Answering Your Life's Calling

This entry originally appeared as a guest blog for Catie Lumpkin's ThisHighCalling.blogspot.com for Foster Care Month, May 2013.  Check out her blog!

Preface:  I am a 50-year-old mamma with 20 children that are legally ours and another 30 or so that have come through our home.  I grew up as a foster sibling to medically fragile children and then became a foster and adoptive parent when I married.  I have been living this lifestyle for 40 years. 

Sometimes, I feel that I’ve become too jaded and tired to recruit foster and adoptive families. But then I remember that in the face of thousands of obstacles, my husband and I continue to choose to follow this path.  That speaks volumes to me about our relationship to our calling.

I know that my views are not universal.  There are plenty of people who will tell you to do what feels good.  What makes you happy.  I disagree with that basic premise.  I don’t believe we were put on this earth to find “happiness” for ourselves based on whatever we feel at any given moment.

In that light, my words do not address the tremendous need for foster and adoptive parents of older children (which I define as any child old enough to remember details of their past).  The need is well-documented. 

If you are reading this and you are already a foster or adoptive parent, you are likely to understand, but may need conviction to endure this journey. 

If you are thinking about fostering or adopting, I challenge you to read all the way to the end.  My approach is not particularly designed to make you feel good about yourself or about the potential impact you might have on these children.

Likewise, it is not designed to dramatize the incredible needs through sob stories. They are too numerous to repeat here.

Instead, I have chosen to focus on God’s calling and the need for you to carefully examine whether fostering and adopting older children (or any children at all) is your calling. 

 Answering Your Life's Calling

By Anna Giattina Lee

Within a week of living with us, the truth spilled out from our new 6 ½ year-old daughter.  From the backseat of my Suburban she revealed with determination,  “I’m going to make you hate me.  I’m going to make you send me away.” 

She was too young to realize that she was showing her hand, but old enough to know the drill. 

If she can intentionally behave so badly that we have no choice but to fear her. 

If she can “act” her way out of our home before we have a chance to get to know her and decide that we don’t like her or that she is too hard to keep. 

If she can create and/or determine the events that make us send her away BEFORE she has a chance to care about us.

Then  - in some small way - she feels like she is in control.  And control is something she desperately seeks.

Unconditional love. Unconditional acceptance. 

How do you persuade someone to open up his home, his life, his family, his church, and his heart to lost and hurting children that need temporary or permanent care?

How do you ask someone to set aside there own desires and make what could be a long-term commitment to someone that they haven’t even met and may not connect with right away? 

In a country where we promise to stay in our marriages “until death do us part,”  yet even active professing Christians regularly divorce,  how do you communicate to another that unconditional love and commitment is a choice, but once given shouldn’t be broken?

How do you explain that - after a short honeymoon phase - for the most part these young people will act like they don’t want to be a part of your life;  they will challenge you, your patience and your self-control in hundreds of ways on a daily basis; and they are likely to reject you and your values for longer than you can imagine or justify.

How do you help someone hear the calling on his or her life, when it goes contrary to the “I deserve to be happy” American philosophy, and the “God wants me to be happy” Christian agenda?  

How can my commentary compete with famous evangelical Christians like Pat Robertson, who last August declared to a single woman with three adopted children that was having trouble finding a relationship: “A man does not want to take on the United Nations.”  Mr. Robertson went on to describe a dear friend that adopted “a little kid from an orphanage” that was brain damaged and grew up “weird.” 

How can I compete with the fear of weird perpetuated by famous Christians?

Before Mr. Robertson realized the error of his words, he continued, “You just never know what’s been done to a child before you get that child.  What kind of sexual abuse there’s been, what kind of cruelty, what kind of food deprivation etc., etc., etc.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhyJpLIpRVA.  He concluded that thought saying, “You don’t have to take on other people’s problems.”

Respectfully, I say, “No sir.  We may have no idea about their past experiences. The kids didn’t make the choice to be abandoned, neglected or abused. And yes, even with our best efforts, they might grow up “weird.”

In his defense, Mr. Robertson did suggest that people can help orphans in other ways, “but that doesn’t mean that you have to bring them into your home.”

Unconditional love.  Unconditional acceptance. It’s a choice.

Looking at Mr. Robertson’s words in their best possible light, he unwittingly makes the point that you have to choose to foster or adopt. No one can make you do it if you don’t want to.  To that degree, I agree.

Absolutely, positively no one should foster or adopt if he or she is not called to it. 

Notice, I did not say “if you don’t feel called” to it. 

