Is This Normal?

I've felt so overwhelmed with negativity when I was expecting lots of good feelings. It surprised me so much that I emailed our social worker and asked her if this was normal.

She didn't say it was.  Instead, she asked me how I normally react to changes or challenges.

Well, that is an amusing question to think about.  I normally panic and think there is no way I can handle whatever is coming.  During grad school, the release of each new syllabus brought a fresh terror that I was going to fail because there was no way I could possibly complete all those assignments. Of course, everything got done and I didn't fail anything along the way.  That is just one recent example, but I generally start everything new with a sense of the impossibility of me handling it.  In a way that is good.  It means I also start each new venture crying out to God for help.  Anytime I make it, it is because God lifts me out of my own strength and into His.

Karla also asked if I could pinpoint what was making me so fearful.  This was not so amusing to think about.  I kept running through all the worries that have popped into my head lately.  The thing is, I could quickly see why those things weren't really big enough obstacles to make me feel the way I've been feeling.

When I got really honest with myself about the stuff going on inside, I realized it isn't completely about this adoption at all.  Instead, it is leftover grief from the things that went wrong in the last one.  Getting ready to travel and adopt another child is bringing up memories I didn't know were still there.  Ivan Jerdev may be sitting in a Russian prison somewhere, but the damage he unleashed has left permanent scars. Here is one story about our previous adoption agency.

What to do?  That answer, at least, is simple.  I turn to God.  He is my strength but He is also my healer.  He can turn my brokenness into something that brings glory to His name.  He can redeem the wounded places and use them in ways I can't even imagine. 

 ^"And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. " (II Cor. 12: 9-10)