Names

"The future is meant to be written in light of the patterns of the past. We can't predict the future, but we can read the patterns of the past to see how God has marked us for His purposes.  He uses the past to open our future.  As we learn to read patterns, we gain an understanding of our calling."

 -Dan B. Allender, To Be Told, p.92.

I never got to know your whole story.  I've only been able to speculate, to fill in the spaces.  I imagine you are intimately familiar with abandonment...with loneliness...with shame.  The patterns of your past scarring more than marking you.  I know you've been named Thief, Liar, Selfish, Promiscuous, and Dangerous; many of the names spoken and written by those of us who were called to love you like Jesus loves you, yet failing miserably in our carnal response to your hurtful actions.  I am so sorry to keep going back and forth, from wide open to completely closed towards you.  I am sorry that I have allowed the opinions of others, and fear, to thwart me from what God has called me to do.  I am sorry that I mistook my calling to simply be your mother.

"Our calling is not what we do--it's how we do it" (Allender, p.97).  

I was called to fearlessly and faithfully be your mother.

Now reading the patterns of my own past, I could be named Fearful or Faithless.  I have been afraid.  I am afraid of giving myself completely to anyone to be betrayed and trashed again.  Just as many situations and relationships etched scars into you; so have many etched their scars into me...not just our experiences with you.  And just as something about our family scratched at your wounds, so your choices scratched at mine.

I have written it before and I stand by it still today: you are not my enemy and we are not yours.  Our real enemy continues to prowl around us both like a hungry lion trying to devour those pieces of us that reflect our God.  Satan wants me to believe my name is Fearful and Faithless.  He wants you to believe that yours is Abandoned and Lonely.  He wants us to see you as Liar and Selfish; he wants you to see us as Untrustworthy and Uninterested.

"However, all the truest themes have to do with what each of us uniquely reveals about God's character.  Our calling is to reveal God through the themes He has woven into our character" (Allender, p.99).

Throughout my life, I was ironically known for being fearless and having faith that moved mountains.  And, in the short time we closely knew you, your strength and courage were always evident.  It was that fearlessness and faithfulness, inner strength and courage, that God worked together to make us a family!  Somewhere along our story together, I lost sight of how I was called to love you: fearlessly and with mighty faith.  My name, Heidi Eileen, actually means "Battle maid and Bringer of Light"! Your given name, Lyudmila, alone means "dearly loved by the people"!  Completely contrary to Fearful and Faithless, Abandoned and Lonely!  

And, Lucy, you are DEARLY LOVED by me <3

I don't think that either of us actually desires to hurt the other or to stay apart.  I can only speak for myself, however.  I know I meant it when I wrote you months back and said I wanted to be a part of your life.  My actions haven't been consistent because my walk with God hasn't been consistent.  But when I am walking close to Him, and looking to Him for guidance concerning you, He always advises me to love you recklessly without fear and with faith that He is still moving mountains.  

People closest to me don't get it.  Your dad doesn't always get it.  Josh doesn't always get it.  Papa doesn't always get it.  Counselors advise me to keep my distance.  Friends think I am stupid.  But it shouldn't matter.  I shouldn't have been looking to them or you or anyone else for advice on how best to handle my relationship with you.  I should have fixed my eyes on Jesus and trusted His plans and purposes for us.  I hope you can understand and forgive me once again for failing to be what He called me to be for you.  I also hope you see how faithfully God Himself continues to pursue your heart, regardless of the screw ups us people can be.

Happy 20th Birthday, Loo.  I am praying that God continues to grab ahold of your heart and to wholly fill those empty places.  Love you always.

Mom

Ready and Willing

I know I told you that I needed to step back; that I need to let you go and no longer lose sight of your brothers in my pursuit of you.  All of that is still true.  I want nothing more than to talk to you, Loo.  I want to hear about your wedding plans and about Kris and life in Alabama.  I've always wanted that.  I care for you deeply.  But the reality is, our conversations never end there.  They have never stayed friendly for long.  Just when it seems like we're growing closer, you pull away often claiming more hurtful things or getting angry seemingly out of nowhere.  For you, I'm sure it seemed like nothing...but it destroyed me every time.

I know that deep down you're hurting and that is why you hurt others.  To protect your heart from being crushed, you do the crushing first.  I will never be able to imagine the depth of the pain you grapple with day-to-day.  And, I am so afraid of being just another person in your life that fuels the lies I think you've come to believe: that you're not worth the fight, that your brokenness is hopeless, that another person is giving up on you.  That fear, those feelings...they consume me.

Please do not mistake my stepping back as giving up.  I love you, Lucy.  Counselors, friends, family...probably even you don't understand how God has sealed you on my heart.  It's awesome really; an answer to so many prayers of mine when we started the process of adoption.  I will always be by your side, fighting for your heart in prayer, begging God to restore your health and joy and our relationship <3  You are our daughter and always will be as far as we're concerned.  Hence, I will continue to write to you here; I still want some way to let you know that you are always on my mind (without getting a piece of yours).

I am sorry if this decision of mine to buffer conversation with you seems out of place and sudden.  I have been counseled for the past two years to do this, to protect the members of the family that didn't leave and to protect myself.  But I just couldn't make the change until recently because of my determination to prove that I love you no matter what.  Only after Jesus gave me the parable of the Prodigal Son did I finally realize I had still been loving you all wrong.

