He Sets the Lonely in…Families?

“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families…” Psalm 68:5-6

One piece of exciting news here in China is that the one child policy has been lifted. Now couples are allowed to have two children without having to pay the expensive fee. Some of the national staff at school are very excited. Others are already starting to dream about having another child, something that was financially out of reach for them before. It got me thinking about my own family. When my husband and I were engaged, we thought maybe we wouldn’t have children. For some reason we just weren’t thrilled about the idea. And, if you think about it, it really is totally illogical to have a baby. I mean do we really need to ‘go forth and be fruitful and multiply’ anymore? I think the world’s population is doing all right. How about having a big old financial burden land in the middle of your paycheck? No thanks. Can I get some extra stress on the side of life? Um, no!

Let me tell you, all of those thoughts went out the window a mere seven months after we said our vows! (And it wasn’t because we ‘accidentally’ got pregnant.) Soon after we got married, my husband and I began to change our mind about the whole thing. At the time, we didn’t realize that the emotion of love had taken over our logic. We sure as heck weren’t prepared for all the hard stuff either! It was the most difficult thing I had done up to that point in my life. I won’t bore you with the details, as I’m sure you have heard or experienced how hard it is with that first baby.

But then, three years later, we went and had another one! Now this decision really was completely illogical. We knew that the first baby brought with it emotional, financial, and physical stress and we knew that adding a second one to the mix with an extremely active little boy would be terribly hard. But, somehow the idea of bringing a helpless, sweet, innocent, noisy, sleepless, demanding infant into an already stressful situation seemed like a great idea.

And now, even with years of imperfect parenting under our belts and two little crazies that we adore, we have decided to take on the near impossible task of adopting an amazing little boy into our family.

Are we insane???

If we are insane, it would all be OK if this process were like in the movies when the orphan and the family fall for each other in some tear jerking romantic moment and then, jump scene, we’re all spending Christmas under the same roof while snow falls quietly outside.

Yeah, it’s not like that.

It’s more like months of complicated paperwork and juggling appointment schedules with our already busy work and school and home lives. It’s waking up on some days with this little guy’s face stuck in my mind, knowing that I need to do so many things to bring him home, but also knowing that there are so many things that are out of my control. It’s hearing about how difficult this transition will be for everyone over and over again, but knowing that we will not be fully prepared for the difficulty no matter how much we know about it. It’s knowing that he will have pain that we can do nothing about no matter how much we love him.

Sometimes I am daunted by the task of try to give my adopted son what he needs as far as his emotional healing is concerned. Moving forward in this process for me has been an act of faith that God can and will provide what this precious little guy needs. I believe, however, that it is not so much a privilege that he gets to be a part of our family as it is an incredibly awesome privilege that we get to be a part of his life and his story. It’s going to take time and patience for him to trust us and for him to process through the trauma he has already endured. In fact, it will probably take the rest of his life. That is what we are signing up for. We are agreeing to accept a broken person and to take all of his brokenness into our family. We are agreeing to break alongside him when he breaks and watch God turn his brokenness into beauty. We want to be a part of his redemptive story, and that necessarily means stepping into his brokenness and confronting the broken pieces of our own hearts. We are ready and not ready at the same time.

The word for family in Chinese is jiaren. Literally it means ‘home people’. Chinese grammar dictates that when speaking about the concepts of going and coming, you always speak about returning back home. So, family, you could say, are the people to whom you always return: your jiaren, your home people. I’m realizing that is the nature of family; they are the people to whom you always return. They are your starting place, or your beginning identity. They are the people that supply those crucial first experiences that will color all the other experiences you have. They are the ones that provide a safe (or not safe) environment to go out into the world and then to retreat again. Even those who do not grow up with a family, as we are learning in our adoption classes, constantly return to their lack of original family in their minds. That lack of origin affects their ability to form meaningful relationships with other people. It’s called having an attachment disorder and it messes with their very identity.

The bible says God sets the lonely in families, but sometimes I wish it said something else, particularly because family can be kind of screwed up. Sometimes, I wish God had said he sets the lonely in ‘community’. Perhaps God could have said he sets the lonely in a ‘company’ or an ‘organization’. Maybe a ‘small group’ or a ‘bible study’ or a ‘parachurch ministry’ would have been better. All of those concepts by themselves are much easier than a family. But that’s not what we are. We are each others jiaren.

God wants to set the lonely in families. In fact, he spilled his own blood to adopt us into one big family. We are not the ‘first-born son’ conceived in lovesick romance. We’re not even the ‘second born daughter’ conceived with a head full of prior knowledge, but a heart full of hope.

We’re the adopted children.

We are ALL the children that have had the tough start, the ones with attachment disorders. We will test and push the limits of the love of the people around us because we don’t know whom to trust. We have been beaten up by the world in all its forms, whether we come from the most obvious darkness or the hidden darkness of trying to be perfect. We are one huge group of highly messy individuals. We are broken people who require others to enter into our brokenness and watch God turn the brokenness into beauty. If we are extremely privileged, we get to enter into the brokenness of another.

But will I enter into another person’s brokenness? Am I willing to invest time and patience so that someone can learn to trust me? Will I willingly step into darkness while confronting the dark crevices of my own heart? Do I want to be a part of another person’s redemptive story?

If not, then what are we doing here? Are we just running another business, organization, or ministry? Does the world really need just another community or church building with no hope of finding the family we need and God wants for us?

I know it is more difficult to be a family. It requires so much more of us emotionally and it requires us to forgive if we need to and to be vulnerable in a way that maybe we never have before. I know that it is, in many ways totally illogical, messy, and stressful. But I believe that it is worth it.

Who is right in front of me right now that God is calling me to enter into their brokenness with them while God does his work?

“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” Romans 8:14-17