.I Didn't Know.

I was never one to dream big dreams. Oh, I am a dreamer, but the storyboard for my dreams were all sweet and safe. They really were such good dreams about loving Jesus well by raising babies and loving my husband and making a home and filling bellies and always writing in between. I was never called brave. I was just normal, and I was really content and really happy right in the middle of that normal life.

But adoption took me places that I never dreamed of going.

Five years ago we walked off of an airplane dazed and naïve and stood in a country that was so far away and so different from the one that we called home. We left two beautiful blonde babies with grandparents and embarked on a journey that would change everything about our entire lives for our entire lives. And as dramatic as that sounds, it is entirely true. It would change us, our family, and the ripples would impact everyone who loved us. Looking back I really did not know that this would be the case. I didn’t know so much. I did not know that five years ago was the end of the life I once knew and the beginning of the life I now live.

I didn’t know how hard this journey would be or the toll that it would take. I thought I was getting off of that plane to meet my baby. And I was doing that, but I didn’t know that my baby was coming to me with so many special needs and diagnoses that five years ago I had never even heard of. I didn’t know that we would also meet our older son, and that we would soon disrupt the birth order of our family and jump headfirst into parenting an older child, with no prior experience or foundation with this child. I didn’t know that I was preparing to enter a few years of desert wandering as we wrestled through things I never knew existed until I was strangled in it - things like post adoption depression. I didn’t know the darkness and isolation that I would feel in the midst of the joy of building this family. I didn’t know trauma and heartache and sadness, or the way it can wrap around one’s heart and whisper all of my parenting failures every time my eyes opened in the morning. I didn’t know that love is not enough to fix all of those broken hurt places and cover all of those stories that I not only wish I could unhear, but even more so wish I could unwrite. I didn’t know that truly only Jesus is enough, and that I would grasp and claw after Him like never before. I didn’t know accusations would arise simply because we were giving this our all, and sometimes that looks so, so different from normal.

I also didn’t know just how strong our marriage was and how united we really were as a team. I didn’t know the intense love I would feel as I looked across a room and saw my husband tangled in the arms of a sobbing teenager, or cupping his chin while speaking truth against the lies he fights against, or the way my heart would feel out of control as he cleaned up vomit for the thousandth time, or fought on the phone with doctors and lawyers, and stood in front of person after person demanding this child be made his son, and that child receive the proper treatment, and all the while loving the other two just as he did when there were only two. I didn’t know how brave my blonde babies were or how enormous their hearts were until I saw them make room for their brothers and embrace them with everything inside their little bodies. Or how proud I would be when the tears and rages come, and they quietly move out of the way and pray for Jesus to heal the hurt, and rub backs with their little hands, and whisper wise words, and forgive and give grace and remind me of what it means to love. I didn’t know how much they would understand this journey and teach us along the way. I didn’t understand how courageous two boys were who folded themselves into our family and learned what it meant to be a son. I didn’t know how much I would enjoy a family spread out in ages, how much a teenager can love the baby of the family, and how fun our lives have become with littles and a big, and all of the good that comes with having both.

Five years ago, I embraced a thirteen month old baby, and collided with a ten year old boy, and everything changed. I could not have known what was to come, the depth of pain, the unspeakable joy, the stories we would share, the places we would go, the tears we would sob, the laughs that we would exchange, the millions of I love yous and I am sorry; please forgive me’s that would need to be said and resaid, the thousands of photos to prove to him that yes, we are family and no, we are not going anywhere without you, the memories that we have forged and fought for, the wounds HE would heal, the lessons we had to learn, the hard we had to endure, and the life we get to live.

I didn’t know that leaving behind normal would be this good.

Five years ago we flew across the ocean, landed in a strange world, met two little boys and everything changed.

Happy Meetcha Day Jameson Yonas Byron and Habtamu Theo Byron.

Now we know that you were exactly who we were waiting for.

.He did It.

