Living Sacrifice

This past fall, I started feeling a stirring in my soul. I felt unsettled. Something was missing or maybe I was missing something. I started dreaming about my days living and working in China. My mind and my soul then went further back and I remembered the desires I had for my life as a teenager and young adult. I started contemplating then on my personal spiritual growth in the past few years. I can feel and see that God has constantly been pruning me to be a better mother. To love more. To sacrifice more. And I realized that motherhood....motherhood has been my calling. Before I ever dreamed of being a world traveler, I dreamed of being a mother. When I became a mother, I honestly wasn't great at it. I got really irritated at my kids, I resented them sometimes when I felt like they were sucking the life out of me, and I starting experiencing heightened depression and anxiety. But God kept teaching me, changing me, challenging me, and healing me.  It's becoming more natural to put myself and my desires aside for my children. It's been surprising to experience increased joy with increased sacrifice.

This past fall, when I started aching for more, I knew it had to do with my calling of motherhood. I started tentatively and nervously approaching God: "Adoption again? Are you sure?" Because, you know, it's expensive, and Mark's going to think I've lost my marbles, and our house is small and we don't even have a mini van. But my heart kept aching. I kept thinking, "God, if a boy such-and-such age with such-and-such special need becomes available, I'm not going to be able to say no to him." 

So then one morning, I saw there were some new children listed on our old agency's Facebook page. AND THERE HE WAS. A boy. Such-and-such age with such-and-such special need. Out loud, I cried, "No! No! No! Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!" because I KNEW I was going to have to have to tell Mark! I'd have to admit I wanted to do it again and he was going to tell me I was crazy. And HE DID...at first. But then we had several days of talking, and talking, and more talking, and asking questions, and answering questions, and praying, and crying (me), and more talking. And then we both agreed..."Yep, boy of such-and-such age, with such-and-such special need...he's ours." 

And then, in one instant, an unknown face becomes so much more. More than a gender. More than an age. More than a special need. He becomes our son. And I wonder why God would give ME such an incredible calling. Being a mother means being a living sacrifice. And I've been learning to give more and more. And to my new son, I say...All I have is yours. My heart, my energy, my time, my everything - it's yours. And already, I love you.

Here he is. Isn't he a love? He's 2 1/2 and he has a medical condition that will take up a whole blog post on it's own, so more on that later. (We don't have a name for him yet, but I will call him XT on this blog until we do.)