If you've been following our journey on this blog (where I share much more of my heart than on social media), it's no surprise that our family has endured one of our toughest semesters yet on so many fronts. (Read back a few posts ago and perhaps you'll get a sense for the amount of stress we've endured.)
Some things are improving, and some things remain very raw, sore, and difficult. We are trying to find our way.
Life looks so different now than it used to. Through these trials, I've found myself reflecting often upon transracial adoption (adopting outside of your race/across racial lines). It's changed our life so radically over the past five years.
When we adopted Jameson, (and that was a whirlwind of a story- whew!) we took the adoption experts' advice very seriously when it came to incorporating our son's culture into our family.
I know lots of white families that have adopted black and biracial children. Some of them choose to ignore the topics of race and our racial history with their children (as is custom in white culture). Someone I know even touted, "My friend's children don't even
know they're black!"
Sigh.
To be fair, every adoptive couple, just like every parent, has the right to decide how they'll parent their children on various topics throughout a child's life. I'd even guess it's probably
more common for white couples adopting transracially to simply include their child into their own life and culture with very little changes to expose their child to his/her own culture and identity. (That's tough work.)
But here's the problem.
All those cute little black babies raised by sweet white families in the past few decades are now ADULTS. And they're talking. They're sharing their experiences of being raised in white families, in white churches, in white neighborhoods. Research shows they're struggling through their own identity issues as they're now living as black men and women in life, and they're often finding themselves ill-prepared to handle life as a person of color in society once they're out from underneath their parents' white umbrella.
It's Marc and I's mission to raise our children in such a way to honor their birthfamilies and to honor their heritage. Since Jameson's adoption is across ethnic lines, it's an added challenge but we want to do everything we possibly can to learn about, celebrate, and incorporate the richness of his culture into our own family.
Even when it puts us in a strange wilderness like now.
Because we're not black. We're not white. We're a black AND white family. Collectively.
And so that makes us constant pilgrims longing for a place and a people to which we belong.
We're in process from "old life" to "new life," where there is alot more color and diversity. That may sound nice and exciting, but in reality, painful isn't a strong enough word to describe that transition for us.
Don't get me wrong, I love wherever I'm headed, for I know it's God that is doing the leading, and He will surely guide us.
But I'll be walking with a limp to get there.
Last week, I was standing in the airport Chick Fil A line with Caroline and Jameson before our flight home departed. (Marc was on baggage duty back at the gate while we got food.) Jameson was in my arms, and he was being a total sweetie. Our faces were close to one another, and we were just engaging in a typical 5-year-old mom and son conversation. When Jameson laid his head down on my shoulder because he'd been up since the crack of dawn traveling, my eyes met those of another man.
I'd seen this man back at the gate. He was kindof an odd duck, almost like a black Indiana Jones. The adventure hat, the vest, the chiseled facial features and muscular build. Intimidating at first glance, but at the back of the Chick Fil A line, he was staring straight into my eyes in a way that was incredibly profound, full of compassion.
Was he trying to tell me something? Or is this just my imagination? I'm trying to figure out. I really wish I was more intuitive...
But he continued looking at Jameson and me, and he nodded his head slowly.
I see you, Mom, his expression and nod told me.
And then, he nodded at me AGAIN! Slowly, intentionally, deliberately. TWO NODS! He
was telling me something. He was non-verbally affirming my motherhood to my chocolate-skinned son in such a tender way that I was incredibly humbled.
I fought back tears and smiled knowingly back at him.
Thank you for seeing me, I wanted my face to say.
Thank you for affirming me in such a difficult season in life.
I turned around and we continued through the line. As we ordered, the girls at the cash register were striking up conversation with Caroline, even to the point of name introductions. And just as it was time to insert my credit card into the machine......almost out of nowhere the man walked up with his credit card in hand and told the cashier, "It's on me."
Y'all. I just about burst out crying! (It's a moment I've been WAITING to type about because it won't leave my thoughts and memory.)
I don't know who that man was, and I've even questioned if he was an angel?!
Because to me, that moment was as if it was the Lord himself affirming me....
Amy, I see you. You're doing this. Though it's painful, and people will reject you and think you're crazy, you're on the right track. You're giving everything you have to love your children and I'm proud of you.
It was like God was saying:
Not only am I going to affirm where you're headed, do not fear. I'm even going to PROVIDE for you along the journey. You won't go hungry. Trust in me. I'll feed you along the way, and I'll send the most unlikely people to do it.
I know it's a little weird to compare this guy in the Chick Fil A line to Christ himself, but out of love, this guy rushed to the front of the busy line to pay my debt.
And in that moment, my faith was increased.
