Mother Teresa once said, “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” Well, that is what we are living out in our family right now... only these days we are existing in the first part and often waiting on the second to be true.
Warning, this is going to be a “bare-all” kind of blog post. The long and short of it is that we are going through a very testing time with Agape. I am going to be pretty up front about a few instances that are not only hard to think about, but even harder to write about to a public audience because they are just so painful to me. This is life with an older child who has come from a HARD PLACE and is just learning what family means. And what LOVE means. Because sometimes love is not soft and fluffy and gives you everything you want.
I am writing this post HALF for my own need to just “get it out there” and HALF for the other adoptive parents who need to know that they are not alone. So, at the risk of people making judgements or having opinions on “what we should do next time...” (please be gentle with us) here goes:
It has been a little more than 6 months since Agape came home. Only six?! Six whole months! So short, but yet so long. We have morphed and changed and smoothed into a family with a rhythm and a bond. In many ways, and on most days, Agape blends in pretty seamlessly. She speaks fairly good English (we are working on things like verb tense, grammaticaly complete sentences, and word order), she can understand most everything that we ask or say (and if not she can tell us speciafically what needs further explanation), and she understands how our family and schedule works. She can read - YES, READ! - and is starting to sound out words and write them herself. She has become a super awesome swimmer, and swims laps because she says that she wants to be on swim team someday. She snorkeled off a boat on a reef in the middle of the ocean when we were in the Keys! So proud of her in that moment, because just 5 months earlier she had never swam once in her life! Best of all, she is an amazing big sister, and she often shows a good deal of responsibility in caring for Justice and helping us with household tasks when we ask. When she is “on” she is fun, and witty, and silly, and joyful to be around, and has the biggest smile and laugh!
And all of this stuff is pretty awesome and fun, and makes our family feel whole. I like to think on these things because they remind me just how far we have come, and that progress has definitely been made.
And then there are those days... those days when something comes over Agape and she almost become a different child in a matter of SECONDS. When she reacts out of a heart of fear and insecurity and DESPRATELY claws for control over us and the situation OR attention from anyone and everyone NOT us. We call those the “orphan moments” when she suddenly becomes an orphan again in her heart. When she again believes - or in a sad way thinks she wants - to be on her own again, just trying to survive off of anyone she can, without any of the vulnerability that true love and family asks of her.
I have become so sensitive and in tune with Agape’s tones and mannerisms that I can sense these things coming now. What may look like “a happy day and all is well” on the outside of Agape’s smile, may be trouble brewing in her soul. OH SO SUBTLE shifts in the way that she looks at us or pretends to not hear us when others are around, when she seeks some approval or smiles from others, or slips her hand from ours... or even just so much as loosens her grip on our hand or slightly wanders toward others when we are walking in a crowd. I realised the other day that I could even predict how the day was going to go by her laugh first thing in the morning. She has this nervous “put on” laugh that means that she is feeling distant and insecure about SOMETHING. Not that she will - or can - tell us what it is, which is hard. I can feel the wall start to rise and her emotional distance start to grow. Then comes the disobedience. Small at first, with little, insignificant things; but it soon grows too large to go by uncorrected. And then - when she does not want to be told “no” or corrected or simply does not want to obey a request we have made - then comes the cosmic sized verbal-screaming-meltdown-performance. She saves these for when she has an audience. At least the BIGGEST ones. And it is frequently accompanied by her making herself throw up on me. Yes, I did just say that she could throw up at will. Because she CAN. And she has no qualms about doing it in public while telling others around that I made her do it. And her cry has changed from the generic “African wail” (Ey-yi-yi-yi-yi-yiiiiiii!) to very mean and hurtful words, or lies to get others to pay attention. Things like “stop hurting me” when we are not doing a darn thing, or “somebody, anybody, helpa me! I need someone to helpa me!” or “No mommy, no!” or “I no like you!” or even “I will bite you!” Of course, when she is really mad, she tells us that she wants to just go back to Africa so that she does not have to listen to anyone anymore. A part of her heart wants to go back to being “parentless.” (OH SO MANY spiritual applications here and ways that I see my own heart in this. Don’t we all sometimes long for the “slavery of Egypt” over the challenge of relying on a loving Father? Please don’t think that I am missing the irony of my own orphan heart mirrored by these actions!)
