The Shadow Self

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18

Originally posted on October 22, 2007

I went to church yesterday and came home with 3 different "revelations" of God's love.  

They all pertain to adoption issues, because my entire life is affected by them.
I even danced with my own shadow.

The first happened during praise/worship ~ the regular worship leader was not there because her Mother had just passed away this week after a long battle with leukemia. She had lived for many, many years longer than the doctors predicted and she had a wonderful quality of life with her children/grandchildren for years through God's sustaining power.

Half-way through praise & worship I saw Aimee come in and immediately she walked up to the front row (it was dark in our church during song time) and approached the senior pastors. They saw her coming and put their arms out in big all-consuming hugs and kisses over her, just holding her and letting her cry. It was very touching, as I saw the love of this couple envelope this young praise leader and bring comfort and unconditional love over her while she was grieving. I began to cry....and then it hit me.

Adoptees lose their mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins (their very identity and place in their God-given family). 
They lose everything their lives revolved around and identified with ~ the only place, the only love they ever knew, felt, smelled, and was enveloped by, in complete warmth. 

But adoptees are probably NEVER, NOT ONCE, given a hug of comfort for this devastating loss we all carry inside our entire lives. We are not validated or accepted for who we truly are ~ we are only given acceptance as the ones we are engineered by adoption to be ~ our adopted selves. 
Our adoptive identities, lives, families. 

We go through life completely numb/shut-off to the PAIN of losing our very selves as connected to our mothers and family line, our first and most significant love, truth and self.

I so yearned to be able to run into the arms of real people as I stood there in church crying over the loss of my own Mother and all she represents. 
To receive the same immediate acknowledgement of my pain, validation, and comfort. 

Aimee wasn't afraid to run to the front of the church, the light, and receive unconditional love ~ she knew grieving was necessary and accepted because of losing her beloved Mother. It was expected and completely understood.

Adoptees emotionally sit at the back, in the dark, scared to feel, because they receive a sentence of life-long shame and unacknowledgement ~ if they DARE look deeper into their own feelings and tap, even lightly, into the pain.

  No one in society is comfortable with this pain ~ because ADOPTION is the big cure-all, the blessing, the win-win, the building of a family
~ FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF ANOTHER ~ THE DESTRUCTION OF IDENTITY ~ an amended birth certificate, parents who did not birth, names erased and re-invented ~ and pasts erased ~ at least legally. 
All at a huge price.

NOTHING can erase the spiritual reality, the emotional reality and connections within a human being to their lineage, their core, their pain.

Aimee, I cried for your loss today. And on the backrow, I cried for mine as well. I lost my Mother, too ~ twice ~ and I know how it feels. 
Bless you, my friend.