Post #9 – From Miracles to Emmanuel – What’s Next
We arrived home on a Wednesday afternoon after an overnight flight. We were exhausted and sleepy. After being gone for over five weeks, it felt good to be home but also a little strange. The kids had homeschool co-ops that Friday and Monday. It felt like a whirlwind jumping into our fall schedule of school and activities. But God is providing and while this season is hard as we adjust to having five children, if we are honest, life was hard with four kids, three kids, two kids, or no kids (had to leave out one kid scenario because we started with twins!).
Daily life right now is different than it will be in the future. We are currently in a season of cocooning with Emmanuel.
Cocooning is a time period where adoptive families focus on bonding, attachment, and healthy understanding of immediate family and healthy boundaries with those outside of immediate family. Cocooning looks different with every child because every adoptive child and situation is unique.
We cocooned with Mila as well, but we were not nearly as strict with her because she had a foundation of healthy bonding with her foster mama and understood family structure from having lived in a foster home. Emmanuel’s experience of living in an institution for 2.5 years meant that he came to us very confused about family, and we saw behaviors while we were in Colombia that showed us his confusion.
Here’s our original cocooning letter if you’re interested in reading about what concerning behaviors we saw and how we have handled things since being back home.
Cocooning Letter: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BVIOyIpXtmkkRS7GjY3dZaUGoEwfXPjss-EDkddIrAE/edit?usp=sharing
The good news is that we aren’t still stuck in the strictest stage of cocooning as we just recently saw him begin to handle social interactions differently than he did in Colombia. What a joy that was to see! I never thought I’d be happy when my child refused to high five the man delivering some lumber recently, but in our minds that is progress. He’s beginning to show typical behaviors of reserve with strangers and is understanding that not everyone is the same. And that is wonderful!
A common response we get when we explain cocooning and why Emmanuel needs it is “I never thought of that” or “I had no idea adoptive kids need that but it makes sense.” We are grateful for everyone who has given him the space he needs as he acclimates to understanding his place in our family. It’s such a joy to see him thriving.
Since we’ve been getting settled back in at home, we’ve also been praying about what God has next for us. I kind of feel like Mila as we do this. For anyone who has been around her lately, you know that her favorite question is “Next, Mom? Next?” She asks me this several times a day usually during transitional times.
Before Emmanuel, God had called our family to open our home to host prayer and fellowship gatherings and discipleship opportunities. All throughout our adoption journey, we held the plans of continuing this type of ministry loosely as we didn’t know if that would still be what God was asking us to do once Emmanuel joined our family.
I often said before his adoption, “I have no idea if Emmanuel will just jump right into the mix of our family and we will keep hosting or if God is calling all that to a screeching halt based on Emmanuel’s needs.”
As you can see from the videos shared with this email, Emmanuel does seem to be jumping right in the mix of our family.
And now, after many conversations and a lot of prayer with others, we do believe God is asking us to continue ministering by opening our home for gatherings. But as we do, we are also trying to discern if there’s more to it than that. What’s next, God?
Discerning God’s will isn’t a formula. For us, following Jesus and His plans is just seeking Him and being willing. Jesus said that loving the Lord with our whole hearts and minds and loving others as ourselves sums it all up. And that’s what our family is doing. Asking God who He’s calling us to love next. It’s not complicated, but living it out costs everything.
We had a sweet moment the other evening as I was singing to Emmanuel to put him to bed. Allen was watching and said, “I hope we adopt another child.” I laughed at the idea and told him I was getting old.
He said, “I hope we adopt another child when Emmanuel is Mila’s age. I prayed while we were in Colombia that in five years we’d adopt again.”
Yikes! I told him I would be 50 years old by then, but then added, “Maybe so. If God calls us again, we will.”
It’s amazing to watch what God is teaching our kids through our adoptions. They are learning that there is a big world with so many different peoples and cultures. They are learning that family is more than just biology and blood relations. They are seeing God’s love and restoration of brokenness as they watch orphans come into our family and become their siblings.
They are understanding that God has specific plans for each of them as well. It’s been beautiful to see how they jumped right in to loving and helping Emmanuel. When I say they love him, I mean they LOVE him. And he loves them. He gets so excited when he sees them that he often squeals and runs to them. This growth and understanding in our kids is not why we adopted, but it has been a beautiful byproduct of obeying God.
Through the years, many of my hesitations to say yes to God have actually surrounded my kids. I felt like I needed to protect them and shelter them. But what if they don’t want to go to Colombia. But what if they struggle with a new sibling. But what if life gets really hard, and I don’t have enough time for them. All of these thoughts are legitimate concerns, but no concern should overpower our devotion to following Jesus. And since following Jesus, we’ve been overwhelmed by His faithfulness in all the areas where we had fear.
I’m also realizing that I don’t always know what’s best. If I tell God that what He is asking is too costly because of my desire to protect my kids, I shudder when I look at where the root of this statement comes from. At the base of this thinking is that I know better than God. I know what’s best for the kids He gave me. I know more than their own Creator.
He has shown us again and again that we don’t need to know everything before we obey. We don’t need to know how everything will work out. We don’t need to know what the future will hold.
We simply need to know Who has called us.
“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.” Deuteronomy 7:9
This is our testimony. God is who He says He is. He honors His promises to His children. His presence goes before and behind us. We have seen it. We are living it.
This is the end of this posting series. Whether you’ve read every one or only a few, I truly appreciate you taking the time to read our story.
More than anything, I hope you walk away from this series knowing that God has specific plans and purposes for you, too.
This story is about so much more than orphans and adoption. It’s about trusting God enough to say yes to whatever He’s calling you to. It’s about believing that He is a good God who has good plans even when we can’t see what those plans are going to look like. It’s about realizing that denying ourselves, taking up our crosses, and following Jesus may sound scary and difficult, but that the life He calls us to is actually the life we were created to live.
We pray that this series and our testimony has encouraged you! Please reach out and share if there’s something God has done in your life that we can celebrate along with you or if there’s anything you’d like us to pray over. We’d love to hear from you!