Now, anyone who knows Agape and sees her sweet smile or hears her hearty laugh on a regular basis might find these things hard to believe, and we understand that. It is even hard to believe for us, that she can flip so fast and become a child that we barely know! It is almost like she becomes like a desprate, cornered animal, unaware of the ramifications of her actions. She is just in survival mode, doing what she has done for the past however many years of her life! And it is all about getting CONTROL. Because something in her soul or in her environment is feeling very out of control and scared at the moment.
But on the other hand, she knows very well what she is doing and saying, and her words are carefully calculated to try to get the optimum “results” she is after. She is one smart cookie, unfortunately, when it comes to playing people and situations. We were warned about this in Congo by two different sets of caretakers. They told us that she had quite the mouth on her, and she is very sassy and quick witted. We witnessed her challenging adults there with smart-aleck comments, and she knew how to scream and what to scream to gain the attention of her fellow Congolese.... and now that she speaks English very well, we are getting to experience that personally here in America. Not bad language, but just very mean things actually aimed at hurting us emotionally and getting others to stare. Imagine teenager words coming out of a seven year old body in the midst of a toddler-like tantrum. Attention and control.
And when this happens, we just have to keep on keeping on. Just keep going about what we are doing, not giving any extra attention, not giving in to whatever she wants that she is not getting. Just holding tight to the groundrules. Trying to get her away from her audience. Keeping an even tone. Telling her again that we love her, and that we only ask her to do, or not do, things for her own GOOD. Just keep on holding that hand that she is desprately trying to pull away from ours.
And then - IF IF IF no one has fed her tantrum with attention - all of sudden she will just stop, turn her crying off like a light switch, and try to act like nothing was ever wrong. In 5 minutes she will try to joke and laugh with us, and play and ask for things. And then, when she sees that she is still in trouble for her actions, she will become ULTRA-SUPER-DUPER helpful. Trying to make up for the behavior by hugging us with the same nervous laugh that preceeded the outburst.
And there we are. Battleworn. Scarred. Bewildered. Sometimes covered in puke. And very often recieving stares that could freeze souls from others who think that we must be horrible, abusive parents. And sometimes they even tell us that to our faces.
Like last Saturday, and like today.
Last Saturday was our Mother’s Day outting at Ten Thousand Villages. My mom, step-father, grandmother, sister and brother-in-law, and Dan’s family were there. We were all eating lunch in the cafe after an African Drumming session, and suddenly, Agape started “slipping away.” I had noticed that she was getting pretty wound up, and tried to bring her back down and have her sit with us and eat her lunch. She basically began to ignore Dan and I, and began to actually mock Dan and laugh at it. I took her to the bathroom to talk, and here is where it alllllll went south. (in retrospect, I SHOULD have gone to the car where there was no audience. I am learning.) She began to scream even before we got into the bathroom. Inside I was thrown up on 3 times during a temper tantrum so loud and verbally explosive that it had customers complaining, and the manager wanting us to leave. Thank GOD for three parts of our family being there to have our backs in explaining what was going on so that no one reported us to child services!
Then we had a great Mother’s Day, and a smooth next week, and fast forward to the next weekend:
Yesterday at the 5K - despite the fact that Agape walks/jogs 2-5 miles with me everyday and was SUPER excited about the race telling everyone she met how she was going to run with Dad - She began to pull away from Dan at about 1/4 mile into the run, and then screamed when he held her hand to keep her near him, waling and crying, throwing herself on the ground and saying he was hurting her, and that she did not like him. This was so bad, in fact, that security stopped Dan to ask what was going on. Thank God they believed him. But then he was told by three separate people that what he did was terribly inappropriate, OBVIOUSLY hurting her like that. The stares that he got were bone chilling. Others tried to tell him to just let her walk with them. (Whaaaaaat?!?!?! They were perfect STRANGERS! NO WAY he was just going to give her to them!) He was both angry and crushed at the same time. His heart was hurt so deeply.
