That's So Exciting!

I was talking with one of my supervisors this morning, and told her I was close to getting my foster license. She responded with what most people say: “That’s so exciting!” I agreed quickly and with enthusiasm, but as I have thought about it since, I realize that it is many, many things, but it is not exciting.

In several areas of life, I am a quick thinker. My brain is agile, intelligent, and creative. But when it comes to emotions, I am slow. At least half a dozen times in my life, someone has said to me, “You seem (fill in emotion here)” and I have vehemently contradicted them, only to realize (days or weeks later) that they were absolutely right. You know that saying, “still waters run deep”? Well sometimes these waters run so deep I have no idea what’s going on in them until I sit and think it over for a while. And fostering/adopting has been something I have been thinking over and thinking over for every minute of every day of the past 383 days [since the Together for Adoption conference in 2010, if you’re curious].

As I check off the items on my massive check list of paperwork and get closer to bringing a child/children into my home, I feel several different emotions with varying degrees of intensity. Excitement is not one of them. And that is not because I’m not looking forward to this next stage. I think it is more that excitement is not a hefty enough emotion for the situation. I get excited when a new book comes out in a favorite series. I get excited when I show up at my favorite restaurant and realize my favorite dish is $2 off during happy hour. I get excited at movie previews. It is not a complicated or lasting emotion for me. And in fact (English-major nerd alert), I just looked it up in the dictionary, and excite comes from the Latin word excitare: to rouse. There have been times during this preparation phase when I have been “roused,” mostly to anger or sadness at the plight of these children. But I am not excited about what is ahead.

So what am I feeling? Fear is probably the biggest contender in this fight (and it totally is a fight in here). It is not a fear of the child(ren) at all, though I am aware that I probably ought to be frightened of these unnamed strangers and the behaviors their trauma will bring. God is carrying me through that—my lack of fear of them is completely through His power, and I know it.

The fear I feel right now is complex, a mix of several fears:

1. I will fail these children. (Duh, obviously I will, every parent does. But it is still scary to contemplate, especially because they will come from such trauma, and so every failure of mine feels more weighty.)

2. I won’t be as good at handling my own mess as I think I will be. This may not make sense, but there is a massive sanctifying aspect to fostering/adopting. Even just reading and thinking about it over the past year has brought a ton of my own wickedness and sinfulness into the light. I’m assuming the real experience will put this process in hyper drive. And while I would love to be the most understanding, patient, self-sacrificing example of Christ’s love on the planet, I know I am super far off from that ideal. And interacting with these kids tends to bring to light the blackness of our own souls. I’m a little terrified of looking at that mess.

3. I will break. I say that I am willing and ready to love those who do not love me back. But there is a fear that, in the trenches, with the daily battles of parenthood pitched moment after moment, the protective hostility of these kiddos will break me. I want them to love me. Kids usually love me. It’s such a part of who I am that it has garnered me nicknames like “the baby whisperer” and “the pied piper.” Like everyone, I love to be loved. And I love kids. It is going to be really hard on my selfish little heart to hear “I hate you” and “you’re not my real mom.” I know these phrases are coming. I worry that I will crumple under them.

So there is fear. There is also an emotion I don’t have a word for…it’s a combination of certainty and contentment. It’s not really a human emotion—there is a huge supernatural element to it. I can tell because it is more secure than my usual emotions. It’s kind of like a righteous assurance, if that makes sense. It has a soldierly feel, as if I were heading out to fight Hitler, knowing the extent of his atrocities. It is not excitement, or joy, or even hopeful expectation. It is a dogged preparedness for grappling, if that makes sense. I know that I am heading into something that has the potential to kill me. But I know it must be done, and that I do not fight alone. I praise God for this feeling, but it is difficult to explain. I’m guessing missionaries feel it, a sense of calling that is firm and sees the worst of what is ahead and faces it unblinking. Again, it is clearly a spiritually empowered emotion—I’m a total chicken without it.

And then, beneath these two, there is something that is similar to joy but doesn’t yet dare call itself that. It bubbles deep below, and it is barely contained by the other two emotions. I think it is the ferocity of love. I am going to love these children like I have never loved anything else on this earth. It’s going to be immense. So immense that it cannot be allowed to rise to the surface yet.

I am not careful with my love. I never have been. This has caused me some rough times in the past, but I have never regretted it. If I love you, I love you fiercely and forever, even if my mouth never manages to say it properly. And these boys, whoever they are, are going to be wholly, painfully, sacrificially adored to an extent that is almost too overwhelming for me to contemplate. And this love is waiting—terrified, certain, and unfocused.

Calling all of this excitement? It’s like calling a massive, city-decimating earthquake a hiccup.

And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed—and a sword will pierce even your own soul—to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed. –Luke 2:34