My testimony 2021

In five days my 6 month old daughter, Robyn Joy, is having open-heart surgery. Although I am not thrilled about this, I have peace that God is in control. He is sovereign over her little heart,  over the surgeons, over my anxiety, over every aspect of this whole thing. Some people have been shocked at the peace and joy my husband and I have had through this last 6 months- having a baby with Downs Syndrome and a heart defect, relocating our entire family to Kansas City for three months to be close to the hospital, being in the NICU for 4 weeks. It’s been a lot. How can I have peace and joy through this? Honestly, it’s been kind of easy. I have had 15 years of intense, real life training on how to trust the Lord in heart-breaking circumstances, how to find peace that passes all understanding in the midst of impossible situations, how to find joy in God alone, when my world is falling apart, and no worldly joy can be found. 

Psalm 43 says, “There I will go to the altar of God, to God- the source of all my joy. I will praise you with my harp, O God, my God! Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again- my savior and my God! 

I grew up in church, and my family were Christians, but we never talked about God or our faith, or how to live for Jesus.  I knew God was real, and was with me, but I didn’t really know what that meant. I felt lost and purposeless. As I grew up, I knew I was missing something, but I didn't know what. I went to church, I believed, but I always struggled to be good enough and constantly felt like I was failing God. I didn't know this at the time, but I didn't understand who I was in Christ, so I had never surrendered my life to him. I loved him, I knew him, I worshiped and adored him, but my life was still my own and not his. It took me moving to Kansas, a place I swore I would never move to, to completely surrender my life to Jesus. 

You might wonder how I ended up here. I was born and raised in Connecticut, went to college in Massachusetts, and joined the Peace corps where I lived in Ghana, West Africa, for two years.

When my time in the Peace corps was over, I had no money and no home. My mom had moved back to Kansas years before to take care of her parents. I decided, since I had nowhere to go, I would move in with her just until I got my feet on the ground, then I would be off to somewhere "better." But as often happens, God had different plans. 

In 2006, after living here for a few months, three things happened that would change the course of my life forever. I helped plant a church full of people who would become my forever family, I met Jared, my now husband, and overnight I became a mother of three. 

After dating Jared for only a few weeks, we knew we were going to get married. This was the first relationship I'd ever been in where God was in the center of it all, and was in complete control.  Jared's parents were mentally ill drug addicts, and he had three much younger brothers that he didn't know how to help. The night I met his mother for the first time was in a hospital after she had tried to OD. Jared and I went to their trailer home to check on his little brothers. Their father was there but he said he was going to leave. That was it. He just walked out, leaving Jared and I with his kids. I called my mom and grandparents and asked them if I could bring three little boys home with me. If you know my mom or knew my grandparents you know that the answer was immediately yes.

Jared and his little brothers slept on the floor at my mom's house for a couple weeks until, miraculously, Jared found a house for rent around the corner. He and the boys moved in and Jared and I began our journey of raising these boys together, while the two of us lived in separate homes. He would watch the kids during the day, while I worked, and I would watch the kids in the evening and night, when he worked. After a few months of this terrible schedule, we got married on a Sunday morning right after church. 

Although being married was wonderful, and simplified a few things, life was still insanely difficult. There is no other explanation but Jesus for how we survived this season of our lives. We were learning how to depend completely on Him. These children we inherited overnight had been neglected and abused. They had witnessed horrible things. The oldest was five and he had been raising his one and three-year-old brothers. They didn't know how to eat at a table. They didn't know how to go to sleep in a bed. The younger ones didn't speak at all, only screamed. None of them were potty trained. They didn't have anything. We had started an instant family but had nothing. So we prayed and God provided. Usually the next day.  We prayed for shoes and they showed up. We prayed for beds and they showed up. We prayed for dressers and they showed up.  It was such a difficult time but it was filled with God's faithfulness and provision. It became kind of funny. We needed something and we would laugh and say, “let's just pray and it will show up”. And it always did. This pattern of God’s provision has continued, although instead of things getting easier as the years went by, life only got harder. It became apparent that all three of our boys had suffered immense trauma in their early lives, and continued to for the first few years we had them, as we attempted, and failed, to reintegrate them with their birth parents. Because Jared worked second shift, I was with the kids for bedtime. I still vividly remember the boys and I all laying in one bed because they wouldn't sleep separately. I had to read them books and sing to them for hours, dealing with crying and screaming and night terrors, and they would wake at the slightest movement. The night usually ended in tears for me as well. 

Eventually we were able to officially adopt them, and along the way we had a few biological children as well. But things never got any easier. The boys started exhibiting signs of mental illnesses, like their parents. Even as little kids they suffered from depression and anger like I had never seen in my life. They all have something called reactive attachment disorder, or RAD for short. This essentially means that no matter how much we tried to love them, they only rejected us, and tried everything in their power to try to get us to reject them back.  They believed they were going to be rejected and abandoned anyway, so they put up a wall and never let us through it, so that if they ever did get rejected, it wouldn’t hurt as much. 

Adoption is nothing like you see in the movies, where if you just love them enough, they will be fine. I know 100% that my boys are better off now than they would have been if we had not adopted them, but they are still so broken. My husband and I have been emotionally, verbally and even physically abused. We’ve had to call the police more times than I can remember. We’ve all been in and out of therapy this entire time. Recently, myself and two of my biological children have been diagnosed with PTSD due to all of the trauma we have endured. Two of my adopted boys ended up having to be removed from our home and put in state custody, for the safety of our family. That is a pain that's impossible to describe. Like a death. We've also watched some of our boys walk away from the Lord, which has been the most painful thing of all.