But then when we were all back together at the finish and Dan walked off to just get some space, she got so upset asking where he was going. She was terrified thinking he was leaving. She was crying saying “Sorry, sorry, daddy don’t go. Where my daddy going?” Obviously, she was scared that she had finally driven him away. She was quite relieved when he returned.
And we KNOW how all this must look to others! We understand why people react as they do, really. But at the same time, we wish that everyone would give us a chance to explain. And that they would not step in and FEED the behavior.
[Disclaimer: PLEASE NOTE, we are taking this SERIOUSLY, because of the possible legal ramifications that Agape could unknowingly bring down on the family by these outbursts. We are not sharing these things lightly. She simply does not know what saying things like this in America could bring about. Pray for us to have wisdom to help her understand how serious it is.]
Now I know what some of you are thinking... we should “cocoon” a little more and stay out of public for a bit. We are doing too much too soon. etc, etc, etc.... Well, we have been a little caught off guard by these bahaviors coming back. They were gone for a while now, and she has been doing GREAT with being out and about, and loves new places and experiences, MOST of the time... this behavior has returned from the past out of NOWHERE. We had a different child a few weeks ago. Right after our family vacation - which was AWESOME!!!! [read: LOTS of high-quality, uninterrupted, FAMILY time with no outside influences] - we saw a confident, loving, trusting girl whose laugh was real and deep.
Then, with each day spent at school, we have watched her slowly slip away again. SCHOOL. She simply cannot handle going back and forth between the two worlds of school and family. School is very much like her old life as an orphan - lots of children, a few “caretakers”, and no relationship that is too “deep” that it may ask something of her. It is a comfort zone. (NOTE: we are not saying this is the school’s fault. It just is what it is.) Then she comes home and exists in her new reality in a family, with family rules, a Mom and Dad who do not accept sass-mouthing or tantrums (these were very effective in Congo, and at the very least, you could get adults to just leave you alone if you were too difficult). We have high expectations for her because we actually BELIEVE in her and what she is capable of. We encourage EFFORT and accountability. And we do not just ignore her when she is being difficult. She simply cannot fly under the radar like she could at the orphanage when there were lots of kids and only a few adults, most of whom could have cared less if the kids even existed.
All of this equals out to some VERY INTENTIONAL parenting. We do not waste a moment with her, always ready to make the most of an opportunity to show her love, and help her grow and learn to be the BEST that she can be. Right now our priority is regrouping, recircling the wagons, and trying to help her regain some balance. It will be hard this month because she still has 3 weeks of school left and Dan begins his new position with 12 hr day/midnight rotations. (yet another level of instability and change to throw her off) We need to make some changes, and we have yet to figure out exactly what is going to help or “work.” We are looking into counseling, and we will go from there....
But can I just be blunt and say that my heart is TIRED. So tired. By the end of a tough day I often feel absolutely drained of all emotional strength. My heart feels like it is running on empty many times. Dan and I concede that we need the GOSPEL for hope and eachother for support, and without the two, we do not know what we would do some days.
And that, my friends, is why we hardly blog. Because we are either so busy making to most of the good, sweet, awesome moments OR so tired from the long, hard, giving love all we’ve got days, that we just need to sink into BED, and pray for God’s grace to refill us in time for the morning light.
But through it all we’ve seen many victories. Agape has conquered many hills already and is slowly, surely learning to “do hard things,” despite how much she would like to avoid it.
And we are learning the real meaning of her name...
Agape: Love that gives even if it does not recieve. Selfless, giving love that puts others first. Love that perseveres and forgives, never giving up. Bottom line, the love of Jesus... which He embodied by dying on the cross FOR those who were, even at that moment, mocking him and calling for his death, plus every sinner who ever was, is, or will be.
This is the love that we need to have in the difficult moments, when she tells us that she does not want us. When she is pushing us away. When she is spewing hateful words while we are trying to give her something GOOD. When she is not thankful.
Agape love is the answer.
And one day, after the last tear falls, love will be all that’s left....
