sunday.

It’s Sunday. The re-set day. The day I look forward to all week.

Of all the challenges right now, God has preserved Sunday morning as a joyful time for me. Each of my four children loves church so much and I don’t take that for granted. Not one bit.

It’s nothing short of a blessing, because I need to be there so badly. My soul is hungry.

I’m neck-deep in my own sin these days, folks.

I can’t tell you about any one thing that’s so dreadful. Everyone is sleeping through the night. Friends and family are helpful. I’m getting time out by myself on Friday afternoons. None of our children is biting people or screaming nonstop or destroying the house.

It’s just still.so.hard.

It’s hard.

I hate being a complainer. This is the life I chose. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But I’m still here, gasping for breath. Showing up at church on the verge of tears after a morning of sibling squabbles and discipline and just trying to get everyone dressed and out the door. It takes one well-meaning person to hug me and ask how I’m doing and I just break down and cry. And then we sit and sing our worship songs and I cry some more.

But it’s not a bad kind of crying, I don’t think. I just feel so very needy, and being with my church family is like a sigh of relief, a place to relax and be myself, tears and all. The service gives me a place to repent, with everyone else in the room, of my sins of anger and impatience and pride. It gives me space to receive forgiveness. It gives me the food I need to start another relentless week, a week which begins the moment the benediction ends and little people are clamoring around me.

I reach back three years in my memory and know I felt this same way when we lived overseas in South Asia. The struggles were different, but it was the same experience of knowing I was exactly where I was supposed to be, but also being stretched to my absolute limits.

I’m so thankful to the Lord because I’m not struggling with depression. It’s more having a giant puzzle to solve, all the time, that makes my body tired and my brain ache. Sometimes it’s complaining too much to anyone who will listen, sometimes forgetting to recognize the progress that’s being made in my own heart and in my children, and choosing to dwell on what’s going wrong. And sometimes forgetting to keep my thankful list — and, let’s be honest, not really wanting to.

I don’t exactly know why I’m telling you all this except to say that this is what adoption (or just parenting?) looks like for me right now. I don’t have any horror stories to make you feel sorry for me. The kids are all doing well. God couldn’t have given us two sweeter little boys. They’re making progress, all four of them.

But every day I deal with an embarrassing amount of anger and frustration and selfishness for two reasons: 1. I feel like I can’t do everything well, and 2. I just want to be left alone.

I recognize that I am wholly, utterly inadequate for this calling, and that’s very humbling. I feel the enormous weight of raising and shepherding four precious, unique souls. I feel an undercurrent of fear about attachment and helping heal wounds and loving unconditionally.

And beyond those things, how on earth to teach them all what they need to know? Good manners and how to play with other kids and eat healthy food and take responsibility for their things and how to respect authority? How to teach them about Jesus and read lots of books to stretch their imagination and vocabulary and to be generous and serve other people? How to do all of this with kindness and consistency and not crush their spirits?

I don’t just want to do crowd control here. I want to empathize and listen and point to Jesus.

I have no simple answers for this overwhelming place I’m in, except that I need to keep walking through it, one day at a time. And there is just no way I will do it all well. I will let balls drop. I will get angry and need to say I’m sorry. There will be glaring holes in our child-rearing. There will be brokenness in our family.

And yet, God is big enough for that. If He’s called us to this, He will be faithful. He’s promised to use every trial to make me more like Jesus, and so I rest in Him.

When I stop and think about it I feel grateful for this overwhelming place because I open my Bible each morning needing to hear from God. Sure, I could probably go through the motions of this new life on my own. But I can’t deal with my selfish heart on my own. I’m thankful for Jesus, who puts my sin as far as the east is from the west, who gives me new mercies each morning.

I’m thankful to surrender to Him.

And so, I am ready for another week.