Fear

Last week was rough, folks. 

Not with Charlie, per se, but with all of the stuff that comes with Charlie, and we were ambushed last week - by fear.

Let me back up. 

A number of weeks ago I was at a local Starbucks with Grace, when I ran into someone I had known awhile back and hadn't seen in some time.  We had a great time catching up and when she heard about out Charlie, she got serious and said, "Do you remember (we'll call them) Laverne and Shirley?  They each have an adoption story and I very definitely want you to meet with them."

I could sense (because I'm oh-so-wise and discerning, *eyeroll*) that their stories were probably not very positive.  Yet I felt like I should meet with one or both of them.  Why?  Because I don't believe in coincidences, really.  This friend said she never even frequents that particular Starbucks, and yet our paths crossed.  She knows the Lord, and I trusted that this was for my benefit.

Still, because of that wise feeling I had, I wasn't excited about it. 

But said friend had contacted Laverne and Shirley and Shirley texted me the same day.  We agreed to meet; it didn't work out; we tried again and had conflicting schedules; yada yada yada; and we finally were able to meet a week ago on Monday.

So I would call Shirley an acquaintance.  We hadn't seen each other in years, but I knew that she was a faithful Christian, so I was still looking forward to meeting with her.  We had never hung out, never done a Bible study together or anything - she was just someone I had met and knew by reputation.

An hour and a half into our meeting, I left SHAKEN.

I knew it wasn't going to be a good story, but her story was worse than I could even imagine.  She poured her heart out to me.  It was brave of her to trust me with her story.  What she went through was incredibly painful and extremely costly.

Our stories do have some similarities. 

I will tell you that she says that she wrestled with telling me, and that she even prayed for wisdom about what to share.  I don't think she has a bone of malicious intent anywhere in her body.  I think she genuinely was trying to warn me, to spare me some of what she went through.

Which, believe me, folks, is more than you'd be able to stomach.

I asked her, "What if yours is just the horror story?"  She quietly and confidently shared, "It isn't.  Mine is the norm, but no one talks about it."

Her advice to me:  RUN.  Run as far away as possible from this situation.

I asked her, "What if I can't?  What if he's already with me?  What if I've already committed to this little boy?  What if I've already promised to be his forever mama?"  She answered, "Run.  Another couple can raise him.  You should not."

Heavy silence.

I asked her, "What if I feel that God has called me to this?"  She answered, "I thought that, too."

Whew.

That's a lot to process.  And it shook me to the core.  I couldn't cry - I couldn't even digest it.  I couldn't even handle thinking about it.  And when I got home and Robert saw me, he knew something was wrong and I couldn't even tell him.  I don't know if there's ever been a time in nearly 25 years of marriage to this man that I honestly could not say words out loud, because I knew that as much as it rocked me, it would rock him even more.  I literally could not speak about it.

I told him I needed time.  That was a bad idea.  I should have choked it out somehow.  Instead I shut down and slept and tried to absorb it.  In the meantime, his imagination was running wild and he was now in complete fear, having no idea what on earth she could have told me to shake me so badly.

By the time I could tell him, it was several hours later, and he reacted as expected, with pent-up anxiety on top of it.  I didn't even tell him a whole lot more of the details than I related here - only the briefest of them so he could understand what caused me to act so crazily.  It was ugly.  It was out there, and we couldn't go back, and what on earth were we going to do now?

And then I was finally able to cry, and I did, until I fell thankfully into a dreamless sleep.