I feel swallowed up in their mood.

They dictate when and how I eat, sleep, breathe.  Everything I know about child-rearing has been exploded and redone and it’s all upside down as I try to make sense of my new world.  I am Alice as I explore this wonderland that’s not really quite so wonderful.

Nothing is as it seems anymore. 

And I lose my temper more times than I should and it scares me because this is not the mother I wanted to be, not the mother I’ve been striving to be.  How did loving a child become the hardest thing I’ve had to do?

I’m indulging my 3 year old in ways my Old Self never would, spoiling her almost.  Yes, there’s still discipline, but it’s fuzzy around the edges as I see the brunt she takes and my heart goes out to her because I did this to her.  I turned her life upside down.  The guilt eats at my soul and I give her an extra brownie to soothe it away.

Nothing makes sense anymore.

I was telling this to a friend who adopts children from Ethiopia and she has the same worries about her bio children.  She told me they are learning to love in ways that they would never learn otherwise.  But as I watch my baby get pushed down once again by an angry, sad, broken girl, the deep places in me wonders… Are they? 

So I come here to make sense of it all.  There is no sense, there is none when you’re doing God’s work.  He asks things of you that are impossible, he sends you to places that, when the world looks at you, they think you’ve lost your mind.  Maybe I have.  I know that I don’t know anything anymore and that God holds my future.

He holds us all.  That has to be enough right now.  It is enough.

As I walk each step on the path that has been laid out for me, I know the One guiding me, holding my hands, holding my tears.  And I trust Him.

I TRUST HIM.  

I have to because I’m going deeper than I ever have, I’m giving more than I’ve ever been asked, I’m loving harder than I’ve ever loved.  But the pain hurts more because my babies are hurting and I can’t do anything for them but remind them of these truths.

That love wins.  Always. 

That God can be trusted even when it’s hard. 

That doing something hard doesn’t mean we’re doing something wrong. 

Faith is our flashlight on this dark path we’re walking, holding our Father’s hands and holding on to each other.  It’s all we can do.

It’s all.

Because it’s not us that’s doing, it’s God that’s working and we just.have.to.trust. 

So when I’m on my knees.  Again.

Asking, wondering, checking.  Again.  I can hold fast to this, to these truth’s laid out before me.  It’s all I have right now.  My strength is frail, but I can cling.

And hope.