 

There have obviously been wonderful and amazing times, too. We've had our fair share of laughs and good times,

but it sort of feels like I've spent my entire life as a parent watching my children suffer and suffering along with them. 

BUT, And with Jesus there's always a but. As I was starting my new instant family, God also put us into another family- our new church (Restored, at the time; now Antioch). We called ourselves an Acts 2 church. If you're unfamiliar with Acts 2, it's where the church began, after Jesus' ascension into heaven. And it’s not church like we see it today. They were meeting in each other's homes and in the temple regularly, having meals together, and sharing everything they owned so that no one went without. There was complete unity and reliance on the Lord. They were constantly on mission, sharing the gospel daily, performing miracles and healings, praying without ceasing. We used this as a model of what kind of church we wanted to be, and because of that, my new church family walked beside us as we drudged through the valley of the shadow of death with our children, suiting up in God’s armor, to fight our spiritual battles with us. But not only were we able to rely on the strength and support of our church family, we were also all learning to rely on the supernatural strength of the Holy Spirit to sustain us. I was being discipled by some of the most faithful people I know. Eventually, I found that thing I had been missing all my life- the heart knowledge that I am a child of God. I am not my sin, I am not my past. I am not my current circumstance. I am God’s daughter and he is my good good Father. Receiving this truth allowed me to surrender my life to Jesus completely, and that means I’ve put all my trust in him. Today my hope is no longer in my circumstances, or even my feelings. My hope is in Jesus.  

This is why, when I got a phone call last year, telling me the baby in my belly had Down Syndrome and a heart defect, after grieving for a few minutes, we were able to hand it over to the Lord, and simply thank him for this precious gift he’d given us. She is a joy in our lives, and always will be, whether we have her for 60 years or only one. God is in control of that. 

My adult life has been one trial after another. We've made so many mistakes. There's so much I wish I could do over. But like I said before, my hope isn't in my circumstances or in my feelings. My hope is in Jesus alone.

He loves and forgives and heals brokenness and this brings JOY and PEACE. And even though things are difficult, even though my heart breaks for my kids, - I KNOW that God has got them. He has plans for them- my boys, my biological kids, and my sweet baby Robyn. Just like God rescued me out of my muck and mire, He can rescue them. Even if it takes decades. Things might be hard like this for the rest of my life.  But, I will always find peace in Jesus when I lean on him instead of my own strength and understanding. And, praise God, he will always make beauty from ashes, and if we are willing, he will always use us in the midst of our brokenness. I cannot tell you the number of people I have been able to encourage and love on in their trials simply because of what I've been through. In all this brokenness, God has used me to glorify him- and isn’t that the whole point of our lives? To glorify him? 

And even though Jesus wants the glory he rightly deserves,  he also wants us to live joyful and full lives. He wants to bless us and give us good things! 

While all these horrible things have been going on the last 15 years, God has also given me blessing after blessing, and has even used me for his kingdom! The world became less appealing and my heart started yearning for more of Jesus. I went on missions trips where I shared the Gospel daily with people who had never heard the name of Jesus. I’ve seen drug addicts come out of their addictions and people miraculously healed! I learned what it means to abide in Jesus and be His child. I’ve been used by the Holy Spirit to encourage others. I have been and am being restored by Jesus every day, and so is my family! 

What does it say that I am closer to God today than ever before, and yet the last 15 years have been the absolute hardest of my life? I’ve needed God more than ever. This suffering has brought me to the feet of Jesus. There's no reason someone can go through what I've gone through, and still have joy and hope. It does not look like my older boys will follow Jesus anytime soon. It does not look like they have the ability to have "successful" lives or meaningful relationships. It does not look like they will ever heal from their trauma. BUT, I have seen Jesus take boys just like my sons, and turn them into mighty men of God. I have seen it with my own eyes. My husband is one of the many examples I know. 

There is no earthly way that a mother can imagine her baby opened up on an operating table, and yet have peace and joy, and complete trust in the Lord. There is no earthly way that boys like my sons can grow up to be anything other than dysfunctional men. These situations have no hope. But Jesus’ name is stronger than trauma. Jesus’s name is stronger than a failed heart.  In a worldly sense, I should be scared to death about Robyn's surgery, and angry at God for giving me a baby with a bad heart. But in a heavenly sense, I trust the Lord. There's a reason he's given me this beautiful child, and she is in His hands. In a worldly sense, I should have no hope for my boys. But in a Heavenly sense, I have hope that God can turn their pain into beauty, like he has mine That one day, their stories will end with a beautiful testimony about the restoration power of Jesus' blood. He saved me. He saved me after everything I've done in my life. After everything I continue to do that breaks His heart. He knew it all, yet he left his throne in heaven, came to earth, lived a perfect, sinless life, died for me, so that I would not have to die. he took my sins off of me and onto himself  and gave me his righteousness and holiness instead.  So, not only am I NOT getting the punishment I deserve, I am also getting this amazing gift that I definitely do not deserve. then he rose from the dead and is sitting in heaven waiting for me and praying for me! The sin in my life deserves only death and hell. But that's not what I get. I get life and love and an eternity with my Creator in a perfect paradise, and this is the hope I have for all of my children.

Not because of anything we have done, but because we are children of God. With this truth, I can go through absolutely anything, and never lose the hope, peace, and joy that come from my Father. 

Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." (John 14:27)

And my life verse, 1 peter 5:10 says this:  And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

This is my hope.