Brothers
There haven't been any huge developments on the situation with Bright's brothers, but we are continuing to pray. I feel like we're probably supposed to do this, but Eric has asked for a few more days. We're supposed to have the big talk on Tuesday evening.
One thing I've done the past few days is talk with our children about the possibility of adopting Wise (Bright's 5 year old brother).
Taevy wanted to make sure that he wasn't older than her--once assured that he's not she felt better. ;-) We talked about the fact that my lap would need to be shared with another kiddo (which is hard for her). She didn't like that. But then we talked about the sacrifice that Jesus made for us even though it wasn't easy for him. What would Jesus want us to do? After going through more examples of "sacrifice" Taevy decided that we should definitely adopt Wise...that she could "sacrifice" some lap time.
Samren was all for adopting Wise from the get-go. He thinks it would be totally fun to have a brother about the same age as him. He was also very accepting of the practical side of things (sharing clothes and toys and adding a bed and chest of drawers to the bedroom). Eric and I know that it would be a bigger adjustment for Samren than HE thinks it would be, but that he would be okay.
Tonight I wanted pick Samren's brain a bit in order to find out *possibly* how Bright might feel about things at the same age. You see, Samren has a brother in Vietnam that is about 3 years older than him. We didn't know about him until we went to adopt Samren (sound familiar?), but also his brother was not available for adoption. We have a photo of Samren and his brother together. I asked Samren tonight what he would want us to do if his "tummy mommy" asked us to adopt his brother in Vietnam. He said he would want us to adopt him so that he could be safe.
I thought that would be the end of the conversation, but before I knew it Samren was tearing up! I asked him what was wrong, but he said he didn't know. I asked him if he was sad. "Yes." "Do you know why honey?" ....tears...."Oh sweety, what's wrong?" "I love my Vietnam brother and I can't ever see him. I miss him. If he was here he could pick me up and be my big brother." Oh my poor baby! I had no idea that the conversation would hit him so hard emotionally, but it really did. Samren (to this point) has showed very little emotion about his birth family so it was a very unexpected reaction.
If this doesn't go to show the bond of brothers (and siblings) I don't know what does. I think it speaks volumes about the loss that Bright might someday feel when/if he knows that he has three older brothers "somewhere out there."
I hope that Bright never has to feel what Samren felt tonight.
Anita
2 comments:
Jesus did not say to sacrufice your children for others keep close listen to your children..... YES we DID do what we thought Jesus was teling up too and it was way too much..... We did not see this until way after the harm was done to the ones we had in our home. We hear stories of their loss of us way too many times.
Whoa! First of all, come on folks. Please at least leave a first name when you leave an annonymous post, okay?
Second, I never said Jesus asked us to sacrifice one child for another. Hmm...I can think of a certain story in the bible where he asked someone to say "yes" to sacrificing his son in a pysical way before ultimately the Lord revealed that his son would not be sacrificed. And God did sacrifice his child "for others." I think God is pretty big on sacrifice--joyful obediant sacrifice.
This is an interesting thing to think about, but I have not and will not ask my children to sacrifice themselves to help another child. I was talking to a six year old about lap time. Six year olds tend to be a bit more egocentric than Christ would like them to be. We talked about sacrificing LAP TIME--not the love of her mother--not a place in this family--not her (eldest child) spot in this family--not the emotional, physical, and spiritual support that she gest from us each day--just a bit of LAP TIME.
I'm so sorry for your loss. There are certainly no guarentees in international adoption and I have my eyes wide open about the possitility of bringing a troubled 5 year old into our mix. All we can ultimately do is follow His will to the best if our ability.
Anita
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