People have asked me if having JR has effected me, and honestly, it really has. Not in the ways I think they expect, though. Yes, there are night time feedings, more physical exertion and just more general demands of my time now, but the biggest change has been my spiritual state.
The week of the anniversary of losing our first child was rough. Really rough. I realized I have never really grieved that baby the way I need to. I have never really faced it head on. Having a baby in utero and one in my arms made that lost baby all the more real, and the loss all the more difficult. To top off that emotional roller coaster I found at at court that JR's dad was trying to get full custody and it looks like that will be happening sooner than later. That is a wonderful thing for JR. I am genuinely grateful for that. It was just a timing thing that made it a difficult pill to swallow. I felt loss again. I felt like I had lost two babies in one week and that was more than I could handle. I found myself starting to detach unintentionally and I'm so grateful for friends who can speak truth in love when I can't see past my own pain. A dear friend walked me through those feelings and within a day I was back to loving him fiercely. There is nothing that can prepare you for caring for someone else's baby. Someone else's future. Someone else's precious gift. I knew it would be hard to let him go when the time came, but I wasn't prepared for hard it would be to love him so fiercely while he was with us. I wasn't prepared for the way he so naturally felt like my own. There is no distinction, except for when someone else points it out. I understood what it meant to be adopted by a loving Savior, who saw me as his own.
I have seen a lot of quotes about adoption, foster care and emergency placements that compare taking care of children to the adoption we receive through salvation. That has taken on a whole new meaning to me now. To unconditionally love someone(and their parents) through very difficult circumstances, that require great personal sacrifice and laying down personal preference is humbling. It is eye opening and points to all the selfishness within. It also opens the door to a love like I have never known. It deepens my understanding of the Father's love towards me and how I am to share that love with others. I am grateful. Grateful for the pain, heartache, long sleepless nights, the unknowns that leave me feeling helpless and so out of control of or our future. I am grateful for the opportunity to love and be loved. I am grateful for grace, my salvation and the opportunity to suffer for the sake of the glory of God.
This has been an encouragement and challenge to me.
Galatians 4:1-5 (ESV)
Sons and Heirs
4 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave,[a] though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles[b] of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
I encourage you to ask the Lord where in your life you can show the power of His redemption to others, to glorify Him.
Lyd
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