But right now life is also hard. Harder than normal…whatever that is.
Ironically, life is hard right now because John, Kayla, and Grace are grappling with the concept that life IS hard.
It requires hard work.
It requires us to do things we don’t necessarily want to do.
Our pastor recently quoted a football coach as saying his job was
making people do things they don’t want to do so they can do what they have always wanted.
This seems to be the mantra of our life lately.
There seems to be a general concensus among our oldest three that hard things are categorically bad and not wanting to do something is grounds for actually not doing it. In many ways, this paradigm is from less than idea family situations, but a lot of it is par for the course in their culture. There is a huge disconnect between what they want and how hard they are willing to work for it.
They are each boundary testing in their own way. I’m exhausted.
The good news is that life is still good. Exhausted is okay for now. We see foward steps even amidst the backwards ones. We are having to live out what we preach on how to handle adversity.
God has been faithful to grant us what we need. The lessons in faith we are learning cannot be learned in books, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
I an right there with your Melissa, our girls are convinced life is so easy for everyone else who was adopted and ours is the only family having problems. They know this apparently because everyone looks happy in family photographs. We have however turned a very big corner emotionally and things are starting to look like we might get through this. A friend recently reminded me, that nothing worth doing comes easily, and its the hard stuff that we get the greatest rewards from. I hope that thought will help you as its helped me get through each day.
Thanks Kris! We actually use that line on our kids almost daily 🙂 Also, Kayla’s been asking about talking to the girls. We’ll have to try to find a time soon.
I’m sorry you are going through this tough stage of the journey. It amazes me how our ET kids also have this same way of dealing with tough stuff. Keep persevering though, they are learning so much from your unspoken words and not giving up on them. As exhausting as this is, I’ve had to cling to “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” and “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness”. I’ll be praying this for you and your husband.
Don’t be sorry. Without it, we would also not be benefitting from all God is teaching us. I will definitely covet your prayers though 🙂 There are never enough of those!
Great perspective, Melissa. And I will pray for more forward movement w this issue for your oldest three.