I went off the grid for a good 8 months there.
The main reason for my absence was an extremely difficult adoption process that required a lot of privacy and personal space as we navigated the rough waters of the court system. I needed a bit of anonymity on the web as we jumped through legal hoops and persevered through long waiting periods.
It was, hands down, the most difficult experience of my life. To hold a child hours after his birth, to spend a night in the hospital with him, to take him home and love him unquestioningly for months –all the while knowing that this placement was fragile and likely to end in our loss–well, you can imagine that it did quite a number on my confidence.
Coming through the complicated web of loss and gain of adoption, we emerged broken down, weak, exhausted, and depleted. But also unceasingly thankful to have the child we love with a devastating, soul-encompassing kind of love still in our family. And I know that we would do it again, no questions asked, if it meant his permanency. I won’t go into the whats and whys of our adoption process–it’s multi-layered and more complicated than a I can explain in a blog post. The intricacies and messiness of it forced us to wrestle with ethics and to see if our love could stand up to the answers we didn’t like. We had to come to terms with potential loss. We had to know for sure that we could make the hard call if we needed to. And if the facts had been different, we would have taken the sacrificial love route without question, though it would break our hearts forever.
With all that is in me, I’m thankful to say that we didn’t have to make that choice.
Now, here I am trying to find my footing after 7 desperate months of white-knuckled resolve to hold fast to faith. It should be easy, right? Everything’s fine. I should have no trouble settling into normalcy.
But, I have to admit, I’m now dealing with the fallout of those grueling months of uncertainty. For 7 months I had one focus–keeping our son. I no mental space for anything else. I didn’t think about anything else, didn’t work towards any other goals, didn’t do anything other than SURVIVE those months.
And I feel like I’m recovering. Now that the period of strain is over, I’m at a loss for what normalcy even looks like. My head space isn’t occupied any longer with this huge potential for devastating loss. So everything that’s been on hold since the first of August is rushing in, overwhelming me with both the mundane and the complicated because…well, that’s life. Mundane, but also complicated.
All the things that went on the back burner of my life, have emerged demanding attention. And while I try to re-order my life and goals and work, I find myself fumbling for emotion, for purpose. My prayers were centered exclusively around my kids, and now that I can open up space for the rest of life–I almost feel afraid to let it all in because of the potential for loss in other areas. In any area, really. Numbness carried me through some of the trial (a temporary defense mechanism), but that’s not going to cut it in this new normal for me. That’s not who I am. I’m a person with BIG feelings who feels the gamut of emotions about everything every day.
I miss that.
So, I push forward, opening myself up to life. Trying to let the experience of the past 7 months prove that I’m stronger than I think I am, and that as my mom told me in the thick of it all, I’m “made of stern stuff.” It’s okay to be cautious, but I don’t have to hold back anymore.
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Glenna is the social media manager for Practical Shepherding Women. Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
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