It’s too easy to deny the feeling to do something that is going to be hard and change your life.

So the real question is:  Who is called?

I wish I had that answer. But that is a question that I must defer to God and his Believer.

When people learn that we foster and adopt so many children, almost every person says the same thing, “I could never do what you are doing.” 

And I have a stock response. “Then don’t do what I am doing.  Do whatever God is calling you to do.  And I promise.  He is calling you to something.”

I know this is truth because of words like those found in Mark 10:45, “Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

I wish I could cast my web of judgment and tell you directly that 

YOU should be caring for the orphans because knowing that there are no more lost or hurting children is a BIG deal for me.

But the call for all is to service.  What that service looks like will be different for each person because there are a tremendous variety of needs to be fulfilled.

The only thing I can be sure of is that God is calling more people to foster and adopt than are answering the call. 

We can choose.  We are given that privilege. But that choice requires more.  Unconditional love.  Unconditional acceptance.

As Believers, we have been unconditionally adopted into God’s family.  He is our Abba Father.  We are his children.  He loves us unconditionally.  But, as a member of God’s family, we are asked to set aside our own desires and accept God’s will for our lives.  God opens his home, his life, his church and his heart to the lost and hurting.

Like these lost and hurting children, sometimes in our struggle to walk with God we are angry or defiant and we don’t want to walk with him.  We blame him for our losses. We challenge his patience and wrath daily.  We often reject his values, just like stubborn children.

Are we any different from the children who test and challenge us and our commitment to them?

In my mind and heart, I believe that our Christian walk is designed to make us more like Jesus.  To follow his lead and his instruction.  To attempt, as best we can, to do what Jesus did.  If that is true, then how can we deny our role in caring for those who are needy?

After I wrote those words, it occurred to me to check the beliefs of my mind and heart with God’s Word.  I Googled “act more like Jesus.”  A verse came up that I had never noticed before in reference to fostering and adopting. 1 Peter 2:21-23. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

You don’t get any special credit for enduring punishment for the consequences of your sin.  It’s expected. 

But if you do good and even in doing good you suffer and endure, God appreciates it.

The words that really caught my attention for the first time, perhaps ever, is that we have all been called to suffer. I tend to think of suffering as it relates to pain or loss.  But when I looked up the word, it also means, to “allow something, to be adversely affected, or to undergo something unpleasant.”

Somehow, these words in Peter explain so much about my not so popular views.

Unconditional love. Unconditional acceptance. We have a choice to accept our calling.  To suffer and endure.  To take up the cross.  To be more like the Savior we profess to worship.

I spent almost a month trying to figure out the words I wanted to convey to those who crossed my path. I didn’t feel like I was supposed to tell you about our foster and adoptive success stories, although there are quite a few. 

I didn’t feel like I was supposed to dwell on how good you will feel doing the hardest thing you will ever do.

I didn’t feel like I should focus on the rewards that come from following God’s calling on your life. 

Perhaps it is because I’m a little old fashioned and I really really really don’t like to reward my kids for doing what they are supposed to do because it is the right thing to do.

I know rewards work – it is called behavior therapy – but I despise rewards for what is expected or required in life.  It goes against everything I feel inside and everything I want to teach my kids about the value of doing what is good or right simply because it is good or right. 

My thoughts suddenly seem so clear. 

Fostering and adopting is not something you do because you will see results or benefit from it. It is something you do because you are called to do it. 

Sometimes, it feels far more like suffering that anything else.  But God has never failed to let me know that he values what I do.  Sometimes, that is shown through a changed life.  Other times, he shows me that if I do whatever I do for His glory, then I’ve done my part regardless of the outcome.

It is important to understand that you don’t have to know how to do this incredibly difficult job before you accept the calling.  You don’t have to have all the answers. What I do is not based solely on my experience,  knowledge or perfection.  It is messy.  And sometimes ugly.  I act selfishly more times than not.  And I get angry and frustrated and tired.  I want more time for myself.  I want the problems to simply go away. 

But God equips. God provides.  We are the vessel.  Ironically, God will work far more on Us and our character than We will ever do for the children he brings into our life.

All this takes me back to the story of when my newly adopted daughter challenged me at that stop sign during the first week she joined our family, I had very little experience with older children joining our family? But I knew what to say.

I glared at my 6 1/2 –year-old in the rearview mirror and said firmly, “You can make me angry and you can make me not like you.  But you can’t make me send you away.  We promised to love you and keep you and we will, no matter how you act.”

