I think I'm one of those people who others perceive as fairly put together, and generally I am. But there are times that is not so. On the outside I can maintain a cool exterior, but as soon as there are too many categories of things going on in my life, I'm bound to start dropping balls. Friendships start to suffer, I don't notice important dates coming until they're TOMORROW, and I just want to hole up in my house and attend to the bare minimums, preferably with a good stash of chocolate. Painful to admit, but true.
By mid-summer there was a lot going on in our household. We've got the adoption paperwork pressing in, I'm working a couple of days a week, trying to keep the sand-box off my kitchen floor, attending to loads of play-in-the -dirt kinda laundry, AND have decided to take on home-schooling the boys in the fall. I'm tired just typing that list.
As some of you know, Noah was diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder already in 1st grade. By the end of 2nd grade there seemed to be some other things going on, and our bright, inquisitive, 8-year-old was hating school. He began to have some trouble with separation anxiety, was defiant with his teacher on a couple of occasions, and one time ran from school to come home, saying he just wanted to be close to me. The school was really great at working through this with us and we set some firm boundaries/expectations for Noah's behavior, hoping to make it through the end of the school year! We began talking about the possibility of home-schooling. Even seeing this in print now makes me chuckle at the absurdity of it. And while I had long said, "No way! Not me!", Noah begged, and I found myself considering it as a possibility. We had some testing done and began to understand some of what could be of frustration to him, and after talking with many folks, decided to take the plunge.
The summer did not make things better. Stress is not a friend of anxiety disorders and while there was much to love about our month in Haiti, there were aspects of our time that were stressful; at moments even ugly. Moments we could only pray for a "do-over", but were stuck with the consequences of our own choices and fallenness. Moments we could only cry out to God for forgiveness and ask his perfection to wash over our imperfections.
So within the these first few weeks of being home and having made pretty big life and family decisions it was a further strain to notice that Noah was falling apart. At first it looked like willfulness or disobedience (which was part of the picture), and then one night, there was an awful breaking point. Noah lost control and I lost control, and Noah went into a rage of frightening proportions. Kirk and I responded clumsily, and after a few hours of wrestling and praying and crying, it was over.
The next few weeks and months, were truly rough and for days I found myself on the edge of tears, wondering why it felt like everything was falling apart. We wrestled with God about why he was allowing this just when we had decided to adopt... was it meant as a sign that we had made a mistake? Had we misunderstood that stirring in our heart? Or was this a fire for testing and growing our parenting skills and family bond? We begged our friends and family for prayer, begged our providers and doctors for answers, begged Noah to stop something that seemed nearly out of his control, begged each other to be better parents, begged God for it to end... And we cried - cried for the loss of our innocent boy, for the loss of our stable family, for the fear that had entered our home, loss of dignity, and the worry of losing the little girls we had started to love.
We really felt a need to be transparent with our home-study social worker, so during our second visit, sitting in a Country Kitchen booth, we reluctantly laid out some of what we were struggling with. Without batting an eye, she said, "oh, I totally expect things like this to come up. Satan loves to try to mess up a God thing. Can I just pray with you right now?" We were floored and relieved and readily accepted her prayer, and then continued on with the rest of our interview.
Friends came near and offered shelter for our hearts with meals, offers for care, offers for time away... it meant SO much to be carried through, surrounded by love, and bathed in prayer.
One day a friend called. Beth Hoekstra had been home from work, sick, and had seen a program on tv talking about an unusual condition called PANDAS. I'll talk more about this in another post, but I should say we were amazed to find Noah met almost every symptom. We had something to hold on to, a reason, a potential cause for all the turmoil. And slowly things did get better.
At times I've have wondered how I would respond to God in crisis, if I would feel abandoned or angry or hopeless. I came to a point when holding on to the frayed ends was no longer working. I had to lay my child, my family, my future before God, relinquish my "right" for control and actually put my trust in the One I have confessed to be my savior. And in those moments when my solutions and answers no longer measured up, I felt the maker of a million stars regard me. I'm not saying everything was magically fixed, but I felt a different kind of strength and hope inside, and that's what's carrying me.
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