Love Costs Everything

I was at a youth camp once, I was there as a sponsor for all of our high school kids from church. One of the programs was a movie about missionaries in other countries and how they were putting their lives on the line to share the gospel. It was called ‘Love Costs Everything’. I sat and watched while sobbing at the things these people were put through, how they were beat, tortured, and killed all in the name of Christ. I remember in my sobs asking God to use me, to allow me to be able to give my all when asked by Him. It was that same camp just one year later I would realize my call to adoption. Flash forward nine years later and I found myself asking God what else I had to give. Wow, how short our attention span can be.

When we as Christians ask God to use us, to allow us to answer His call, we always think it will be some grand adventure. We think we may have to serve in a way that could put our lives at risk, go from village to village sharing His words of love and salvation. We envision mountains moved, evil defeated, lives restored and all in a country far from our own. It is when our own ideas are thrown to the side and God asks us to serve in our own homes we can lose sight of the work we are doing. I am the most guilty at this. We started this journey with eyes wide shut, thinking we would be able to let ourselves become everything a child that has lost everything would need. We fell into a world we had no real idea existed. No one really knows this world until they are thrown into it. People who have only heard of adoption, know someone who was adopted, or know a family who has adopted are clueless. No offense, but the truth is the truth. I mean the crowds of people we had surrounding us, cheering us on, vowing to stand by our side as we walked this path was so encouraging. We knew we could do it, our support group was huge and we were in it for all the right reasons. We went to the classes, we heard the “horror” stories, we listened to the stories of love and joy that people who went through it shared. Oh, we were going to be so happy as a completed family once our little one found her forever family. Instead we found a world we never knew existed. We were introduced to the world of trauma. Now don’t get me wrong, I knew that trauma was a huge part of kids in foster care and orphanages around the world, they teach it in the classes, but to learn that this world is full of children that may never be reached, may never be able to accept our love, may never truly love in return was not a world I knew was real. This is a lesson that can only be truly learned by walking it and living with it. It is one of those things that cannot be learned by reading a book or taking the course, it has to be experienced to really be grasped. Parents with children of R.A.D. are the strongest and wisest I know and it has all been “street taught” if you will.

The Mayo clinic says this about Reactive Attachment Disorder:

Reactive attachment disorder is a rare but serious condition in which an infant or young child doesn’t establish healthy attachments with parents or caregivers. Reactive attachment disorder may develop if the child’s basic needs for comfort, affection and nurturing aren’t met and loving, caring, stable attachments with others are not established.

Now, rare is a bit of a stretch if you ask me. I know too many mommas that are crying out for help for their little ones that seem unreachable, hear too many stories of sheer terror happening in the homes of the brave that took on this unimaginable world for it to be as rare as they say. In these families strong marriages are destroyed, strong women are brought to their knees, young children’s innocence is stolen in the night, homes are literally burned to the ground, and families are forever broken. All these families have one thing in common, their love cost them everything. They loved a child that they knew may not love them in return, they drove them to therapy appointments that did nothing, they endured the judging eyes of those who swore to stand by them in their journey, they heard the whispers of how they should do more or be different, they lost sleep, fought each other behind closed doors, and they lost a piece of who they used to be. Yet every one of them will tell you they still love that child and it hurts them that they might never choose to accept that love or give it in return.

Yes, the world of trauma and R.A.D is a mission field. It is a world far away, the language is unknown, the customs are different, and the cost is high. The chosen in this life are not welcomed onto the stages of churches to spill the hard reality of their spiritual battles, their pictures are not on the donation wall, and they are not always admired by all for their fight and convictions, but they are missionaries just the same.  They are forced to walk a path not recognized, they have to stand up to their families and their friends as they try to stay strong in their battle alone. They are faced with the hard reality that any moment an officer can show up and arrest them for the false allegations their little has made. There is no rest in the homes of these chosen and often the homes have become like prisons. Their healthy children are brought along for the ride and grow to become some of the most caring and sacrificial people you will meet. They know the cost that is being paid by themselves and their parents and some will resent this mission field while young only to grow up and serve on the same field. This mission field is full of every kind of fear, danger, hurt, and hope that every mission field holds and it is one of the only ones that we get the clearest picture of who we are as children in the kingdom we fight for. Those fighting this fight have taken in children who are lost, children the world has tossed aside, hurt, used, and left to care for themselves. We give them love, hope, and a chance at a future. They far too often reject that love, hope, and future as long as they can all while blaming the ones offering this new life to them. Sound familiar?  Parents of these little ones are truly blessed in a way no other missionary is. We are held in the hands of our own adoptive father and he whispers in our ears “Now do you understand? Do you see how I love you even still, after the fits of rage, the angry outbursts, the accusations of not loving, not caring, and not understanding? Do you see how my love cost everything and how important it was to give?”

I have spent many hours asking God why he led me to this path. Why I wasn’t chosen to do grand things in His name and why I was asked to serve in this manner. I have lost too much sleep crying out for Him to make it easier and to let me off the “crazy-go-round”. Nine years after being a sponsor at a camp I heard my calling loud and clear, I found myself as a camper at a trauma attachment camp with other families fighting this good fight. I found myself surrounded by my fellow brothers and sisters sharing stories and  battle scars and together we spoke of how our love has cost us everything and we are richer for it. We are not the same people we were when we first started this journey. We speak a new language, we have lost the crowds of people we started with and found truer friends in the loneliness, we have found a new understanding of the lost, and we have found our true identity in Christ. We have paid the price and will continue to pay more. The cost is high and the need is great, and so I write…………..