They are worth being loved like crazy....

Bill and I are so thankful that we attended the Empowered to Connect conference with Dr. Karyn Purvis.  I guess you could say we are groupies!  Our church's orphan ministry has all of her teaching materials, and we now see just how important it was to spend time reading and studying before we added the girls to our family.  The Connected Child and our study workbooks from the ETC conference can be found by our bedsides with sticky notes and bookmarks in them--often read in three minute increments.  As we walk through this journey of parenting two "children from hard places", we are grateful to have such terrific resources.  Even though we studied it all before we left,  "real life" presents a much different picture.

 

She LOVES the water in any form!

And we are all loving Aldi's ice cream treats!

Just as reading all the books on parenting and babies before we had Jenny prepared us in some ways, so often, real people are much different that what books describe.  Although we had ideas of what our girls would be dealing with (things that all adoptive children do), we didn't know some of the things they have experienced and some of their personality traits that have developed with years of being institutionalized.  All the reading in the world can give us much knowledge, but Bill and I have truly learned with parenting all of our children that wisdom comes from God (and not always in our timeframe).

There are many things we know about our girls past, some we knew from the beginning, some we learned in country, some we learned in court, and some we have learned since we have had them home.   And there will always be things we will never, ever know---things that have affected them in deep ways within their hearts and souls.  But God.....He knows.  He knows all they have experienced and endured.  And He will show us what we need to do to help them heal--He is faithful and His love for the fatherless is so much more than our love for Sima and Vaida.

They are "painting"with water--next summer we'll use the real thing!

One thing that Dr. Purvis stated again and again is to look at the belief behind the behavior.  So often it is fear driving behavior, fear of things we have no concept of in our lives---lives in which we have both have parents who loved, protected and cared for us.  God has opened our eyes in so many ways, and the eyes of our other children.  They have seen and heard things that we don't usually allow in our home and have seen two little girls become much gentler and two girls beginning to realize, even just in a very small way, what "forever" and "family" means.  We have seen our girls "soothe" themselves in ways that make me want to weep---thinking of all the times they were alone comforting themselves.  We have seen what a caring sister Sima has been for Vaida, something that God put deep within her as this wasn't modeled to her---how she has looked out for Vaida.  Thanking Him for that as we know it has helped Vaida in ways we can't imagine.

Our Lithuanians love potatoes!  

Vaida peeled the skin off this cold leftover baked potato and started snacking!

And they love pancakes!  And big spoons!

Praying daily and hourly that our love in action may be a dim reflection of the love of Jesus

 and that every day Sima and Vaida feel they have worth.

Below is a quote from the Empowered to Connect site that I love--

If our children are to believe that Jesus is crazy in love with them, 

then I suspect they will need to first understand 
that they are worth being loved like crazy. 

Yet we know that what they have experienced in life-- 

in terms of trauma, abuse, neglect, abandonment, and relinquishment -- 

often whispers...

no shouts to them a very different message. 

So, by God's grace we as adoptive and foster parents are given

 the indescribable privilege of showing our kids, 

day-by-day and moment-by-moment, 

that they are valuable and deserving of love. 

Not because they are worthy, 

but because they have worth. 

As parents may our love in action be even a dim reflection of the love of Jesus

 and send the inescapable message to our children: 

you are worth being loved like crazy.