Heroism

Did you click the X yet?

Think you know what I'm going to say here, just by the title of this post?

I challenge you to keep reading, and likely discover you're wrong.

Thoughts of this post have been bouncing around in my head constantly in the little under 24 hours before I wrote my first one and officially announced my intention to adopt internationally to anyone who would listen.  I have hopes that they will come together with some degree of cohesiveness, but a lot has happened in 24 hours, so those hopes may not be realized ;)  However, much of it has to do with my three Dear Borrowed Kids (DBKs, in the words of a friend.  Please see my 'about me') and will be omitted out of respect for them and their families.

Suffice to say, that six years ago, close to this time of year, I was, as I am now, called to a higher purpose than the one I had set out for myself.  I was sixteen, a junior in high school taking a nearly full schedule of advanced classes.  And yet, God had set these two little girls in my life, one of them two years old, and one of them six years old.  Caring for them was nothing short of a full time job with a high emotional commitment.  I was told over and over, that I couldn't possibly care for these children as often as I had agreed to, and still 'live my life'.

Now, that last bit confused me.  How was I supposed to live my life, if not to love God's littlest and neediest children?  Was I supposed to party?  Go out at night and come back after curfew?  Join a club I didn't care about?  If living my life wasn't what I was doing... what was it?

Today I've been reminded of those early days, where I felt an uneasiness in my stomach due to the disconnect between what I felt called by God to do, and what I was being told by everyone in my life to do.  I even remember coming into school late one too many days because I'd been up late with one of the girls, and getting my first ever detention.  When I started sobbing, the attendance office sent me to the vice principal to talk.  I told him why I was late for school, that I had recently taken on another little one to love.  I remember very clearly, he propped his elbows on his desk, looked across the desk at me, and he said "It sounds like you need to determine where your priorities are."  I looked him straight in the eyes back across the desk, and said, "With all due respect, sir, if you'd like me to do that, I'm obliged to tell you that they're not with my school work, but with two little girls who need me."  He nodded, as if to say 'fair enough'.  I served my detention.  And I went home, and did what God had called me to do.  Now, six years later, those two little girls are still in my life, and I would truly do anything for them.

Why do I bring this up now?  I'm not sure if I realized it at the time, or if it wasn't until later, but I feel that the naysayers in those days, the ones who told me I surely couldn't care for these children, that I had to 'be a teenager'... thought, that rather than wanting to spend my time with those little girls, that I was doing it out of some sort of misguided sense of heroism.  They were wrong.  Sure, I recognized that the girls had something to gain through the time I spent with them, but I didn't do it because it was "the right thing to do" or because it made me somehow special; I did it because I wanted to.

In the 24 hours since I made public my feelings about international adoption, I feel that I'm facing the same sort of opposition, from people who simply don't understand my motivation.  I don't resent that; in fact, I thank God for preparing me early to deal with it.  Never would I have guessed that the morning I spent crying in the vice principal's office of my high school would be at the forefront of my mind six years later.  But as I did then, let me try to explain.  Some may understand, some may not, and that's okay.  I didn't need anyone else's approval to make the right choice for us when I was sixteen, and I don't need it at 22.

First of all, I want to make clear that the choices I made when I was sixteen did not make me some sort of hero.   For years I found myself trying to explain to strangers, yes, I take care of them every day, no, I don't accept money, and no, I'm not special because of that.  I'm just me.  I wouldn't have been happy had I turned them away.  I wasn't satisfied to live the life of a 'typical' American teenager.  I was called to a higher purpose, and I met that call.  Today people still tell me that I'm somehow special, and I ask them, at what point could I have made a different choice?  When could I have chosen to do nothing when I could have done something, and been satisfied with that?  No, that wouldn't do.  My choices weren't selfish... but they weren't selfless either.  I only did what was right for all of us.

Second; I don't expect adoption to make me a hero.  Do I think the families who take in children who would otherwise have no one to love them are doing a wonderful thing, of course; but any of them who went into their adoption journeys with the right motivations didn't do it out of some misguided sense of heroism.  They did it because it was right for their families, it was right for the children they wanted to bring home, and they felt it was right by God, or whatever higher power they believe in.

The difference may seem like splitting hairs, but in reality, it's all the difference in the world.  It would be unfair to bring a child into your home because you thought it would make you a hero, because you were excited at the thought of being considered 'special' in the eyes of others, or because someone else did it and you had to do the same lest someone consider you less special, less admirable.  In fact, to the contrary, I respect very much the decisions of families who feel that adoption, international or domestic, is not right for them.  It's just as selfless a decision as the one to adopt; the only difference being what someone discerns is right for their circumstances.

No, these families bring their children home because they want them.  Because they look at their photos every day, thinking of them left without a mommy or a daddy in an orphanage in a far away land, and they can't bear the thought that this child, who they've already fallen in love with for the little person they are, will never have a family.  Page through the blogs of the Reece's Rainbow families.  International adoption takes a long time.  There are waiting periods before you can take your child home; it's not like going to the pet shop and picking out an animal to take home with you.  There are long waits where you are left to reflect on your decision and your life, and you know what most people do with this time?

They miss their children.


Yes, that's right, children that in some cases they haven't even met.  Children that they already know are a part of their families, just through stories and photos.  Then, they travel across waters and continents, to bring home their little ones.  They humble themselves by seeking financial help from others to save these young lives.  In many cases, they later go on to help fund raise for other families.  And why do they do it?  Because they want their children.  Because they love them.  


Six years ago, what I tried to explain to people when little M and little A came into my life, is the same thing I'm explaining now.  The decision to love a child, to care for them, to bring them into your home, is not, should not, be one made because you want to be a hero.  It's one made, because, as so many families know, there was never really any decision at all.  This is right for them, it's right for their children, and it's right by their beliefs.

I've known for a long time that God would call me to something big, that I needed Him to show me my purpose, and He has.  I wouldn't be happy, wouldn't be satisfied with my life, if I turned away from it.  This is right for me.  It will be right for my child.  It will be right by my God.