Be inspired

(Part II)

(Read Part I here)

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Eight months after returning home from Colombia with a new song in my heart, one particular morning conversation with Julian replayed in my mind.

 

“If you had another chance to adopt my brother, would you do it?”

 

“Of course, we would. But he’s with another family now, and I just want him to be happy. Besides, according to Colombia’s rules, we can never try again. The door is closed to us.”

 

Julian tried to hint at the fact that things didn’t seem to be working out well with Juan David’s new family situation, but I wouldn’t even let my mind go there. I gave Juan David back to God months ago, and I trusted that God must have chosen this other family for him.

 

Now I stood confused all over again, wondering if God allowed Julian to ask me that question the summer before for a reason. The legal process with Juan David and the other family eventually came to an end. Just as Julian had suspected nearly a year ago.

 

“But, God, I let him go. I gave him back to you. I trusted you to join him with the family you’d chosen for him. What’s going on? What are you doing?”

 

Julian now pleaded with us.

 

“Please. Try again.”

 

“Julian, we can’t. The door is closed. Your country is very firm on this. Once denied, always denied.” Besides, I couldn’t even fathom going through the international adoption process again.

 

“No, God. Please don’t ask us to do this again.” While I begged God to close the door, Julian begged us to open it and dare to walk through it.

 

God knew we wouldn’t act on a thing, mostly out of fear. So he placed certain people in our path to connect us with a Colombian attorney. An attorney who could go ahead of us to open up the door, the one door they once said could never be reopened.

 

While spending a second summer in Colombia with Julian, God gave us the privilege of meeting the attorney in person, pleading our case once again with the men who originally denied us, and actually reuniting with Juan David for a few days.

 

“You know no one has ever done this before, right? We don’t even know if it can legally be done. We’re going to have to present your case to the head of adoptions to see what she says.”

 

We stayed in Colombia for four weeks, and within a month of returning home, we received official word that they did reopen our adoption case. Thus began another long year of tedious paperwork, raising unimaginable funds all over again, and constant stress and panic.

 

“God, who does this? Who gets knocked to the ground but still comes back for more? Will this process end differently than the last one? What if they come to the same conclusion, that we are not capable of being adoptive parents?”

 

I thought I’d dealt with all the contents within that box of grief, but apparently I hadn’t. I dealt with the emotions over losing the kids, but now I had to get that box back down and dig deeper. I had to process all of the rejection and the on-going effects it had on me. I had to face the anger toward God, toward the men who denied us, and toward myself for letting the kids down.

 

Similar to a mother facing intense anxiety through a pregnancy after previously giving birth to a still-born child, panic threatened to suffocate me.

 

“What if we empty our wallets and our savings all over again for nothing? What if we put ourselves through this and still can’t bring Juan David home? I can’t handle losing him again, and I can’t imagine what it might do to him.”

 

I’m so grateful for all the prayers of family and friends that carried us, mainly me, through that whole process. Today when I open that closet door again, I don’t see a box of grief on the shelf. I see shelves and hangers full of clothes that Juan David, my adoptive son, proudly wears to school each day. When I look around that bedroom that once held dolls and toys for Viviana, I see a shelf that holds pictures of all three siblings—Juan David, Viviana, and Julian. When I look at the walls, I see artwork that Julian gave me and paint colors that express Juan David’s personality.

 

I see a large wall poster of Bogotá, Colombia, a place where miracles do happen.

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