Sometimes the weight of what we're doing is really overwhelming. There are moments when I will be going through my day as usual and a weight will hit like a thousand bricks.


I am responsible for this child. Her future depends, in large part, on who I am in her present.

I see my weaknesses and faults and know that she sees them too. She may not recognize them as such yet, but she will someday.

I recognize that my daughter is growing up right before my eyes. The clock is ticking.

The other day I was looking through an adoption book that we have. It has a list of childhood traumas that children can experience (but shouldn't have to). Experiencing these traumas can obviously greatly impact a child's life and future.

And as I read the list, I check off one trauma after another. "Yes, she's had that happen. And that. And that. And that."

And I realize my own inability to turn the past around. She has been through so much pain, so much suffering, so much loss. She's too young to really know how to mourn, too young to understand what has been done to her.

And I feel the weight of undoing the past. Shaping the future.

I'm so inadequate.

I long for her to long for Christ.

And then I long for myself to long for Christ in a visible way, so that she can see my longing.

I long for her to feel loved and accepted always!

And then I realize that's my job.

Every mother must feel this weight.
But with my daughter, it is different. A child born to a loving set of parents, who nurture, protect, provide & love will feel loved and accepted from the moment she enters this world.

It wasn't like that for my daughter. Her first year and a half were spent in uncertainty and fear, feeling abandoned, alone and unwanted. I want more than anything to turn back the clock, and have her enter this world into my arms. But I can't do that. I can't change what has been.

So I beg the Lord to heal her brokenness. I beg Him to help her become a survivor, rather than a victim. I beg Him that she will be the one who breaks the cycles of dysfunction that have run through her birth family for so long. I beg Him that she will see what He knows she can become, and that she will strive for that. I long for her to have goals for herself, to learn how to have positive relationships with men before it's too late, to recognize that she can and will be a strong, independent woman some day.

And I do what I can do today.