One Month Home

This past weekend marked one month since we have been home. Honestly, it does not feel like it has been a month. If I'm to be honest, it has felt like a blur. Exhaustion and stress will do that. But we have made good progress in just the past week as a family. We are finally starting to venture out and begin working on trusting outside of the home.

We went to church for the first time today. Garrick did great. He walked right into class with Ruby Claire and did well with the other kids (No hitting! Score!). About half way through the class they came and got me because he wanted to know where I was. I was so grateful they listened to his concern and followed through. He needs to know I will be there, he needs to know his teachers will come get me if he asks, he needs to know church is a safe place.

These were big steps for us, and often when we make big steps we have regression. Unfortunately, by the time we got home Garrick became defiant and went into a full blown inconsolable rage. He finally wore himself out enough that he fell asleep and when he awoke his crying began again. On and off again for the rest of the day his emotions swayed like a ship in a storm.

I would like to explain that this is not surprising to us. This is very normal behavior for children who have come from hard places. My son is grieving, so when he cry's and fights or melts down he is acting out from a place of deep loss and hurt.

"Behavior is a form of communication. Who we are, where we’ve been, and what we want others to know all direct our responses. While all children act out or shut down or lose tempers or cry from time to time, what each one is communicating with that behavior might be different. While all children display certain behaviors, not all children have lost their parents to death or abandonment or addiction or disease. Not all children have been uprooted from the home or country or familiar voices in the womb to live out the rest of their days in a different home and maybe a different country and with a different mother. Not all children have witnessed or experienced abuse or neglect or malnutrition. Not all kids have learned that adults aren’t always trustworthy, home isn’t always safe, and family isn’t always forever." --Shannon Dingle

Is it easy going through hard times even if you know the reasons behind it?

No, it's not. It's not easy to deeply love a person who just few weeks ago was a stranger but is now your family. There is so much to learn, so much to take in, so much to catch up to. So many expectations to let go of. So much ground to cover.

It is easy to get frustrated. It is easy to not want to comfort my son when he is throwing a fit on the floor because he doesn't want to watch the same t.v. show as his siblings or eat the food that has been made. It is easy to want to parent him just like I would my other children if they were to behave in such a way. It is easy to demand obedience.

But I can't because his frustration, need for security, and control are coming from a wound that is so deep he cannot bear it. And so it begins to overflow and burst open at the slightest hint or memory of that loss, and he has never been given the emotional tools to be able to stop it. They were stolen from him.

These times are hard. Loving people who have been hurt is hard. And showing love when you are wounded and hurting is even harder. So I have to meet him in the brokenness. And for me, that means I have to hold my son while he screams and cry's and hits. That I have to tell him he is loved and safe over and over again. That when he shouts at me to leave him alone and go away I have to tell him that Mama will never "go away". That when he needs a "time out" we have a "time-in" together.

We are making progress as Garrick had gone a few days without a meltdown. Going to church was new and exciting for him, and for my boy, new and exciting things cause anxiety and the remembrance of just how much he is not in control. So next week we will try again, and the week after, and we will try to take this new normal a step at a time. And, hopefully in six months or so we will look back on this time and say "Look what the Lord has done!"