherhood and sonship. We are saying that our love is much deeper than “blood ties”. How can we tell our children this, yet not look at God’s church the same way?

Too often we put our biological extended family in the place that our church family belongs. Our church family SHOULD be our primary extended family. Our life should be full of family with no biological relationship to us.  The best of our time, money, energy should go toward loving and caring for our brothers and sisters in our local church. 

If we consistently make choices that show we do not view the church as our primary family, then we are missing what God did in our adoption.  He gave us a new family. A family from many different backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, and cultures that can now relate to each other as brothers and sisters because of the amazing love our Father had for us.

This new family is BEST equipped to love adopted children, because they have received the same love from God. If you are in a healthy, Christ-centered, bible based church, then fill your time with loving and serving your church.  Let your children grow up with aunts, uncles, grandmothers, and grandfathers with no biological connection to you. 

If your church family does not understand adoption, then take the time to lovingly teach, correct, and admonish them. They are called to care for the orphans too! Maybe loving, supporting, and caring for your family will be part of how they obey this command. Do not isolate your family from your church because you feel “different” or because they don’t “get it” even though they should! Be patient. Perhaps God wants to use your family to teach this church the beauty of their adoption.

Your adopted siblings…i.e. church fam…might not teach your children to love the same sports team, foods, and music that your bio family culturally enjoys, but they WILL teach your children to love the same God. Making Roosevelt Community Church our first extended family has been the single, most powerful way to relate to Marcel and Mya about adoption.  Vermon regularly speaks to our children of the “fathers” God has provided within the church and our children are deeply loved and cared for by aunts who have no blood relation to us.

Adoption is not something that just happened to our children.  They are not left alone to figure out this mystery.  They are surrounded by a community of believers who were also adopted and can therefore relate to my children in endless ways.  Adoption is woven into every aspect of our lives.  Our church family has been such a deep part of our children’s healing. It has been so sweet to live out the reality of our adoption together.

Understanding YOUR adoption shapes your child’s understanding of THEIR adoption, part 3

 All Things New

    Last week we talked about where you came from and who you were before your adoption in Christ. It was not a pretty picture. Now let's look at who you are in your new adopted family. Please take some time to read these passages in the context they were written in.

1.  Because of adoption, you were given a new life

 Ezekiel 11: 19-20:  “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God”

Ephesians 2:  “And you WERE dead…BUT GOD…made us alive together in Christ…”

You were dead, but God made you alive.  He gave you a new life at great personal cost to himself. Because of Christ’s death and resurrection, you are no longer a child of the enemy.  You are now a child of God.  You are no longer enslaved to death.  You are now alive. When you hear the word “adoption” your first thought should be: life.

    2.  Because of adoption, you were given a new identity

Galatians 4: “…you WERE enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” but we were redeemed “…so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his son into our hearts crying, “Abba! Father! So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”

There are many other places in the NT that talk about how we are “no longer” slaves (Hebrews 2, Romans 6 & 8, Galatians 5) instead we are seen as sons and daughters of God! We were dirty, worthless, and had nothing to offer. We were not desirable.  Yet God adopted us and because of our adoption we now share in the inheritance of Christ! We are clothed in righteousness instead of sin.  We are beloved children instead of rebellious enemies. Our identity is now: Christ.  

3. Because of adoption, you were given a new purpose

    
  Read 2 Corinthians 5: 16-21. The most quoted/known part of this passage is verse 17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation the old has passed away; behold the new has come.”  Take some time to read the context of this passage. We are told that because we are a new creation we are now given the ministry of reconciliation.  How beautiful! We are adopted into a family that has a purpose, a reason for existing. We were not just pardoned for our sin, but we were assigned the same purpose that God himself has for creation! We get to participate in his plan to redeem people to himself from every tribe, tongue, and nation.  This is only because of adoption. We could have been justified and sanctified without then being adopted by God, but because of adoption, we now share in Christ’s inheritance and purpose. Because we are sons and daughters of God we are duty bound to fulfill the ministry we have been called to.

How should our understanding of these truths influence the way we speak and think about us adopting children?

There are dozens of parallels, but a few stand out to me:

1.   You got a new name, so should they.  Despite what the world and psychologist may say, there is nothing wrong with it and name changing is a biblical concept.  You have a new name because you are now a new creation, so do not feel guilty about renaming your child.  There is something significant and meaningful about picking your child’s name. Since the beginning of time (Adam, Abraham,Isaac, Israel, etc) being assigned a name was important. You do not HAVE to give a new first name (We didn’t with Mya, but did with Marcel), but then at least assign a very meaningful middle name.  It is a powerful way to relate to your child since you both have new identities and new names, all because you were both adopted.  Marcel Vermon Pierre. Mya Hope Pierre. Judah Justice Pierre. I love to talk with Marcel and Mya (and someday Judah) about why we picked those names and how excited I am to also have a new name because of what Christ did for me!