The father in the story of the Prodigal Son didn't chase down the son that walked away from the family, that chose to live his life the way he wanted to...outside of the father's protection and provision.  He didn't wallow in sorrow or ask around town about him.  Instead, he waited at home patiently, carrying on with life there, but ready and willing to receive his son with open arms when the son chose to return.  The father knew and trusted in the sovereignty of God to bring his child back when the time was right; when the son was genuinely humbled and could recognize the love and the blessings he had left behind.

I believe that in your own way, you do love us, Loo.  I believe you never intend to hurt anybody and that you are truly remorseful for the choices you make when you do.  But I have only seen you choose you.  You are a survivor, and you survive at any cost.  And while I can't allow you to survive at the cost of us anymore, I know and trust in the sovereignty of God to make all things new.

I have offered this to you before and the offer still stands: if ever there comes a day when you want help, when you want to break free of this painful cycle of broken homes and relationships, we are always ready and willing to arrange for and go on a journey to healing with you through counseling.  I may not be running all over social media looking for you anymore, obsessing about where you are and what you're doing and how you've been, but I am still here ready and willing to receive you with open arms should you ever humbly return home <3

I love you,
Mom

My Glorious Ruin

 I've been blind...

"'Sin isn't only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things.  Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God'" (Tim Keller, as quoted by Tchividjian, p.158).

I built my identity on adopting you.  I made an idol of our journey and worshipped at the altar of Good Reputation.  I pushed "past the Giver to grab for the gift" and began building my life on our incredible story and the possibility of an even more incredible ending instead of on God's incredible gospel (Tchividjian, p.168).  And "whenever what we've depended on for meaning--and it's usually one of God's good gifts--is stripped away, our first reaction tends to be one of anger, self-pity, blame, and entitlement" (Tchividjian, p.24).  I've cycled through the gamut of these emotions since you were stripped away from me.

I've been suffering a lot and alone, but I haven't suffered honestly.  Sure...I openly wrote and spoke about my heartbreak...but (for the most part) I slapped a smile and all the right words on my pain until I just couldn't anymore.  Then, I disappeared...I've stepped back from all things social, stepped out of friendships, and stepped completely away from the world we once shared with you...keeping anyone from getting too close to see the mess that's now me.

You're right.  I do care too much about what others think.  And I haven't wanted anyone to know just how faithless I've been.

"God does not get things done in the world by merely adding a new coat of paint; He brings the house down to the foundation so He can build something new" (Tchividjian, p.169).

Praise God there's no stepping away or hiding from Him.  Two years of running in circles, trying to avoid dealing with the reality that you may never come to know Jesus or our love for you, and I'm officially stripped down to my core.  I surrender.

"Suffering has a way of stripping all resources away from us so that in the end, all that we have is the only thing that matters: the approval of God based on the accomplished work of Jesus" (Tchividjian, p.185).  

I see now how I reduced His "Good News to its results."  Hence, when you left and the results of our good works weren't great, my own false reality collapsed and I've been lost since.  I've been struggling to grasp that although all things are possible with God, not all things are guaranteed this side of Heaven.  I've become "embittered and despondent" and mistrustful of God in the process, doubting my desire to follow Him at all if following Him means I'm to be left hanging out to dry (Tchividjian, p.162).

But, I recognize now that all along my faith has been misplaced.  I've been grabbing onto performance after performance, good deed after good deed, to gain the Lord's approval and the approval of others.  I've been praying without ceasing that your idols would be torn down, arrogantly forgetting to tear down my own.  You saw straight through me, Loo, and right past my love.  I saw through you and right past His.

Now, I have nothing left...no relationship or communication with you or with many others...no miraculous testimony...no new grand feat to cling on to...no "righteous" tasks to obediently accomplish.  Even God has gone silent.  He hasn't been giving me advice on how to win your heart or been refueling my hope or making any more promises that you'll come back to Him or to our family.  Most frustratingly, He hasn't been revealing how to overcome the depression that's taken over.

This morning, the scales from my eyes were removed.  Pain on this earth is a reminder that there is nothing we can do, "that things aren't as they should be", that we're broken (Tchividjian, p.69).  Pain brings us to the end of our rope, and "only when God drives us to the end of ourselves do we begin to see life in the gospel...only those who stand in need of a savior will look or recognize a savior" (Tchividjian, p.144).      

This suffering hasn't been a punishment, but His gift to me.  It's His answer to my prayers year after year to grow deeper into Him and to fully grasp His gift of salvation.  I finally understand how I've mistakenly considered "grace as something of a supplement to whatever is left of [my] human will and power," seeking ways to obey, to be better, and looking for earthly rewards as affirmation that I'm on the right track.  However, "contrary to popular belief, Christianity is not about good people getting better.  If anything, it is about bad people coping with their failure to be good" (Tchividjian, p.78).  We failed with you, and that's ok.  I'm failing to overcome grieving the loss of you, and that's also ok.  I have nothing left to give and no direction to go and that is precisely where He needs me: Broken. "Jesus has already overcome!  Among our glorious ruin, Jesus is strong, so we're free to be weak; Jesus won, so we're free to lose; Jesus was somebody, so we can be a nobody; Jesus was extraordinary, so we are free to be ordinary; and Jesus succeeded for us, so we are free to fail" (Tchividjian, p.170)!

"Our ruin may not ultimately spell our undoing.  It may in fact spell the beginning of faith.  And in the end, that is enough.  Gloriously so" (Tchividjian, p.26).

I've accepted Jesus in word and deed, but only now has He gotten through to my heart.  All this time I saw the ending of our story as Jesus winning your heart through me, but He has won mine through you <3




With God all things are possible, but all things aren't guaranteed this side of Heaven.