May i tell you that people in just this last week LITERALLY looked at me with a sadness in their eyes as if i was to be pitied because we adopted Ethan....as if 'i took on too much'. I have also been told that the choice to adopt is not really all that radical because it brings attention to ME. I have been told so many hurtful things....through people's eyes, through people's silence, through people's words, through people's looks........ this past year has been the most alone i have ever felt in my life. So, when someone says that it brings attention to me....i am in shock because the attention that i have gotten has not been, for the most part, a kind of feeling that i would want to go out and pay for....even a dollar! The decision to adopt was NOT made lightly! NO, that does NOT mean that we KNEW just how hard it was going to be to parent a child with special needs whose life had only known an orphanage life! JUST LIKE YOU didn't know what it was like to be MARRIED when you said I DO!!! People say that i took on TOO much! That i am out of my mind. They say that it .....well, fill in the blank but i don't hear much GOOD. We are ones who 'only adopted one' so i don't fit in with the group that is adopting their third child. We have TWO children with DS so i don't fit in with the people who have one. I am in my late 40's and i have children still in preschool so i don't fit in with other ladies in their late 40's. I thought that i didn't fit in BEFORE we adopted Ethan and i DEFINITELY DO NOT FIT IN now!!! All of this to say that ADOPTION IS SO VERY HARD.....it IS radical!!! It IS life changing!!! OUR SON'S LIFE IS DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT!!! MY life is DRASTICALLY different!!! BUT may i just as emphatically say this......with tears in my heart....to where i can barely breathe......IT. IS. NOTHING. COMPARED. TO. WHAT. THESE. CHILDREN. LIVE. on a daily basis in an orphanage. WHAT WE DID WAS NOTHING!!!!! I am sobbing here....it is NOTHING!!!! It is NOT radical enough! There are STILL so many children out there waiting for a family! There are STILL so many families out there TRYING desperately to raise the funds needed. I see what Hanson lived through.....and what he died from.....ears that did not hear.....eyes that did not see......hearts that did not care......pockets that did not give.... IF we could only OPEN our eyes and SEE their day....JUST. ONE. DAY.......IF we could HEAR their SILENCE due to the fact that they learned that it didn't help to cry....IF we could hear their hearts slowly dying, not just physically but also emotionally.....IF we could just TOUCH them for ONE DAY.... We in my age group asked our parents how in the world people didn't do anything about the people who were being killed by Hitler. Why were people silent? Why, for the most part, was the Church silent? I think that the generations after us will ask their parents why we didn't do anything to care for the orphans, the poor, the sick, the dying. My perspective of what CONNIE is going through has been altered once again (that SIN of comparison again) the perspective is altered because of ONE CHILD with special needs who became an adult with special needs who was RADICAL and thought that ONE boy...an orphan who NEVER knew that there was a family who loved him...that there were people trying to save him from across the ocean-died in his crib...should have a funeral. That ONE MAN with special needs changed a BIG chunk of people because HE ACTED on the passion that God gave him. MY LIFE is again altered because ONE MAN ACTED and then ONE WOMAN WROTE it down and TWO HUNDRED PEOPLE GATHERED and brought a funeral to a little boy that they never met. I am SO VERY GRATEFUL to once again be brought....perspective that is NOT of this world.....but is of the ETERNAL perspective....OH HOW CONNIE FORGETS SO EASILY!!! My sin....oh the depths of it! I. AM. ALWAYS BLESSED
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