Table for Nine- Journal Entry

For timeline sake, the following journal entry was written after the laundry pile story I mentioned in My Story Tab.

I have only included the names of my adult children who have given me permission to use their names. I took out quite a bit to protect the privacy of my children.

Journal Entry:

God, you saw what I went through today.

Are you sure I should be doing this as a single person?

I say all that jokingly. I know I heard you LOUD & CLEAR. Maybe a little too loud!

So, I don’t need to give you a recap of my horrible day because you had a front-row seat to it all.

My kids' therapist says it’s good to log things down for my own therapy purposes. She doesn’t want me to get something called secondhand trauma. I think that ship has sailed, though. I'm pretty sure I have it and will need some therapy. She said foster and adoptive parents can get secondary PTSD. I feel like I have PTSDefghijklmnopqrstuv, etc.

So explain something to me, God, if I can’t even process the level of sexual abuse that some of my kids have endured. How in the world are my kids supposed to process all this at their age?

I feel weary.

I feel exhausted.

You told me if I allowed you into my parenting every day, that you’d go before me and teach me how to parent them.

I’ve tried every creative thing you’ve told me to do.

I have invited you into my parenting.

I have surrendered my parenting to you.

I have allowed you to lead.

I’ve got all the books.

I’ve taken all the classes.

I learned about trauma.

I’ve asked all the therapists.

I’ve talked to other foster and adoptive mom’s.

I learned about inner healing.

I learned about TBRI.

What else can I do?

What can I change?

Please teach me how to do this.

It seems like I take 1 step forward and 10 steps backward.

I am not even mad about my kids rejecting me because I keep thinking that they are this way because someone rejected them.

It breaks my heart to think of my precious kids being rejected and abandoned by their own parents.

I get bitten, kicked, clawed, cursed at, hit, and they throw stuff at me.

They do this because they were abused by parents who were supposed to love them.

I’m not even mad when they hit me because, to me, it’s sad.

Last week, the caseworker checked them for bruises. I found it ironic when I'm the one with all the bruises.

It’s interesting to me that the foster & adopted kids have the support, but right now it feels like the parents doing the fostering and adopting are the ones with no support. Everything I do and say gets examined. I’m so tired of having my life & parenting picked apart by strangers.

God, I’ll take the abuse. I don’t mind. Whatever it takes to get them healed and whole.

The one thing I need right now is your presence.

I need your physical presence.

Dear Jesus, I know what needs to happen.

I need you to physically walk into my house right now. These are your kids! I need you to physically walk into my house and fix this. I’m just trying to obey you. So I need you to walk inside YOUR kids' rooms and heal them.

I need you to go over to their beds and lay next to them and attach yourself to them since they won’t attach to me.

I am going to need you to hold them.

Victoria keeps rocking back and forth. Please, God, rock her back and forth from now on so she doesn’t have to self-soothe anymore.

They won’t attach to their baby blankets or baby loveys I have bought for them, so I need you to be their blanket.

Victoria ripped out all the stuffing from the stuffed animal I bought. So, will you please rip out all the hurt inside her heart and replace it with healing?

I need you to be their blanket.

I need you to be their lovey.

I need you to be my kid's stuffed animal.

I need you to sing over them right now.

I need you to blanket them right now while they sleep.

I need you to go deep inside and physically place your hand on all their hearts and heal them.

I need you to go inside their brains and place your hands where things are lacking, and restore and rewire.

I keep looking at this picture hanging up on my bedroom wall of a woman crying into a bottle. It has the scripture Psalm 56:8 on it.

I remember the day my mom bought it for me.

All I see are my kids in this picture instead of this woman.

I can see two of my kids alone on the floor on a dirty mattress in their biological family's house.

I can hear their blood-curdling screams as no one ran to pick them up and comfort them.

Jesus, will you run to my kids right now?

Will you pick them up?

I can hear my kids' screams as they suffered abuse at the hands of their biological parents.

I believe, just like your word says in Psalm 56:8, that you have numbered all our wanderings. You have collected all our tears into your bottle.

God, you have numbered my children’s wanderings and collected their tears into your bottle.

I need you to take those bottles of tears that you collected from my kids while they were rejected, abandoned, and abused. I need you to take all those tears my kids cried, and I need you to physically pour them out on my kids as they sleep right now.

Jesus, run to my kids. Take away their rejection, abandonment, loss, trauma, and heal them from the abuse!

Jesus, I can’t do this without you. I am saving you a place at my table every day and asking you to lead, guide, and be my kids' Heavenly Father that they see, feel, and touch daily.

I surrender again, and again, and again. It’s not about me. It’s about you. It’s about your kids, whom you asked me to adopt.

Hear my heart's cries.