Skipping Stones.

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We have come through this tunnel of time again. This time where a birthmother reached her babies up into the air , knowing she couldn’t do it anymore.   This time was laid with a multitude of land mines that we gingerly stepped around… from business scheduling that could not be changed to  (extended) family members who have walked out of our lives.  Leaving all of the makings of break downs in little girl hearts.  In years gone by I have walked into this anniversary blind… not knowing all the muscle memory which can unravel.  Now I walk with eyes wide open…and I walk protectively in front of my girls….very protectively.

So we round the wagons… we slow the schedule…we expect less and watch closely.

With a bigger and better vocabulary that allows her to express her feelings better than in years go by,  I get to hear her heart.   This year her eyes speak earnestly of external factors…which flick internal ones.  She wants to fix those who are broken.  She wants to carry their burden… and I can relate to her words, ” We used to work out together.. we would play baseball too. Tell them it was all my fault… I am just a kid, what can they do?”  The firelight flickers off her face and she looks a decade older.  Her words remind  me of a time where I knew “I was just a kid… I will fix this.  If I walk in they will stop.”    I was so much younger when I postured myself like her but my heart knows this heart she shares with me.  My hand on her arm I catch her deep eyes… “Listen we can’t fix this…. it’s a tangled mess.  I know what you mean… I know.  This has been going on long before you…long before me… God is healing broken hearts…we can’t be there for this.   It isn’t about us fixing anything.”  She is still convinced that she can carry it all.. and I smile and share my own stories.  Decades of watching the same patterns has taught me enough.  Then Bel chimes in… and she speaks  blunt Truth only she can…”you can’t take it on…you aren’t strong enough… the only one strong enough is God.”  I drink in her truth.

I can’t protect her from everything… and she has already seen so much.  The truth about older child adoption is it isn’t for whimps.  They don’t talk like other kids… they don’t see this world like other kids.  They have already seen so much of the array of human flaws…and they are on the look out…always.    It can be tricky  to trap them back into kid boxes when they have had to mature so much faster.  Just when you think you have given them enough innocent time to just nature walk, or teach their baby sister to skip stones… you hear their heart and it brims with adult ideas…. and not so adult ideas (sadly) like how to carry the burdens of others.  She would sacrifice herself for everyone else.  I know that feeling…so I count myself blessed that I have also seen scary things at a young age…. because when I see this in her…I can stand in the gap for her.  I can speak to that high alert self sacrificing self… the one which would do anything to protect her family.   I can pray the prayers she can’t.