It was just the three of us, late last night. Jim and I snuggled on the couch, and Habi reclined in a chair. We were relaxing and enjoying being together. The finish line was so close that we could taste it. Today Habi woke up for his last day of his first year in an American school. And last night as Jim and I were reiterating just how proud we were of the work he had put in this year, he looked at us shyly beneath those heavy lashes and said, this is the first school year I have ever finished  - not just in America. He had been hinting about that for a few weeks (prior to this, we had understood that he had completed three years of an education in Ethiopia), but came out and told us last night that he had never fully completed one. I am blown away by this child, who never completed even one year of school prior to coming here, who didn't have the rhythm of attending school, or an education background - no study skills, no learning hooks to hang all of this new information on (he had to develop them all from scratch this year), just a few days here and there of scattered education in Ethiopia, that he managed to squeeze in between working to earn money to buy food in order to literally survive. He was never taught English. Ever. He taught himself to speak it, by listening to foreigners and well educated people in Ethiopia. He somehow got a hold of the English alphabet and taught himself how to write the letters - figuring out the strokes painstakingly on his own. The fact that he does not have an education background does not diminish his brilliance, it illuminates it. He came to America, and was plopped into an accelerated private school in the seventh grade - having never completed one year of school before. How frightening this should have been.

But he did it with grace and courage. I really do not know a braver teenage boy than Habi.

As an adult, I cannot imagine that I would have done nearly as well if I were in his position. This year has not  been easy. It has been miraculous, and beautiful, and emotional, but not easy. Redemption never is. God provided the perfect school for Habi to attend that would help meet his needs. It is small, close-knit, non-legalistic, and the staff went above and beyond to help Habi and to help us help Habi. I am sure this is the first time that the school had a student with the background that Habi came from, but they did not shy away from the challenge and both staff and students embraced him. Habi grew confident in this environment, and I believe for the first time he felt and knew love from so many sides. This was as valuable as the academics.

There were hours and hours of homework this year. There were tears, there was determination, there was arguments and disagreements, there was perseverance and there was discouragement. Every single person inside our family sacrificed to make this happen. When we thought we could not handle one more algebraic equation, or history date, or science definition, when we felt strangled by the literature, by the monotonous phonics work, we linked arms and did it together. And one assignment after another piled up into an entire school year, and in the midst of traveling 3 plus hours a day, Jamesy's therapies, attaching as a family, medical crises, grief for a country and loved ones an ocean away, the Spirit pushing us to move on, in the midst of the exhaustion and lies that Satan loves to feed children from hard places, in the midst of the biggest transition in all of our lives, the calendar has fallen through months and we have made it to the finish line.

And it was worth it to see Habi's beaming face this morning, to know the accomplishment he feels in having a full school year under his belt. I cannot make people understand what this year has been like, and it is not my job, to. I am learning to brush off the criticism and the emails and messages that accuse me of giving Habi more attention than my other three children. The snide remarks about how many photos took up my facebook and blog of Habi and the lacking of photos of the other three. What I cannot make people understand who have never dealt with it, is how much lost time we have to make up for, how empty his love bucket was when he came to us, how insecure, lonely, and needy our son was. How critical this first year was. How two of my children were born into a home filled with love, words of affirmation, cuddles and daily their little love buckets are filled (and were still being filled this year), and one child two years of the same, and is finally starting to understand the permanence of our love. But Habi, came to us empty, so empty in so many ways, and while his story is sacred for him so I type carefully here, he NEEDED every single time his mama or daddy bragged about him on facebook, he needed the adoration, the public display of love, the photos, the screaming and cheering from the sidelines, the over-the-top excitement for every single first. He needed it and he still needs it, and I am done apologizing or feeling guilty. Because the result and the redemption that is happening is because God guided us to love him up BIG - in outrageous ways this year. I regret none of it.

 He is not the same child that we met two years ago. He is not the same child that stepped onto American soil last July. And he is not the same child who bravely entered seventh grade this September. God, truly, has changed his life......and our life in the process.

You did it, my sweet, beautiful, brave boy! Keep following Jesus, for He is so very, very near. He always was, Baby. When you felt the loneliest, He was right there. And He is here now, and so are we. I love you. To Ethiopia and back.

.In the Pursuit.

In the middle of these vivid, beautiful autumn days, it is hard to write. Not because there is nothing to write, or because time is stretched paper thin; for both of those are true. It's just raw here. I wrestle with the words that should go down on the screen and the ones that should stay tightly locked inside my Mommy's heart. Some of this seems so sacred, too sacred to expose.

