Foster Care Reflections: The Pushing and The Pulling

My head is so divided as I try to keep sanity in charge. I know what is happening, but it still rips my heart to pieces.
This is normal the closer adoption gets, my head tells me. When he tells me I’m not his parent so he “doesn’t care”- he doesn’t really mean it. When he pushes every button that I have- it’s just to see how far I can bend. When he refuses to do a single thing I’ve told him to do- it’s just to see what I will do next. When he screams in my face- it’s to get me to scream back. When he tells me he needs me to yell at him to feel loved- he’s telling the truth, but I can’t love him like that.

My logic assures me of all that.

But my heart tells me a different story.

I feel like a terrible mother because I DO lose my temper. I wonder if he has changed his mind about our family. I fear that he doesn’t want me to be his mother after all. What if he’s seen the worst in me and he doesn’t want it? What if he only loved the fun side? What if he needs love in a way I can’t give? What if he can never love me the way I love him?

This is adoption, especially with teens. I’ve studied it. I’ve read the books. 

Seeing it on paper in black and white it dulls the effect you prepare to go through. Once you experience all the feels that come in hurricane floods, your brain and heart have trouble separating logic from emotion. That’s where I’m at. I see him hurting and struggling and I want to help as I’ve done so many times before but he just pushes me away with brute force. No matter which approach I try, he just keeps pushing. It’s not so unlike the “pushing” I experienced with my oldest daughter when she grew into her teenage self, but this is the tender grafting time for my son and I. My heart is so afraid that he will push so hard that he will come untethered from me completely and the bond will be broken before it ever really started.

Whoever said adoption was hard was trying not to scare you.

This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where you take your hands off the wheel and simply love the way God taught you to without reservation. This is where you let go and let HIM do the work that needs to be done. I’m a fixer by nature so my first inclination is to jump right in the ring and talk it through or slug it out, whatever it takes! I work at everything as if it were a projection of perfection. Recently during some study time over the verse “Be still and know that I am God.” I heard God speak this straight to my heart, “Be less and know that I am God.” My eyes just immediately filled with tears because that’s the essence of it all. Stand down, let it go, give it up, and get out of the way because HE IS GOD.