When I said that, I had no way of knowing the impact those words might have on her little mind and spirit.  But two years before she died in an automobile accident, she wrote some significant words in a Mother’s Day letter to me, “I still remember the first night I met you in Missouri. You didn’t phase me a bit. I thought you’d be gone in no time. I played that game way too many times, I knew how to win. But life has proven me wrong. I can’t win everything and I can’t do it all by myself.”

My heart’s desire is that you are convicted to think hard about your calling in this life.  I’m not trying to guilt you.  Nor to persuade you.  Because both of those will lead to a short-term commitment to whatever you do.

I want undeniable conviction for whatever your calling.

As a foster or adoptive parent, you will certainly need a deep-seeded desire and commitment to follow through no matter what.  And there are likely to be a whole lot of “no matter whats.”

It’s hard.  Very hard.  But I have NEVER wished that I was given another calling.

Post script: For other things to read that support my thoughts, here are a few sites to visit.

http://www.afamilyforeverychild.org/kids/AdoptingATeenager.php

http://www.adoptinfo-il.org/teensneeduncond/

http://www.adoptinfo-il.org/delayed-blessing/

http://www.adoptinfo-il.org/myadvice/

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1198914-5,00.html

http://lifelineadoption.blogspot.com/search/label/Domestic

http://www.davethomasfoundation.org/about-foster-care-adoption/

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/09/25/factchecker-divorce-rate-among-christians/

Part 7 - Lee Family: Our Birth - Foster - Adoption Journey to 20 Children

Part 7 continues Heather's story. NOTE: I posted Parts 6 and 7 together so go back to Part 6 if you want to read this in order.  

This is a story that is so full of life and death.  It speaks to many that are hurting.  

Heather's Struggle to Find Her Identity

What I didn’t realize fully until Heather was gone and I was able to read her journal was that she started her journal when we grounded her from basically everything in her life.  We call it the Bed, Blanket and Bible Drill.  When we have run out of options and the kids get in to trouble with everything they own and every privilege and it looks like nothing is safe – we clean out their room of everything but a bed, blanket and bible.  Okay, we might leave some empty furniture out of convenience, but basically the idea is to remove everything that is cluttering their mind, tempting them, and causing them to be too busy to listen to themselves, to us, and to God.  No music.  No books.  No posters or pictures. No technology.  No TV.  No phone. No nothing.  Oh, did I mention No Door?  Yep. We remove the door too.

We leave them with their own thoughts, God’s Word, and a comfortable bed – they can keep a pillow too. As a result, if they want to engage with people or technology - they have to join the rest of the family or do nothing at all. 

We’ve done this more than one of our children -- to varying degrees and for varying lengths of time.  Sometimes, it works and helps the teen clear his or her mind and get back on track – realizing all that is lost and appreciating it all the more.

Once, after trying this with two of our 16-year-old foster children – they ran away – got caught – spent a night in juvenile hall and ultimately were removed from our home as foster children and placed in a group home.  We could have taken them back immediately, but we felt that this situation was dramatic enough that it might get their attention.  So we worked with DHR to let them go through this process, with the hopes that they would choose to return to us.  If they chose to return, we knew we had overcome a major obstacle that exists when we take in teenage foster children who really don’t want to be in care. 

The two children took dramatically different courses.  One child realized how much freedom she had with us and how much we loved her.  She was gone for 6 weeks and finally decided to return to our family.  We adopted her – and although the trying times didn’t end and we had many more dramatic moments with her – she is now responsible, married and has a beautiful daughter of her own, whom she adores.   But most importantly, Jesus is the center of her life.  Although at the time it looked as if our strategy failed – after all, she ran away – in reality it was her turning point. 

The other child didn’t do as well.  She eventually ran away from the group facility where she was placed and was gone for five months before she came back pregnant.  We had been searching all over the world for her and had never given up hope that she would return.  As promised, she was able to choose to return to our home.  She lived with us during her pregnancy and we helped her raised her daughter until she was two. 

Before we thought she was ready, she left our home with her daughter and tried to live on her own. That didn’t work out as she had planned and we are now raising her daughter and her two sons.  But she is a believer.  She has a strong foundation.  She can choose what she wants for herself because she knows both worlds. But, like Heather, she’s struggling to overcome her past and make a different future for herself. 

I say this not to condemn her, but to remember that sometimes, as parents, we do what we think is best and it still doesn’t produce the results we hope for.  But that doesn’t mean we can stop pursuing.  Stop trying.  Or simply give up.  Although our current strategy is to stop all help and do nothing but pray for this child, that is not because we have given up, but because we have done all that we can do and the rest is up to her and God.  We will assist her again when she wants our help. 

