When I started this blog, it was with the intention that it cover only the happier areas of my life, areas more suitable for public consumption than those covered in my private blog. However, some events are so big that they need at least a little explaining. I can't have one of my kids completely disappear from the stream of blogdom without making some sort of an explanation.
Six and a half years ago I adopted three children as a single parent. Brave? Bold? Courageous? Crazy? Maybe all of those things, but there was never a question in my mind that I was going to make that choice. Would I have made the same choice had I known how things would go for the next 6+ years? Maybe, but out of mercy God didn't give me all the info ahead of time.
Our little family has had a lot of rough times since the adoption. Children who have been traumatized have a very hard time healing; meanwhile they lash out at those around them. I happen to have been around them a lot!
One decision that I made at the time of the adoption was to not sever contact between the kids and their biological family. Our families had been linked since before the kids were born, and with the kids so old it didn't seem like the right thing to do. Was that the right decision? I don't know that either, but I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was NOT the easy way.
Two weeks ago I made the decision to send John to live with his biological father. It was not an easy choice to make; there are really no words that can convey what it's like to send your child away knowing they don't want you anymore, but I felt that was the direction God was leading.
I realized John was allowing no part of our family to reach his heart; anger and bitterness, now carefully nourished by his biological father, was blocking any possible benefit he might have received. Meanwhile he was causing deliberate harm to the others and destroying their chance at having a peaceful and safe home to grow up in. (Note: Caleb is still in his program, so he wasn't as directly affected at the moment, but would have been extremely harmed if he'd been home. And since I do expect him home again, I brought that into my consideration) I couldn't continue to damage the ones struggling to triumph over their early trauma because of my desperate attempt to save one who was resisting all help.
I could go on and on, unleashing just a fraction of the rage and hurt in my own heart, but this is hardly the place for my therapeutic release. Suffice it to say that while life goes on because it must, I have not been unaffected by the wreckage left by self-centered adults and angry, hurting children.
But that is why John won't be mentioned a whole lot in the everyday goings on from now on. By his own choice, he lives elsewhere.
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