Healing is Happening

I thought I would give an update on things since my WAR post a week and a half ago.

A week ago tonight, I stopped for a minute and realized that we had three days (Saturday, Sunday and Monday) full of REALLY GOOD CONNECTIONS (and much less control and fits) with our daughter who struggles the most. Praise God - He heard the prayers of His people! Good connections and a submissive heart after major fits/battles is such a good sign. And even though watching my daughter grieve so violently last Wednesday night was almost traumatic for me, I know that just getting to the place where she can grieve  is GOOD. I am still very much a novice at this whole parenting-kids-from-hard-places thing, but from what I have learned from my friend Jen, this seems to all point toward healing in my daughter's life.

Oh, there will be many more battles to come, I am sure. The little I know of this healing from past trauma and attachment loss is anything but a straight path where you put one foot in front of the other. It is lots of circles. Lots of going back and then forward and then back again and then forward. The kids start doing better, start feeling safer, start having feelings of love for us and want to trust us and then . . . "HUH-OH, I'm scared to death of these safe, loving feelings because I have only been hurt in the past" . . . and the BIG reactions out of fear come again. From my limited understanding, this is what goes on inside of them. Once they realize - again - that we are still here and that we still love them, the kids are able to go a little further around the circle before being scared of losing all that they are gaining. I am told the circles get wider and wider until the fear (and all the crazy/negative behavior) is conquered by love and vanishes, by the grace of God.

This cycle in my children is so similar to the cycle of fear and trusting God in my own life. While this is the hardest road I've ever walked, I can tell you with complete honesty that I wouldn't trade it for ANYTHING easier. I don't like the hard parts but God conquers more and more fear in my heart and He conquers more and more self-sufficiency in my heart each time the battle really rages for my kids' souls. These battles press into my flesh and my sin and push me to saturate my soul in God's Word and believe what He says with all my heart - in a way I have rarely had to before. This gift - knowing and loving and relying on Jesus more - has already been worth every bit of pain and heartache of the past eight months (wow! the kids have been home almost eight months!).

I recently read a newspaper article (my mom gave it to me from the newspaper last Sunday and then I saw it on a blog last week) about fifty-somethings adopting. One of the adoptive parents said something (in regard to adopting kids) that is SO TRUE:


"We first saw it as rescuing them," says Marla Hastings shaking her head. "But it changed," says her husband. "It's God rescuing us from a self-centered life."

I LOVE THIS!!  Because it is SO TRUE. God is using the hardest parts of this journey of parenting kids with attachments issues to save me from myself. Healing is happening in my daughter's life. And it is happening in my own life as well.