Organized Chaos.
"love without restrictions- trust without fear."
The Adoption: Growth
I was skeptical about writing another blog. I’m not sure if it was because I felt like I let myself down, or was just frustrated with my circumstances. Either way, I went for it.
For the past 6 months, I’ve been in what I now call a gruesome adoption process. My life changed so much during the process that it seemed to have slowed everything down. I made the mistake of adding a young man to my adoption paperwork. I guess I thought he would be in my life for more than the time he was. I was eager. I was excited. I was silly. By adding him to the process, I also had to add his children, and that made it an even more of an open book than I was ready for. Background checks, interviews, and questionnaires looked a lot different. Long story short, our relationship was short-lived, unlike the consequences of my actions. He’s no longer in my life, but I’m having to “re-vamp” a lot of what was already set in stone. I had so much anger with myself that I just stopped the process. I stopped responding to e-mails. I stopped answering calls. I stopped listening to God when I KNEW what He’d promised me. I know that adoption was a calling. Nothing else in the world could convince me to do what everyone around me sees as a “burden.” I found peace in the fact that I wasn’t trying to fill an empty void, I was trying to walk in obedience.
It hurts to know that I let a person into such an intimate place of my life and had it stripped away, but I find joy in the fact that I learned so much about myself and the way I love men. I’m not sure if I’ll be dating again, nor do I know if it’s in God’s will for me to be married. One thing I do know is what I deserve as a woman and daughter of a King. I didn’t have confidence in that before. I know this doesn’t have much to do with the blog, but it matters to me, so I’m sharing. LOL. I love with a kind of passion I didn’t know existed until it was taken advantage of. I’ve told y’all the story of Charles (my dad) and he makes it easy to just not want to risk being hurt. After years of fighting unforgiveness, I don’t think God gifts us with those kinds of things for us to let the world determine what we do with them. In my case, the ability to love so freely is a gift that I didn’t know I had. I’m thankful; cautious, but thankful.
I recently contacted my social worker. As soon as my living conditions become concrete, and as long as God continues to provide, I will be BACK on track to adopting a sweet child of my own. I’m not sure of the timing, and a friend reminded me of when God promised Abraham and Sarah a child of their own. Their timing was NOT God’s and I think I had the same problem.
I thank all of you who have continued to pray for me. I would hang my head in shame some days when people asked me what the status of the process was. Now I realize that I NEEDED this year of teaching to show me what it means to be a mother to a neglected child. I have students who live on their own, have lost both parents, have lost one parent, or are just lost, and my year at Washington-Marion has done a phenomenal job of teaching me how to love and cater to them. I’m excited about my life journey. I’m thankful for the people who never stopped pushing into my heart, no matter how big of a wall I built up. I’m thankful for the fact that God’s protection was unwavering, even in the darkest of times.
All of this to say:
Yes, I’m still adopting.
No, I don’t know when,
and PLEASE keep me in your prayers.
With love,
Shakiyla.
The watercolor in my blog was made by Debra Cartwright. Click on her name and visit her website for some AMAZING original pieces.
Organized Chaos. 