The Cost of Redemption

( The Third and Final Installment of the Mystery Blogger…you can all rest easier tonight)

Do you remember how you felt on the day you graduated from college? Or the night you became engaged to your future husband? So much hope and promise ahead of you, so many dreams and ideals about how your life would unfold. The glorious beauty of a new sunrise.

During undergrad, I studied psychology and theology with the plan of becoming a social worker. A waste of a good mind, my high school trigonometry teacher had teased me. But I couldn’t think of anything more fulfilling than helping others to have a better life, especially since I had been so blessed in my own.

Yet even as I began my first job with all of the enthusiasm of an idealistic twenty-two year old, I knew deep down that it was only a segue into my real life. For as long as I could remember, I had known that my true vocation was to be a wife and mother. There was never any struggle for me in giving up a career for my family. I joyfully embraced it.

I married my college sweetheart, and we dreamed of having kids and lots of them. Right from the start, we hoped to be able to welcome children into our family through adoption as well as childbirth. We had both been born into large, loving families, and we wanted to share that experience with children who needed us.

In time, we were given a precious daughter through an unexpected-but-long-hoped-for pregnancy. She became the center of our world. Bolstered only by the bliss our little girl brought us, we struggled through years of infertility and failed adoptions. When I finally reached a place of acceptance and true faith, God blessed us with another sweet baby girl, this one having been born halfway around the world. Life was good. So very good. In my gratitude, I wanted to give more.

Six years ago this Thursday, I was sitting in a Russian courtroom, listening to the foreign words of a judge as she entrusted the lives of two more little girls into our hands. Two days later, as these two untamed strangers ripped apart our hotel room, I stole down to the lobby and spent thirty-some dollars for a five minute phone call to my sister back in Virginia. I couldn’t stop sobbing with her, somehow knowing that my life would never be the same.

I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but my heart turned to stone on that day. A deep part of me refused to welcome my new daughters into my life. Indefensible but very real. The transition was difficult, I admit, and I don’t want to underestimate the challenges of teaching a five- and seven-year-old how to live in a family. But these little girls were innocent victims of their failed past, facing much greater challenges than I, with much more grace and courage. How could I not love them?

I became depressed and angry, bitter and resentful, consumed with self-pity and remorse. This was not the life I had envisioned for myself and my family; this was not a person I ever imagined I could be. The utter joy and fulfillment I had experienced as a mother was gone, and I saw no hope for the future, no way out of the anguish. I tried to trust God and to believe that He had designed and created our family as it was meant to be. But if so, why could I not embrace these two little girls into my heart? In my core, a part of me feared that I had made a huge, irreversible mistake and that I would pay the price with the rest of my life. Everyday I faced the inner struggle and shame of being a mother who does not feel love for her children. Unthinkable to me. Surely this could not be what God had intended.

It has been a long, hard six years, not because of my daughters and not even because of my inability to love them, but because of my unwillingness to trust my Maker, my Redeemer, my Sanctifier. Many times I have told Him that I loved Him and begged for His assistance. Many times I have promised to take up my cross and follow Him. Slowly, painfully, lovingly, He has shown me that it is not the cross I choose that I must carry but His own.

Bloodied, bruised, broken, I crawled through the dirt with the weight of the world on my shoulders all the way to Calvary. Will you follow Me?

Thorns were thrust into my skull, nails pounded through my hands and feet, a lance pierced my side. I felt each excruciating pain. Will you follow Me?

I breathed my last breath upon that Cross, seemingly abandoned by my Father, insufferably witnessed by my Mother. Will you follow Me?

My Cross is not pretty or painless or comprehensible in any human way. But it is the path to your salvation. Will you follow Me?

Each day I pray that I may say yes to this Lover of my soul, the One who gives all things, all things, that I might be drawn closer to Him. Beautiful words, honorable thoughts, but not always so simple to achieve in my everyday life. Duties burden, pressures mount, crises arise, children are children, and children broken inside hurt those around them. My flesh fails. But my spirit clings to the Cross that is carrying me Home.

I’ve surrendered. Thanks be to God.

(When Margaret asked me to bail her out, I’m pretty sure we both knew that she was really offering to bail me out. I think she hoped this might be the spark that would jumpstart my long neglected blog, one of the best therapeutic tools I have for helping me to focus on the rich and beautiful blessings in my life. As usual, she was right. (I hope) Thanks for letting me share my heart and my warped sense of humor and for playing along in the guessing game. It’s been fun. If you’d like a front row seat in my therapy sessions, feel free to join me here. Our beloved friend should be back very soon. Thanks be to God for that too.)

A grateful friend of