2.  You should never fear that you are not equipped to help your child work through whatever comes up as a result of their past.  IF you understand who you were before Christ and who you are now that God has adopted you into his family THROUGH Christ, then EVERYTHING your child goes through you can personally relate to.  Every time Marcel speaks to me about his hurt or pain, his eyes light up when I share a story that mirrors his—only I speak of it through a spiritual lens. Your child was abused physically by a biological parent? You were abused spiritually by the devil. Your child was treated like dirt? You were a slave to dirt. Your child has uncommon fear?  You were owned by fear. Your child worries about being unlovable. You were unlovable.
    My children have yet to share something with me that I could not relate to. Empathizing with their pain has been healing for my children and has knit us into a family. Our conversations always end with Marcel saying how thankful he is for having such a good God who loves him.
 

3.      Too often I hear of women, unable to have children, desperate to be a mother, longing to begin the adoption process, yet their husbands refuse to adopt.  These men claim to be Christian, yet are unable to see a child they adopt as their own child.  Mother’s Day comes and goes each year and they allow their wives to remain barren, while God has given them a beautiful means to bear children through adoption.
    Of course there is still great pain, loss, and heartache to work through when women cannot conceive, but that pain is different then the pain of being childless for life. That is a pain that is much deeper and greater. A pain no woman should have to go through for life against her will. It also does not compare to the pain of children being parentless. Also a pain that no child should have to face, but many do because too many Christians do not adopt. 
    A husband who is struggling to joyfully pursue adoption when his wife desperately wants to be a mother should seek councel from a pastor and ask the Holy Spirit to open their eyes to this gospel truth. Their minds need to be transformed and renewed by God’s word in relation to this truth.

I am convinced that Christians do not adopt because they do not understand their adoption biblically.  And to not understand the theology of adoption is to miss the heart of the gospel.  I pray that our churches would be full of men and women who come before God full of awe and wonder that he would adopt them.  I pray that the theology of adoption would so captivate our hearts that we are undone before our Lord and can’t help but look for ways to adopt children or support families who are positioned to adopt. I hope our churches are one day full of families begging for the chance to adopt a child that is in need of a family. This would so beautifully reflect what has already happened in heaven.

Understanding YOUR adoption shapes your child’s understanding of THEIR adoption, part 2

Who Was Your Daddy?

If you are a Christian, then you are adopted by God. Have you ever stopped to think about who your biological father was?

The Devil. Yes, the devil is your birth father. An evil, abusive father whom you were enslaved to.

Check out these verses and look how Scripture talks about the unbeliever:

Acts 14:4-12

1 John 3:1-10

Hebrews 2:14-18

My point here is NOT to compare bio family to Satan. My point is that it is important for YOU to understand who your biological family was. You were born a slave to sin. Your thoughts, actions, and words were full of deceit, selfishness, lust, greed, and pride. When God looked at you, all he saw was a man or woman in total rebellion to him, partnering with Satan gearing up to plot an attack against himself and everything that is good, righteous, and holy.  1 Corinthians 6:11 lists a long list of terrible, wicked things and then says to the believers in the church, “and so were some of you!”

The moment you water down who you were before Christ, if you forget how wicked and unholy you really were, then the gospel begins to slip through your fingers. It is only in understanding how wicked you really were, how deserving of death and destruction you were, that you can begin to worship and praise God for his great grace in your life. If you truly believe that you deserved God’s wrath and judgment for your sin and that there was NOTHING you could do to earn his favor, NOTHING you could do to make yourself right in his eyes, then you can really accept that it is ONLY through Christ the God becoming man, suffering the punishment of our sins, that you are now a child of God.

You are not just forgiven. You are not just pardoned. That would have been gracious of God to stop there. But he didn’t. He then adopted you and made you his child. He became your father, your “Abba.” (Hebrew word for daddy)

SO, how does this relate to how we think and speak of adoption?

IF you understand your adoption by God and who your biological family was, then these words should not come out of your mouth (all of which I have heard too many times from Christian families):

“I have considered adoption, but what if the gene to be abusive/drug addicted/ alcohol addicted is in the baby I adopt? That would be too hard for me.”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t love a child that wasn’t [biologically] mine or a child that doesn’t look like me.”

