A Letter from China

We received a letter from China last week!  It was a letter from DD#1 foster sister!  How exciting!  Sweet Pea was excited too.

DH took it to work to have one of his Chinese American co-workers translate it for us.  It was a wonderful letter.  They are still so loving to Sweet Pea all these years later.  What a wonderful family!  We are so blessed to still have contact with them and that they are still interested in keeping contact with Sweet Pea.  She was so excited to get  a letter from China.

She quickly wrote a short letter (for a 6 year old) and drew 2 pictures to send to them.  We are also going to video her at school, at gymnastics, at soccer, at home, and at church to share with her foster family.  DH did the research and found the best way to record a message to them on video so they can view it in China.  So exciting!

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Wordless Wednesday

Spring is showing…hope the air will warm  up too!

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Compassion and Christianity

After reflecting a few days after the irate comment left on my blog, I’ve come to a few conclusions.  A friend on facebook also point this out…a lot of Christians lack compassion.  Why is that?  We should be looking at people making decisions that don’t line  up with scripture with compassion.  That dear girl was so ANGRY at me for something I quoted.  Or so it seemed…  I think she was hurting from living in a sinful world and a Christian (maybe) who lacked a fundamental of our faith…compassion.  I’m glad that this young woman found my blog and I was able to give her some compassion…at least I hope she read my response.  I have definitely prayed for her.  But for now, I want to address compassion in Christianity.  This might be a long post people…forgive me!

The word compassion is mentioned in scripture a minimum of 88 times. Most of those times it refers to the character of God or God’s compassion on His people.  When looking at the Lord’s “official” names you will see many that imply His compassion.  For example, El Shaddai and El Roi.  Let’s take a brief look at these two names.

El Shaddai means “God Almighty” but when looking a the Hebrew a little closer a deeper understanding lays just beneath the surface.  El stands for His power, creatorship and covenant making.  Shaddai describes an all-bountiful power coming from the Hebrew word “shad” meaning a woman’s breast.  It implies a “poured forth” blessing as a mother nurses her child.  This name thus reveals a very tender and loving parent-child relationship with the Creator.  Psalm 1:1-3 can clearly outline this blessing of love when we stay “in Christ.”  Shouldn’t we, as Christians, spread forth the joy of this blessing?  He is and has been very compassionate us when we did not deserve it!

El Roi comes from the Hebrew root word that means “of sight” thus implying a God who sees.  It is used one time in the scriptures (see Gen 16-1-6).  It is the story of Hagar, a woman thrown out with her child from the camp of Sarah and Abraham.  The Lord heard Hagar’s cries and went to her in a time of need.  He had compassion on her while she was in distress.  Psalm 34:18 says, “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”  Psalm 147:3 says, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”  Compassion.  Not judging.  Let’s look at Jesus, shall we?

Read John 4 – the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well.  She was there at the 6th hour (noon) collecting water…not the typical time of day for women of the scriptures to collect water.  This was done during the morning hours when it was cool.  This woman felt she could no longer associate with the others in the mornings…she avoided them.  She was in pain from her sin.  Jesus knew this and met her at the well to give her “living water” and provide hope and care for her soul.  He was compassionate to her in her pain from living in a sinful world and making poor choices.  He was gentle and loving to her.  He saved her life through compassion!

Looking at Jesus’ teaching from Matthew 5 you can determine what was on His mind concerning this world:

¹Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, ²and he began to teach them saying:
³“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
⁵Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
⁶Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
⁷Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
⁸Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
⁹Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
¹⁰Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Jesus taught compassion for a hurting world.  Healing for the sick.  Salvation for our souls.  As Christians we need to reflect upon these basic tenants of our faith.  Drawing upon the compassion of Christ to reach out to the hurting people living in this sinful world.  Yes, they have made bad choices.  We should not let them off  the hook for their sinful choices, BUT we are to do this in love and with compassion.  This world piles upon us more burdens than we can bear.  Christians are fortunate that we have Christ and the Holy Spirit to draw upon in the trials of our lives.  Non-believers do not have this luxury…they turmoil without hope.

Please, fellow Christian, if you find yourself confronted with a person needing to hear Christ, speak with compassion.  Jesus was strong in His message of salvation for he never let anyone off the hook, but He was compassionate in the delivery.  I’ll end with this from Matthew 11:28-30:

²⁸“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Let’s not burden the hurting anymore than they already are, dear Christian.

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Poetry??

Okay, you know things aren’t going well for me when I start to write poetry.  And I mean WRITE POETRY!!  Handwriting poetry in a notebook.  The last time I did this was the day after 9/11.  I have written at least 5 to 6 poems today….without stopping.  It came pretty easy for me too.  My emotions just poured out onto the page.

I hated poetry in school.  I never understood how we could adequately dissect a poem’s meaning.  I personally think the poem’s meaning is solely up to the author of that poem.  How can we really know what the poem is referring to?  And we would get a grade on whether we were right or not.  Whatever.  Basically there aren’t any real rules in poetry…just write…it doesn’t even have to rhyme.

