I Mortify I
To subdue or deaden (the body or bodily appetites) especially by abstinence or discomfort * "she mortified her body for spiritual purification"
As a Christian, I am suppose to use my eyes, hands, actions and gifts to honor God. In all that I do, this should be my goal. While it is understood that no one can be righteous, no not one and cannot ever live out perfection on this side of heaven, it is something to strive for. It is ghastly sin, if this is repeatedly foregone. Even though it is difficult to use any adjective prior to the word sin, as sin is black and white with no gray in between. All sin should be ghastly in the eyes of the believer as all sin is ghastly, whether viewed from the skewed worldly perspective that some sins are greater than others. "Ghastlier" sin could have increased consequences, however, all sin is the same as it separates us from the God that created us. I committed "little" sins persistently, consistently, layer by layer, heaping into one enormous pile of sins with consequences abounding for each one. Even if no one else ever noticed. I did. The worst consequences of these sins was the notion that it would eventually crumble so that I could no longer feel as if I could control it and I would be found out. Did I have Imposter Syndrome? No. Just a human with a sin nature. Do I need to confess it? No. But I choose to because bringing darkness to light brings freedom. It can also help others. I know this from experience as hearing stories others have bravely shared has at times been a spring board for growth and motivation in my own life.
As a Christian, it is not fun to feel separated from God. While one who is truly saved has security in their salvation, we can still deter from God's direction, words and blessing. No human can go through a 24 hour period without at least slightly deterring from God's instruction. When we get ourselves into trouble is when we make a pattern of swaying from God's word. This is where I was finding myself recently. I have since made drastic changes in my life in order to mortify the main thing that was causing me to fall. It was a child.
"It's complicated" would have been my relational status chosen for one of my foster children if there was that option. If I was sassier I would have just said, "it's complicated" each time I was asked about how things were going with this child. However, because I wear my heart on my sleeve and rarely am able to hide any kind of emotion, I usually briefly described the struggles to those that asked. Our decision not to move forward in adopting him seemed more than complicated at the time, it is now clear as a cloudless day. It actually wasn't complicated at all. Sure, the behaviors were complicated, the multiple treatments and interventions to help this child and help ourselves work with this child were complicated. All the appointments and people constantly in and out of our house had been complicated. The extreme documentation of every violent, threatening event, broken or urinated on item or suicidal ideation was complicated. Frequent updating to the team around this child was complicated. Fighting to get the services and reimbursement we needed to get this child the help he needed was complicated. But our decision to not adopt him was not complicated, we just made it complicated.
How could a child that God allowed into your home not be the child God desires to be with you forever? How were we not honoring God by being committed to this child? God loves orphans, and desire us to serve them. That's exactly what we were doing, but it felt so wrong. I compared scripture with scripture over and over and kept coming to the conclusion that serving God is not always easy, and it can often times be messy, but it doesn't mean you just give up. I am one that finds it difficult to give up on anything. I desire to see things through to the end result, regardless of the difficulty. Fostering should never be a results based service. Seeking God on a daily basis and allowing the holy spirit to influence me as I live my life should be the ultimate goal, always. I was not able to do this AND be this child's mother. I failed over and over again. For a long time, I beat myself up for not loving him the way he needed to be loved before realizing that I just could not love him the way he needed to be loved. I could not do that and do everything else that I was committed to doing in my life. I even had left my job and eliminated stress there, I had cut back on other things as well, but it wasn't enough. We had regularly scheduled times of respite and date nights. We had therapists, a behavioral interventionist, and a psychiatrist. I begged God on multiple occasions to give me an unconditional love for him, but only intermittently could I actually seem to provide that and even when I did it still felt forced on my end. No child deserves that. Every child deserves to be the center of their parent's affection.
After grappling with this over four seasons and then some, something had to change. Simply put, we needed to mortify the action of being his parents. But that is so drastic! That is so wrong! Allowing that child to depart from your home is another trauma to him, and that is not okay! This overwhelming pressure kept haunting us for months and months. But it wasn't enough pressure to make us continue.
While there was the fear and anxiety reported to us by our other children, the sacrifice of time and oodles of energy on a daily basis that was given to help this child heal that was desired back, the greatest reason that forced me to finally put my foot down - and accept my husband's anchored foot that had not moved for a couple of months - was the conviction that only by removing this child from our home could I avoid temptation.
What temptation you ask? The temptation to hurt another human. To think about murder is just as defiling to the soul as to commit murder.
