Attachment and Faithfulness....

A couple weeks ago we had a sermon at church about faithfulness. How it's hard to be faithful these days with facebook, e-mail, cell phones, etc. We can be friendly, but the latest and greatest can pass us up and move right in whenever we want it to.

I am experiencing this with adoption, and honestly it is really hard for me. I have experienced it off and on for a couple years, but am much more aware of it now. We are also experiencing it with family who have pulled away from us over the last couple of years. We feel lonely off and on.

I have recently experienced faithfulness at the same time. Saturday we were taking down things from our attic and I ran across some dishes that will be useful at home for us. And we found my Bible from when I was a baby, and some books from my childhood, and an old tray that Chris and I used to make bricks with. But more than anything, I found Chris and I just crying and hugging in front of our son James about all the faithful little things that we have in our life. And I see it in my parents as my Dad battles cancer. I guess when we can stay lovingly faithful to someone over the long haul, that's one great form of success.

Today one of my girls said to me "girls are best"...and I said don't say that, you might have a husband or a son some day and that is just not right...we are all needed and God loves us the same. Another child in our household is going through an attachment phase that she just left our home for our neighbors without telling us, or just bonds to other "mother" figures out there as they pop up, at the same time she is sassy or disrespectful to me. It's heartbreaking to see kids pour out their love to someone they don't even know, yet, not even see what has been given to them from us as their parents. Another child seems to just hug anyone she has met in the last 15 minutes and can "bounce" form person to person. At least some of those hugs include me so I know she's trying to attach to me. Another of our children looks for people to complain too, and is just not content here. But I wonder when or where she would ever find contentment, and does she understand it will be mostly a choice and a walk with Jesus and contentment with Him?

Chris is so encouraging, he says it will just take time and we've come a long way and to keep on going.

There is healthy attachment going on as well with each of the brothers and sisters, but there is also manipulative strange attachment, "he can sit next to me, but don't you touch me" etc. kind of stuff. This adoptive brother is ok, but this biological one isn't. And when it's between 7 siblings, there is always some thing kind of like that going on between brothers and sisters. How to get the biological siblings to be content with each other is more of a challenge now than it was a year ago.

It's so much better than it was a year ago, but it's also like how long can it stay this way with a few weak links of contentment modeling for others? I feel hurt or disillusioned most days and wonder what's in store around the corner as far as my heart goes. I think I attached too quickly, for what I should have been expecting. But I'm afraid I will detach which is not the direction to go.

We're hoping to order a good book, and I hope to attend a support group. I appreciate your prayers. There is nothing major going on, just underlying strains that make parenting for me hard. I have lost trust from this strange attachment phenomena. I have felt betrayed and I guess now it's time for the real work of parenting to start and I'm not sure some days if I'm up for it, but here I go. It helps to talk about it.

We're back on the hockey trail, and hope to get a few studies done with the kids this week. We did have some friends stop by on Sat and hang out and help with a few things and that was refreshing. We're beating the heat at the rinks, and in the air conditioning. We'll be finalizing our garage moving this weekend.  Praise God we close on the sale of that home Aug 18th.

Just needed to share what's going on, and that we treasure your prayers and understanding. We look forward to hearing from you or having you over some time. God Bless the rest of your summer!
Alesia & Chris