“My child has all these attachment issues and it isn’t my fault…” (then the person usually goes on to explain all the issues that happened in the first few years of their life) side note: I have never met a child with special needs whose biological parent takes the time to explain biologically why their child has down syndrome, ADHD, and sensory problems.

“God just didn’t give me a heart for adoption.”

“We have no choice but to ship off our teen [who was adopted at birth] to some camp a few states away because they are causing too many problems, but it isn’t how we parented them—its because of their birth family’s issues…” another side note: I know several families who have had to send their biological children to similar places they sometimes take responsibility for what they did or simply say, “I have no idea why they ended up this way” they don’t blame it on something from their past.

“My child is disobedient, disrespectful, etc, because of their past. There is nothing I can really do about it, it is just so hard .”

Let’s pretend for a minute that God spoke the same way about us. Here is what he would say (fill your name in blank):

“_________is disobedient, disrespectful, etc, because they used to be a son of the devil. It’s ok though, I understand and will just ignore it."

Please understand that I am not trying to minimize some issues that your child may have as a result of abuse or trauma. I know it is real. When I was a social worker, I worked with hundreds of children who had very real struggles because of evil things that were done to them. A parent watching their child suffer over past hurts and wounds has real, deep pain. I weep over it as many adoptive parents do.

What I am trying to do is encourage us to stop speaking so negatively about children who are adopted, like they are permanently wounded soldiers. I want to encourage you to reject false assumptions that a child you adopt will never be the same as a child you birth.

It is not true for us and our biological father was more evil and abusive then anything we could imagine. We were brainwashed, enslaved to the price of darkness…BUT GOD...

Understanding YOUR adoption shapes your child’s understanding of THEIR adoption, part 1

Vermon and I are often asked how it is that our children were able to attach so quickly to our family. People also comment on how “lucky” we are that our children do not have any attachment disorders.

It would be dishonest to say that the relationship we have with Marcel and Mya now is the same that it was a year and a half ago. It did take time to attach and there were difficult moments, tears shed, and much prayer; however, all in all, our path of becoming a close family unit has been smooth, full of blessing, and fun (all of which was a gift and blessing from the Lord).

I do not dismiss the fact that there are children who have attachment disorders, RAD, and issues related to drug exposure that may make the attachment process take longer. I also do not claim to be an expert on parenting or that we have done everything right. I am brought to tears as I think and praise the Lord for his GREAT grace in knitting our family together in the way that he has in such a short period of time. However, I do believe that the single best advice I can give to ANY parent who wants to know how to attach with their child whom they have adopted is to FIRST and FOREMOST understand YOUR adoption. If you do not understand YOUR ADOPTION by God through Christ Jesus then

do not adopt.

Yes, I said it. Do not adopt children unless you have first and foremost begun to think, meditate, study God’s word, and pray about the theology of YOUR ADOPTION by God. Many of the horror stories that the media portrays about adoption (or your friends tell you) come from the adoptive families not fully understanding God’s adoption of his people.

Over the next few posts I would like to explore different aspects of OUR ADOPTION by God and look at how the theology of adoption should then shape our thoughts about our family, our family values, and how we think and speak about our children.

my adoption story

 I have been asked many times if I feel the same toward my "adopted" children as I do toward my "biological" child. (side note: There are many things very wrong with that question, but I will leave that for a future post.)

 I cannot answer that question without first reflecting on my own adoption:

 I horribly offended God by disregarding his truth and word.

 I committed great offenses as I lived in open rebellion toward him by trying to follow my way instead of God’s.

  God is not only the judge—that could rightly punish me and pour out his anger and wrath on me. He is also the offended, the victim of this great and vast sin.

  God, the judge (and simultaneously the victim) came down off the bench after pardoning my horrible offense that ignited his wrath and instead chose to adopt me—at the expense of his very own “biological” (so to speak) son—Jesus the Christ.

  God’s anger and wrath were poured out on Christ and instead of that being my fate, I get to enjoy the full blessing of being a daughter of God almighty and a co-heir with Christ.

  God did not adopt me because I was a “good” person. He did not adopt me because I’m better then the really evil people in the world. He did not adopt me because I chose the right religion. He adopted me simply because he is God and loved me. All he required of me was faith and faith alone—belief and trust in his son, Jesus.

    This is why I believe in adoption. Because I am an eternally adopted child of the creator of the universe.

    This is why I can say with full honesty and passion that I am deeply attached to, love, would die for, loose sleep over, pray over, weep over the sin of, and care for all my children equally and the same. How I long for their souls to know my Jesus. How I long for them to experience this same adoption I experienced. How privileged I am to be the mother of such precious children.