Wow. Now that is ghastly, heinous sin right there. How sickening is that, that you could want to hurt a child? If this is the question you are asking yourself, I ask you to contemplate that idea that maybe you have not had enough life experience with someone that seems to cauterizes the blood flow that brings life into your soul. When I see in the news about parents, particularly foster or adoptive parents that harm their children, I identify more so with the parents. This DOES NOT give excuse to hurting children, and I by no means condone hurting children in any way whether emotionally, physically or by neglect. I do however, get why people do now. I don't believe a parent chooses to have a child, foster or adopt a child thinking... I want to abuse a child today. It is a slow fade to this and one that should repulse us to constant subjection and reliance on the truth of God's word. That is one thing we have in life that does not change if you choose to believe it as truth. This truth is the only thing that will correct incorrect thinking that I am justified to hurt this child because of the rage I am experiencing by being provoked by this child. I have felt the fury that has been raked over and over again by children from trauma living in my home and pushing my every button to the near brink of madness. I have had thoughts that the world may be better without this child, or how if something happened to this child, I may not feel so bad, but instead relieved. This is the ugly side of me, and I believe what can be the ugly side of all of us apart from the one and only living God. I don't believe identifying with child abusers or murderers is a bad thing. I get it now. I can have empathy and compassion now for a population with whom I never did before. Again, not condoning this, just making sense of who we are as humans and the essential need for a Savior.
I am forever grateful that only by the grace of God I was protected from what could have been detrimental decisions and that I could have continued in my pattern of thoughts of hurting this child. Because we were not committed to this child, by birth or by law, we were able to let go and flee temptation. If this is how you feel about your biological children, or a spouse, I can't tell you what to do as that is a whole different beast. I know that for me, months of this dangerous repeated mode of thinking had to be stopped. I could not go on this way and be honoring to God at the same time. I had to make the choice to mortify this member that was causing me to sin. My action of being a mother to this child was not right, and it was better that I forfeit that action than to continue in a way that was not honoring to God and quite honestly was sucking me into a downward spiral that I was afraid I would be forever detained. As right as it may have looked to foster this child and potentially adopt him, for us, it was not.
I can only speak for myself as to these thoughts, decisions and intents, but I hope to bring light to a darkened subject that is scarcely talked about and deemed likely unacceptable in the foster/adoptive community. Because there is a such tremendous pressure to adopt every child that comes into your home and there are unavoidable consequences when you choose not to (whether it is admitted or not) , it should be brought to light and foster parents should know that they are not alone. I have heard these same feelings from multiple other foster parents. It was briefly mentioned in our training class, something along the lines of, "get your bleep together before you take these kids in your home as they will drag out any fear, insecurity or pain that you never knew you had." Yep, I can say that is quite true. Likely every child from trauma living in your home will from time to time bring you to an extreme point of frustration (and even biological kids), however, the difference for us with this one was that it just never went away. It didn't feel right with him and it never did. I don't believe that for us that means it won't be right later down the road with a different child. Our beautiful, strong daughter that we adopted almost two years ago through foster care has brought me to much vexation at different times, but my heart (our hearts) have not changed over all towards her. She is our daughter and will be forever. So should every child that enters your home become your forever child? Maybe. Maybe not. If you are single, should any person you date become your spouse? Likely not. God opens and shuts doors and while it took us nearly two years to finally allow God to shut this door, we will be wiser for it the next go round.
This makes you want to foster kids right!? I'm sorry to bear this news. My hope truly is that more godly families will choose to either foster or tremendously support foster families. This job is more than a full time job and can be a very high stress environment, one that you can rarely take a break from and even those of us with the best intention, grounding and support can falter. There is no worker's compensation or coverage for pain and suffering, not to mention coverage for all the damaged parts of your home and vehicles that can come with fostering. Foster families need support, especially from the church.
So feelings of anger, sadness, and now grieving are able to fully blossom to God's honor now that I have removed his pictures from off of our walls. My heart is now healing now that I have fled this temptation. God speed heart! This servant is still breathing and therefore still has work to do.
If you not a Christian, this may not make sense. And if you read this and disagree, or are confused by this, I encourage you to explore these thoughts. Whether you are atheist or agnostic, or anywhere in between, we all face the same ultimate outcome that will clutch us from this earth one way or another. Where you believe your soul /or body ends up when it is all said and done is a choice you and I both get to make while living. In a world in which truth is a dirty word and believing solely on one way to heaven can seem intolerant, my choice is Jesus all the way. If you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified and it is with your mouth that you process your faith and are saved. Saved from eternal separation from God and saved from having to live a life of sin and disunion with God. Thank God for that.
I Proverbs 28:13 I
Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
Thank you Jesus for protection and forgiveness and hope not just for tomorrow, but forever.