Long and Winding Road

I think I was born with my goal in life already in my head.

I called those little guys "lumpies".  They were my version of baby dolls... my 'children'... there were 27 of them.  Can you say foreshadowing?

Before I was even conscious of it, my heart knew my goal.

Help children.

I never knew what shape this would take.  For a long time, I thought I'd just grow up and be a Mommy, like most little girls expect to.  I even went through a phase (starting at the ripe old age of ten) where I became convinced, regularly, that I had somehow immaculately conceived and was going to have a baby.  You know the plastic baby doll that cries project that everyone did in middle school?

Pardon the flash - it was in a photo album

Yeah.  Aced it.

In high school, after watching an episode of 7th Heaven (I know, I know) I started feeling called to children who had difficult pasts... abuse, neglect, foster care... I used to ride my bike around the neighborhood, praying, saying, "God, I know my child is out there somewhere... I know she is... and she needs me, and I need her... please bring her to me..."

Ironically, that was Fall 2003.  Indeed, my child was out there.

When I started taking care of M and A, it cemented in my mind that I wanted to do foster care someday... to help families and children who were in rough spots, to be there for them.  I held so tightly to this goal that I literally cleaned our house from top to bottom, just 'in case' God decided to send a child our way early.  At 18 I was diagnosed with endometriosis, and the dream of being a mother became a little more complicated - the way I'd originally intended to set about doing it may not work for me.

I went to college majoring in education.  I was particularly interested in being an intervention specialist.  Unfortunately, the red tape associated with our educational system today discouraged me and I changed my major... to health education, so I could work with families to keep their children safe in the car through public health, like I already did as a volunteer CPST.  Children - the one thing about the equation that never changed.

I graduated with a degree in public health and was interning at the health department, working in the injury prevention department with a variety of responsibilities, all of which involved children somehow.  I thought this was it - this was how I'd go about my life goal of helping children... keeping them safe... and I'd try to have a biological child and I'd do foster and adopt from foster care... I had it all planned out.

Then I lost my job, and a number of other things in my life came crashing down, I got more bad news about my endometriosis, and I sunk into a depression...

Until, as most of you probably know, I saw this picture:

9 year old Katie Musser on her way home from the hospital after escaping Pleven

And in nine days, God renewed my life's mission and lit a new fire inside me to pursue it.

At first, when I felt Him tap, tap, tapping on my shoulder, I fought it.

"No.  That's not for me.  I can't do that."

"I'll help some other way.  I'll adopt kids in the US.  International Adoption is not for me."

"I can't do this.  I want to, but I just can't and I know it."

"Okay God, if you want me to do this, you have to give me the tools to do it."

Then...

"Sigh... I'm adopting a child with special needs from Eastern Europe, aren't I?"

Then I didn't sleep for two months.  Constantly trying to find a way to help now, while I waited to be eligible for international adoption, while I was unemployed and broke.  That's when I started advocating.  That's when I found myself again.

Now, a year later, I can hardly believe the place it led me to.  I still have endometriosis.  I still don't know the future of my childbearing abilities.  I've been through a living nightmare with one of my dear borrowed kids.  It hasn't been easy.  But now I have a wonderful job working with children with special needs, which I love, and which is preparing me in some ways (not all obviously - things are always different when they're you're own children) for my own adoption journey.  Now I've continued advocating, been a part of raising money for two boys through Angel Tree this year, shared these kids' stories with everyone I could, met so many truly amazing people, and I know where I want to go from here.

That's not to say God couldn't redirect me in some way, as He has done so many times before, but if history serves as evidence (and I believe it does), the ultimate goal is not going to change...

Help children.

I never could have guessed, at ten, when I was dreaming of being a Mommy, that this is where my love for children would lead me.  I had grand expectations for my life.  But God had grander ones.  My favorite movie is A Walk To Remember - and there's this one quote that has always stuck with me... "Maybe God had a bigger plan for me than I had for myself..." - and indeed He did.  They say that when a door closes, sometimes we stare so long at that closed door that we miss the new one that opens.  I spent years of my life doing that... but I feel like I have finally turned around and seen the open door.  My diagnosis and possible fertility issues are no longer the downfall of my dreams... I have seen a greater purpose.

Now I trust.  I trust that when I look at that closed door, I know I'm just waiting for another one, filled with untold treasures, to open.  I have faith.

And that makes all the difference.