Other childrens’ reactions have not been so dramatic.  Like Heather.   I now know that she took the time to start to think and make peace with God.  She used the busyness in her life to hide from her problems.  Taking everything away left her exposed and vulnerable.  She didn’t like it.  But she clearly needed it.

I knew that we had given Heather a strong biblical foundation – not because we read and studied the bible every day together, but because we tried to live out our beliefs everyday – not just on Sundays.  The Truth was the basis for all our decisions as a family.  We intertwined God’s Word into our everyday language – but not in an obvious way – in part because we were also parenting four new teen-age girls and we tried not to sound too preachy with them, so as not to push them away from God before they really knew Him. 

A few months before she died, Heather tried to tell me that she didn’t know the difference between right and wrong.  That we had somehow failed to teach her that. At the time, I just laughed and said something like, “That’s a sorry excuse and a new one.  But I’m not buying it.  I’m pretty sure that over your lifetime, we’ve pretty much covered most things you need to know about right and wrong.  We have never made you memorize verses, but we give them to you daily.  Let’s start with the basics. Don’t kill.  Don’t lie.  Don’t Cheat.  Don’t be jealous.  Don’t put anyone or anything else above God.  Love others as yourself.  Not to say the 10 Commandments are all the instruction God gives on right and wrong – but they pretty much cover most choices…” 

Of course, she was in trouble and pulling the “I’m too stupid to know what I did was wrong because you didn’t teach me well enough” card.  Needless to say, that card didn’t work with me.  But she was desperate and looking for a way out of whatever situation she was in at that moment.  

I knew that she knew the Truth.  Her problem was a lack of trust. And without trust, nothing would really change.  And Heather didn’t trust completely.  Anyone.  Ever.  Not even God.  And many times, not even herself.  (She learned to have various levels of trust over time – but never complete.)

My motives for pushing her toward God were partly selfish I guess.  Years of living had shown me what I didn’t understand when I was a younger adult – I can’t fix every problem. And, at some level, it seemed easier to make her go to God and deal with Him directly – leaving me out of the loop!  But it made Heather feel like I was giving up on her.  That she was too much trouble.  That she had, in her words, “used up all of me by the age of 7.” At first that troubled me and she threw those kind of words back at me all of the time – as if to guilt me in to giving her the secrets to life that she seemingly thought I was keeping from her! 

What I didn’t know until just a few days after she died was that about the same time I began to tell her that I didn’t have all the answers and that I couldn’t fix her problems, she began keeping a very personal, very private journal.  On loose-leaf paper, in order by date, were over 250 letters addressed to herself and to God. Some were simply the journal entries of a wise young woman who struggled with life. Some were passionate love letters to Jesus. Raw and unedited, she wrote from her heart.  She shared with that loose-leaf paper and God what she refused to share with almost anyone else. 

A few days after finding and reading some of the journal entries, thoughts creeped into my head … What if?  What if I had not repeatedly told her that I didn’t have the answers?  What if I had not said, I’m all out of ideas – except for God.  I know He’s got the solution?”  What if I didn’t push her away from me and toward God?  What would have happened if I had continued to try to “help” Heather by giving her the “answers,” as if I could even if I wanted to?

Would she have turned so passionately to God - the only one who could offer her real help?  Honestly, I will never know that answer.  But as a mother, it teaches me an important lesson about my role as mom.  As much as I’m expected to be able to fix anything.  As much as I would like to be able to remove all the hurt and pain from my children.  It simply isn’t in my job description.  At some point, I must walk beside my child and guide her toward the real answers, but I would be a fool to think that I was the answer. I can only hope that I remember that lesson for my other 19 children. 

Part 8 continues with the story of some of our other children's arrival into our family.

I Think I'm Expecting Too Much from a Hallmark Holiday

When people hear that I have 19 children, 16 of whom are adopted, I usually hear two things right away.  “Wow, you must be soooo patient.”  And, my personal favorite, “You must really LOVE children.”

I was recently interviewed for a mother’s day article in a local paper.  That particular morning was exceptionally rough as I tried to get 11 kids ready and out the door by 8 am so that I could deliver them to their appropriate spots for the morning.  All so that I could have an uninterrupted interview with this reporter who had heard about me from a mutual friend and thought our story would be wonderful for the May issue.  Poor woman.  I tried to warn her.  Really, I did.

