Response to “anonymous” comment

I wanted to take the time to respond to a comment that I feel was worthy of a response. I don’t usually use a blog post to respond to a comment, but I appreciated this “poster” taking the time to challenge our perceived perspectives on adoption so I wanted to formally respond. I love being able to chew on thoughts….to challenge myself, my motivations. I will say though, that I did delete the comment, but not because I was offended in anyway. Though, I was taken back a little . (Remember my “rosy glasses of seeing things”) LOL..
I didn’t want it to remain there on my comment wall w/o a response from me. And I knew it would be a lengthy response that couldn’t fit on the wall. I can’t seem to write anything short or abreviated these days!! I am thankful for the comment. This comment made me ponder our perspectives on adoption and challenged me to write out what we have been learning and how we feel. But, before I go on any further, let me copy and paste the anonymous comment word for word:

“Please take some time to research and take a look at your idea that you are “rescuing” a child by adopting her. You are not. No child should be labeled in that way, and grow up feeling that their path to their family was one of charity. Adopt because you want to love a child. Many adult adoptees resent the idea that they were seen as someone to be “saved” or rescued”, and that somehow they should be grateful for their adoption.”

See, I think what happens in the adoption community is that we take words and we just throw them around, and they lose their meaning…and their intentions get distorted. Many times we have used the word “rescue”, and I can see how someone would believe that if you label your child as a “rescue” then it will make them feel like they are indebted to you as their “savior” if you will, and that they have to live with this “stigma” of being a charity case.
However, looking at it from a realistic perspective our child will be “rescued” out of an orphanage and out of the lonely state of being an “orphan”. They will be taken from a place where their bottle is propped up to be fed because there aren’t enough care-givers to indiviually feed each baby. She will be taken out of a place where the babies left to rock and cry themselves to sleep every night. They will be taken from a place where there is very little medical care given and very little nutrition given to them to be able to thrive. They will be taken from a place where there is no one to call “mommy or daddy.” By “rescue”, we mean taken from an institution that was not meant to have a child be raised in, nor is it adequate to meeting their basic needs. Then, they will be engrafted into our family, and become one of our children just as our biological children are. Our daughter will no longer be an orphan, she will have a family to call HERS.

BUT, with that said, Brian and I can not, will not, and should not have illusions of our daughter having “all” her needs met in us, we are just part of the solution. She will need a safe place to grow up in, adequate health care, nutrition, unconditional love, nurturing, a mommy and daddy to celebrate her birthday, to shower her with praise, to educate her, to rub her back when she has bad nightmares, to kiss her boo-boos, to read her stories, she will have brothers and sisters to adore her and smother on her with love, she will have grandparents who spoil her and aunts and uncles who dote on her. She will have LOTS OF CUDDLING, kisses, tickles AND GIGGLES ;). She will have those needs met in the same exact portion as they are being met in our biological children, no difference. However, there is a lot that we won’t be able to give her….and a good friend (who’s an adoptive mommy) once taught me that there is certain peace in acknowledging that hard truth right from the start.

For instance, we won’t be able to give her “China.” She will know she is Chinese (even though Brian will convince her that she is true Italian on the inside);)LOL.
As she comes to know “her story” she may grieve the loss of her Chinese parents, her heritage, the land, the culture. In fact, I believe that it will be a very sad moment for all of us when we finally depart from China on the plane to come to America. The raw truth is that we will be taking her away from all she has ever known….she will be leaving her homeland, her people, the place where she was born. We will be leaving the place where most people look like her on the outside, the country where her biological family lived. That is painful. That is a wound, a primal wound, that she could carry around with her her whole life. She could very well grieve over this “loss” many times in her life, and it could manifest itself in many ways as she grows up. We will need to show an abundance of patience, love and understanding. It may be hard at times. But, to best love her, it is necessary for us to acknowledge, and embrace that grief. The sad truth remains that no matter how much we smother her in love….her heart could essentially break over this primal wound.

**But** we rest in this truth: The Lord is sovereign!!! He has planned our family before the beginning of time. He has a plan for our daughter. We know our daughter is in China and is suppose to be with us. He is leading us to her. We love her now! We want so much to love on her in person, we are waiting to love her and just envelope, enfold, and encase her into our family. We are blessed to be able to invest into her life and to surround her with unconditional love, comfort and fierce devotion.
We are not the “fairy tale” beginning or ending for our daughter’s life….but, we are a part of God’s plan for her life. God chose us, and He chose her, and He chose adoption to be a way that our family would grow. HOW BLESSED WE ARE! We are not doing the “rescuing”….it is God that is doing the work of “rescuing.” And, it is only He could do such a work in all our hearts!

Ultimately, it will be Christ who will be the true balm to our daughter’s grieving heart. It is our prayer that HIS love will be able to fill the needs that we can’t meet. We will surround, and smother her with His love. We want to point her to her “daddy in heaven” who knows exactly what she is feeling, who knew her before she was born, who knows her better than anyone here on earth could, and who knows exactly what she will need. We pray her identity will not be as a “rescuee” of her parents….but as a child of God who loved her SOOO much that he moved mountains to get her parents to her. We pray she feels loved. Her identity will be in HIM and his plan for her life….not in what we did. She will have her own story that God has written. Our prayer is that He will be her “fairy tale” ending.