Ruined

Last night, a co-worker, asked me..

if we are choosing to ruin our family. 🙂 One of those days during the wait where I wonder what in the world we got ourselves in to with adoption.

Well, this is an almost un-edited response I typed in a flurry to her. It was a gut reaction, so please take it as such. This was done with her permission, as it seemed to help her.

you are about to “ruin” it.

Let’s just be honest about it.

I went into this knowing we were ruining the perfect “american family of 4.” 1 boy, 1 girl, 2 parents. Our kids are even blonde! (even tho neither of us are!).

people said we were ruining our family and even taking stuff away from our kids.

we had folks question our motives, our hearts, our finances and everything…

but Brian and I decided we were going to live our lives differently from how we had been up to that point…

yes.

we choose to live it VERY differently Tara. other people choose to make their own kids in the comfort of their own bed, with their own DNA and give birth in their own bathtubs.

some people choose to never have kids so they have more time alone in said bed, said bathtub, without interruptions

some people foster because they see the need and never wanted to have babies emerge from one of the smallest, most tender holes in the female anatomy

some people adopt because they think it’s a neat way to have a family

some adopt because they are addicted to be different and want a kid from every color of the human rainbow

some of us adopt because we are certain God called them to adopt even though they don’t like kids, have a bad temper, have 2 kids already, want to work full-time and be a famous preacher, teacher and writer… or maybe a fierce personal trainer with killer abs and triceps.

some of us are called even though we have little extra income and gross carpet that should be replaced… and drawers in the kitchen that don’t work… and doors that leak arctic, polar freezing air that flows from Lake Superior.

so the short answer is yes you are ruining your family, your pocket-book, your “Dave Ramsey perfect plan to stay out of debt” perhaps (although we didn’t go into debt, Thank You Jesus), your body (I couldn’t work out normally this summer), your dreams of a quiet home in 1 more year after the younger kid goes to school…

you’ll ruin all of that. or at least I did. we did.

but it’s sort of like ruining that pair of pants that never fit. that pan that burned the cookies every time any how. the friendship that wasn’t kingdom-worthy anyhow. the paint job that made you depressed.

I am almost 3 years into our adoption story and I still don’t know what we’ve gotten into.

But I am confident God called us to this. (It must have been His idea b/c I’d never have come up with it – that’s a quote from a dear friend/mentor of mine when she heard we were considering adoption) I’m in God’s will with it. So I must be ok.

So come on in, ruin it girl! Do it boldly confidently following the Jesus who “ruined” a whole lot of people’s worlds, including mine. A former angry, single feminist who only though running 3 miles a day, working on campus and reading a book a week was all life held, in a small Northern town.

exchange your riches for the ruined life given to you from the King.

do it. ruin it.

Jesus, ruin me MORE.

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