Well, she innocently started the interview with the above two infamous statements and my moodiness that morning couldn’t be hidden.  “I’m the most impatient person I know. And no, I don’t particularly love children.”  The stunned look on her face said it all.  Perhaps she had accidentally mixed up her interview appointments with the Halloween horror stories issue.

I continued.  “Really, some people simply adore children and everything about them.  They love teaching and nurturing and watching them grow and develop. They are completely selfless (or co-dependent) and their identity is wrapped up in their role as mother to their children.  I don’t think that I am that kind of mother. I have desires and interests and passions separate from my children. Don’t get me wrong, I want my kids to grow and develop.  And nurturing is required in the job description.  But anyone who has actually raised children knows that most of our time is spent changing diapers, feeding, clothing, disciplining, chauffeuring, cleaning, teaching, training, consoling, entertaining and losing sleep.  While none of these duties is terrible in and of itself, it takes a strong (or dishonest) woman to say that she actually likes that she is required to do all these things every single day without a break even when she is totally exhausted, needs time to herself, wants to pursue other interests, feels deathly ill or wishes she could disappear.  And all this while trying to meet the needs of her husband and for many, a job or career as well.” And the truth is, all of this is true whether you have one child or twenty. 

I can’t believe that I am 49-years-old and that I have been mothering for 22 years.  With 19 kids ranging in age from 1 to 30-years-old, it amazes me that I am still capable of even attempting to mother.  It is the most draining job imaginable and it requires stamina, patience and endurance beyond what any sane person could call reasonable.  Every time I think that I am finally through with diapers or potty training or home schooling or college educations or holidays or birthdays or weddings, I have another child - or another one reaches that milestone - and I have to do it all again!

I think my first memories of Mother’s Day were fairly traditional.  I received multiple versions of my children’s handprints on artwork. I discovered that my pre-school aged young children thought that I yelled a lot, that my favorite thing to do was take a nap, and that I was 20-years-old, 72 feet tall and had pink hair.  I dutifully and proudly attended the Mother’s Day programs offered at pre-school and watched my adorable children sing songs and recite poems and present me with various tokens of their affection.  And my husband made (and still makes) an attempt to remember that it is, in fact, the one day of the year in which I am supposed to be the center of attention – but not for the usual reasons related to my seemingly endless ability to care for them at will.  (Their will.  Not mine.) I’m not much for gifts, but I usually receive a gift certificate for a manicure or pedicure or massage.  All of which is greatly appreciated.  But it is not quite the same as freedom from responsibility.

That’s because Mother’s Day doesn’t change the fact that there are children and a husband who are hungry, who need diapers and clothes, who fight and whine, and who make incomprehensible demands on my weary soul.  Okay.  My husband isn’t quite in diapers anymore.  But you get the point.  The children have not yet learned that Mother’s Day was designed to be a celebration of mothers. And for most moms I know that implies a day off from the regular duties of motherhood.  A day when fathers, or the children themselves, step up and miraculously take over all the responsibilities that usually fall to mom.  And then there are cards and gifts and flowers and meals prepared and cleaned by someone else.  And sweet notes from our husbands remind us that we are not only the sole object of his passion, love, affection and desire, but that he thinks that we are a wonderful mother to his children.

However, after 22 years I can safely say that this revelation does not occur to any child until such time as they sit beside me on Mother’s Day and commiserate with me as a fellow mom (or mother figure) suffering the inevitable disappointment of finding out that our responsibilities and our life goes on as usual.

This is not meant to be a criticism of those who have tried to make my day special; rather, it is a revelation that what I really want is a fantasy that no human can actually fulfill.

Motherhood, like marriage, is really a story of a selfless commitment and dedication.  I can’t say that it is a genuine love for the duties my roles require.  If I am truthful – and I am much of the time - I would much prefer to be alone.  Reading.  Writing.  Thinking.  Cooking because I want to, not because I must.  Pursuing new interests.  Learning.

But like some of the older woman who came before me in this journey, I’ve learned that if I expect all of the appreciation and love for me to be shown on one perfect day each year, then I am missing the point and losing so much more.  Motherhood isn’t about THIS day.  It is about the perseverance of every day.  Of enjoying the process and taking the seconds of joy that come every once in a while and stretching that to cover for as long as it is needed to sustain me. 

I do love being a mother.  And I love all of my children.  I just can’t say that I am a mother to so many because “I really love children.”  And ask my husband or any of my children and they will convince you that “patient” is nowhere on the list of adjectives that describe me.