I have a biological mother who I have never seen nor spoken to that I can recall. I was adopted when I was 7 weeks old, I have no idea how much time I spent with my biological mother ... I'm told, it's likely she never saw me after she gave birth to me.
I have very very mixed feelings about this Mother's Day ... not helped at all by the fact that RJ is still up in Michigan and I really need him here with me. He will be home tommorrow.
Mother's Day ... I spent this week with two phenominal moms. My adopted mother who has been the only Mama I have ever known ... and Helen. It was great to get to spend time with my Mama ... we talked briefly about my adoption but nothing that hasn't been said before ... just remembering how chaotic it was to get a name, put together a nursery and buy clothes for a little girl in one week. ~soft laugh~ That's all the notice they got that they were going to get me. Talk about your instant families huh? Anyway ... it was fantastic to spend time with my Mama and get to talk and talk to her ... do some shopping ... more talking ... more shopping ... you know the drill. I then went to J & H's for Saturday and Sunday morning and then stopped back by my Mama and Daddy's to pick up a few things before heading on home to Thomasville.
It was hard to leave them ... both J & H and my Mama and Daddy. I have this acute need for family right now ... and spending the next 24 hours alone really seems like a nightmare eternity for me. So ... I was driving home and thinking about mother's day. RJ and I don't have any kids ... and I don't have any biological relatives that I know of anywhere in the world. Now, on the one hand that doesn't sound so bad ... until you really start to think about it. Yes, I've had parents that have loved me faithfully and without reservation my entire life ... but consider this ... for all you guys who have children and biological families ... consider just for a moment ... what it might feel like to have NO biological connection with ANYONE in the world. No parents and siblings to look at to see your own features or genetic traits. No children to see your own faces in ... or your own habits in. No one in the world connected to you in any way by blood.
I used to sort of have this common reality with my brother until he got married and had two little girls ... he now has a blood connection. Sometimes I want to ask him so badly ... "what does it feel like to have a blood connection with someone?" ... For someone who has never had that ... it's almost taken on mystical proportions in my own thinking ... I just want to ask someone sometimes who understands ... though my brother probably wouldn't understand. He's a guy and he's never been as outwardly vocal about being adopted anyway.
So it's Mother's Day ... and every one of my friends have turned out to be the most wonderful parents ... and I'm not a parent. My arms ache to hold a baby that came from me ... to know that bond ... to taste it for the first time in my entire life ... but there is no baby. I ache to share that miracle with my husband ... to get a mother's day flower or a goofy hand drawn card from my child ... but there is no child. After almost ten years of marriage ... no children ... no blood connection ... ~sighs~
I don't ever say it ... how I feel ... about being childless and biologically unconnected ... not really how I feel. Not about how lost I still feel at my age ... not about how I ache from an abandonment I've never understood. Not how I feel like I'll never be loved enough. Not about how I am sure anyone who does say they love me will certainly leave me ... or that God will take them away. Not about my failure to even give my husband a child. Not really ... sometimes there just aren't any words.
Don't get me wrong. I believe God gave me the best parents I could have ever hoped for. I believe He designed my family in a unique and purposeful way. I had a great childhood and I am very very thankful. But just because I am thankful ... and just because I believe God gave me my family in a special way ... does not erase the REST of how I feel.
I think I realized driving home today ... that I feel like a failure. And I think I always have ... maybe that's why I try so hard ... and then fail so miserably. Why else would I be so alone (biologically) in the world? It's not really what I think consciously most of the time ... but unconsciously ... maybe that IS how I feel sometimes. I realized today that I'm always waiting for the rejection ... kind of with my shoulders hunched to absorb the blow of rejection that I know will come. I think I'm not worthy of love or worth loving. And if the rejection doesn't come ... sometimes I still get so afraid of it ... that I just run away so that it doesn't get me first ... so if I control the loss ... it might be somehow less painful to me. But I'm always sure it's coming. It's really humiliating to say that ... even just type it. Rather pathetic really but today is a brutal day anyways so maybe if I'm honest about it ... something will break. And maybe ... I dunno ...
The craziest part? God has given me the most amazing husband who has never, ever, ever rejected me ... and yet ... I still wake up so many times and think ... maybe it will happen today.
Prolly I'll be deleting this pretty quickly ... I dunno ... it was probably way too much for a blog ...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
They say the first step to anything is acknowledging the feeling. The truth is that is the lie the enemy has fed you ever since I met you and because you were unwilling to openly admit it, the enemy haunted you with those thoughts in your mind. You are an amazing person and I love you soooo much. The years that we spent without talking, I felt like there was something missing in my life. You have an incredible anointing to reach people where they are and pull gifts out of them they are completely unaware of. I can't pretend to understand the struggle, but I can tell you...you are LOVED MORE THAN YOU WILL EVER KNOW. Having blood relatives, I can say with confidence, I depend on and love you as much, if not more, than some of my blood family.
You are my sister whether you like it or not. We are blood/biological relatives because Jesus has made it so. Through His blood we are family. You challenged me to draw out the warrior inside me. That is my prayer that the warrior in me will be drawn out but that it will be drawn out in you as well. Nothing more is left to be said. Love you and we mean it!
Hey sis. That was really brave of you to post all of that. Confession simply means to say the same thing. When we keep things inside, they can grow to mythical proportions in our imaginations. We all have our battles there, rejection being one of the biggest. Taking that battle outside into the light is the biggest part. The point is you are loved, more than any of us can express with mere words. I understand how overwhelming the fight can seem. That is why we have each other to help us. A few posts back you were talking about ritual. Ritual is one way that we connect with God through our imaginations. When we are overwhelmed we need to be able to turn to God and know that He is able to overwhelm and defeat that which seeks to devour us. We are loved by an awe inspiring God.
When RJ gets home have a ritual to deal with this stuff. Light some candles, take communion and lay all the thoughts on the table (print out what you posted) and see what God does.
I love you, and I am really proud of you.
What they said...
Seriously though we love you and hate that I didn't have the blessing of seeing you this weekend like J&H. Just lie to me and say you didn't come through Raleigh on your way home. You could've stayed here for the night and everything.
Thanks for laying out there in the light so we brush away all that is not true and let you know how much we love you.
You know what may sound funny is that I don't think you're wrong to feel the way you do. Not because it's true, but because you've gone through stuff that would have broken any of us. When I think of you, I think about those extreme makeover shows where they take someone who hates the way they look and they are completely made over by a team of doctors. After surgery, the patient is sitting there with all the bandages on waiting to be uncovered so they can see how beautiful they are. I see you with these bandages on and Jesus is, one by one, removing them to show the beautiful Caroline that's really there. It probably is tough for you to look at your bandages and to look at your friend's beautiful images. But maybe their images are more like the emperor's new clothes. Something they think makes them attractive to others, all the while fooling themselves with a lie. While you are being honest and truly being made into the image of Christ.
Hang in there. The bandages are coming off and we're just beginning to see the beauty that God has created.
So i can't comment on your post that you made from the desert... I just want you to know that I am thinking about you and praying for you. I wish I could talk to you, but I have no idea how to call you or write you! I love you, girl!
Post a Comment