I have known twice now what it is to fight for a child. I have known the pain and fear that can consume nights as my mind would wonder over the safety of children - children that my heart birthed the moment my eyes met theirs. My fingers have signed hundreds of papers and filled out checks that totalled more than my husband makes in an entire year. I have conquered fears and stepped on an airplane to fly over the ocean {shiver} not once, but six times for these children. I have this passion that burns and smolders inside of me because of this fight. A passion that at times causes more trouble, in my human mind, than it is worth; for the first time in my life I am trying to learn when to hold my tongue and when to speak. Because I feel like for the first time in my life, I actually have something to say. I have battled red tape and cried rivers of wet, searing tears through road blocks, begging God to break down the chains that kept my children from a family. I have watched God peel layers off of my heart, my eyes, and my life. I have painfully endured broken friendships because of choices God led us to make for these children. At the same time I have been blessed with new friendships that could have only grown out of this fight for my children. I have prayed in a way that I have never prayed before, and I have stood in the middle of a move of God. I do not recognize the girl in the mirror anymore, because after three years of battling for the lives of these children, I look less like a girl and more like the battle-worn woman that I now am. And while it is worth it - a million times over worth it, I am still learning how to fit inside this new skin.

And the battle is not over.

After all of the battling to get these boys into our home, I am now fighting for their hearts. In the middle of this vivid, beautiful autumn, I am specifically fighting for the heart of my big boy. Perhaps I was naive, and didn't realize that the real battle was not in getting my boy here, but it was actually in battling for him to know down deep in those broken, hurt pieces of his heart that he is ours. Forever. There is nothing easy about loving a child who has known no love. There is nothing easy about sharing the value and worth that Jesus places on all of us with a child who has been told he was worthless his entire life. There is nothing easy in dieing to my  feelings everyday in order to teach a child how to accept being loved and cherished inside of a family. It is scary and messy and the outcome is unknown.

It is humbling and knocks my pride flat on its face, because by all human standards, I am under-equipped to love him in this way that his heart so desperately needs. There can be no off days here - there is never time to hit the snooze button in this battle - it is a relentless, desperate, all-in, vicious pursuit of his heart. A pursuit that I am just too weak for. I am powerless. Except I am not because of the cross and Jesus. God uses the weak, the powerless, the imperfect, the fearful, the worthless and inadequate - He uses me - and as He indwells me His love through me becomes perfectly equipped to be the exact love that my big boy needs.

Every morning as I drag my exhausted body out of bed, long before the sun ever lights the sky, and tie on my proverbial running shoes, I begin another day of chasing - chasing this boy and his heart. It's uphill and hard, and I am sweaty and tired. It's consuming and messy. The chase is anything but choreographed and rhythmic. It is a limb-flailing, red-faced, panting, spitting, all-out energy zapping, sweat soaking kind of chasing. But something strange is happening in this chasing, I am getting a tiny window view of the chase that is happening for my own heart. I see the relentless pursuit of Jesus to win my heart - my whole heart - even those ugly, broken parts.

As I chase and flail after this boy born of my heart, and as my hot breath reaches his neck and my arms squeeze around his pounding, fearful chest, I, too, feel the hot breath of my Savior on my neck, I feel His arms wrap around all of my fears.

 I feel His pursuit every time I pursue.

My big boy and I  - we are both being pursued. And the pursuit is hot, hard, and beautiful. In this pursuit I am learning to love and to be loved. There is something beautiful in this chase - in being pursued and in pursuing. It's not a beauty that is neat and tidy and easy and comfortable. It is a beauty that is being unwrapped little by little, a beauty that is painfully awakened in the faithful, excruciating pursuit. A pursuit that may take years - a marathon of tearing down those lies, the hurt, the abandonment, the ugly deceit and bitterness that is walled around his heart, and the chase is made possible only from His perfect love inside of me as He chases me down.

The best Love in the world was given through the shedding of blood. The best Love took a toll on the body. The best Love gave up its life.

The best Love pursues and pursues, and pursues, and because Someone is chasing me every moment of everyday in order to win the battle over my heart, I, too, battle on and chase the heart of my big boy. Someday I believe his heart will succumb to the pursuit, and so will mine.

*Photo courtesy of Red Ballooon Photography.