My poems rhyme.  I think the rhythmic feel of the rhyming helps me feel good.  And the funny thing is that my poems rhyme without much thinking.  I guess I really needed to release a few feelings.  It’s hard to express how I’m feeling about personal things and challenges.  So the poetry helped me release it some today.  If I get up the courage I’ll post a few…but don’t expect me to talk about it!!  🙂

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My Son

I have been hesitant to talk about DS’s issues on my blog.  But I feel it is time to at least touch on some of what I live through on a daily basis.

We joyfully adopted my son from Ukraine when he was 15 months old.  He has been a challenge from the start.  At first I thought my troubles with him were concerning me being a new mom:  completely clueless about how to take care of a child 24/7 and he was a toddler (not an infant) who was “on the go” and into everything!  My world was rocked to say the least and I didn’t know how to cope with it.  Put on top of learning how to be a parent, my father had been recentlly diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, my father also had to undergo brain surgery to relieve a blood clot on his brain caused by a fall, my only remaining grandparent passed away at 99 years old, and my husband was caught in the middle of church conflict…leaving me feeling very much alone and not getting much help from family.  In fact, when I attempted to talk to family about what was going on with my DS I was casually told that “things will get better”, “boys will be boys”, and “hang in there and enjoy being a parent.”  Nice statements, yes, but the real problem was overlooked.

My son was adopted in August 2002 (not even a full year after 9/11) and by November 2002 my sister approached me and asked me to get help.  You see, I was rapidilly falling into depression and had even considered suicide.  When no one is helping and you feel helpless, alone, and overlooked,  horrible things can happen.  I am grateful for the conversation my sister MADE me have with her that day.  I sought help from doctors and the LORD…medication and scripture is what pulled me out of the pit so I could see clearly.  And I mean clearly.  I literally felt a fog be removed so I could really see situations as they were.

Once I had taken care of myself I could focus on “Buddy”.  The problem wasn’t my lack of parenting skills…it was him.  It took a few years to finally realize that I need professional help for my son.  The summer just before his kindergarten year, 2006, I took him to his well-check and practically begged our doctor to help me “fix him.”  She sent us to a child psycholgist who also referred us to occupational therapy.  My son was diagnosed at the time with Sensory Integration Disfunction with Obsessive Compulsive tendencies.  In a nutshell, he couldn’t process the world around him and attempted to control the world (everything in it including people) to try to cope with how he was feeling.  Initially therapy worked and we were able to cut back on weekly visits.

This year my son has reached a new level in his behaviors.  He is now 7 and his anxieties overtake almost everything he does.  He is volatile on the the worst days and verbally combative on the best days.  Transitioning into 2nd Grade was a nightmare.  For about 3 months, every day, we (all 4 family members) experienced the following: screaming, him throwing things at us, total disrespect to ANY rules, hitting, punching, kicking, biting, trying to push us down the stairs, locking his sisters in the closet, purposely breaking things that were not his, and the list can go on.  Needless to say we began to seek medication to help him calm down so we can help him cope in positive ways.

We are now on the 3rd round of medication modification.  His diagnosis is currently OCD and symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder (we feel this is caused from early life in Ukraine and the MAJOR life change due to his adoption stemming from his OCD present at an early age)….I fear that there may be more to come in the future.  For I have seen the following new symptoms this month: purposely hurting someone and laughing at them, ignoring us (the parents) when we try to talk to him about his behavior, stealing items and hiding them, and increased lying…the extreme defensiveness and screaming has continued.  On a positive note, he is able to voice what is making him feel “off”…he able to talk to us about him.  He is also calmer and we can get him to at least make eye contact with us now.  I can honestly tell you that it breaks my heart to see  him struggle this way and not be able to help him.  I love him and want to help, but he is in denial about what he is going through and usually won’t accept help.

My DS is VERY smart.  At 5 years old his IQ was 113 – and that was without completing the exam.  His anxieties over being timed caused him to quit because he was afraid to fail.  Normal IQ for an average adult is 100.  We are going to redo his IQ testing in the near future.  I expect to see increased numbers.  DS has recently been caught “playing” his teachers against us (his parents).  He is smart enough to know how to fool us into believing his OCD is preventing him from doing homework….well, because of recent events, the jig is up!  We are “on to” him.  It is tough to be 3 or 4 steps ahead of him…and we have to be or he winds up ruling the home.

So there you go.  My story of my son.  I left out a lot of emotional stuff on my part becuase it’s hard to talk about.  It’s easier to just state the facts.  This is why I am going through therapy myself to learn how to deal with my emotions over my DS and how to deal with my son without it totally effecting me!  I will probably post more about him and how we are handling things.  There are a lot of misconceptions out there about how to help kids and families like this.  I hope to share a little insight on what really goes on in the home and how the entire family is effected by special needs children in the home.

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