Hey Friends! I know it has been a minute since I have posted, but Mother’s Day weekend was amazing and I was able to clear my head enough to write. Us moms get so drained sometimes that even thinking is too much for us to do. I saw an Instagram post this week that said “Women aren’t panicking. We ride around on E everyday.” It was in reference to the gas problem we are seeing across the country lately, so at first, I was like, “Is this a knock on how we literally run on empty in our cars?” Ha! But then I used my brain and realized, no! It is talking about our energy levels. We literally function on empty and auto driveβwake up, feed kids, get kids to school, clean the house, work, pick up kids, make or help with dinner, clean up after dinner, start bath time and bed time routine, get kids in bed, get kids in bed again for the next hour and half, pick up the house enough to where you don’t wake up and scream at the world because the food from dinner has molded on the table and then finally sit in bed only to realize you haven’t taken a breath in the last 12 hours (or after reading that incredibly long sentence :)!
So this past weekend…Y’all my husband is the absolute best! He arranged a beach vacation for me (BY.MYSELF!) for Mother’s Day. I was on my own time. That is another thing us moms knowβour time is not our own. I could sleep or get up and drive to the beach when I felt like it. I could read until I wanted to turn over on the towel and take a nap. I could head back and shower and find a restaurant to eat at BY.MYSELF! It was awesome!! I even remember thinking, I don’t want to think! I just did what came natural or I had a local friend who I told to think for me one night! I love my family, but this was sooooo needed.
I know this sounds sooo silly and conceited and arrogant and so many other things, but I even took a picture of myself early one morning on the beach when no one was around (to send home to Matt to enjoy π AND I FELT GOOD ABOUT HOW I LOOKED! I am a mom who walks around in sweats and 5 day old hair everyday so just let me feel good about how I look this one time! If you saw the picture though all you’d have to do was look closely and you’d see the razor bumps and cellulite!
Each day on the beach, I would gather seashells and fill my water bottles with sand to bring back to the kids. I went walking to find the best, whole, most beautiful seashells I could find.
The last day, I was walking down the beach and a thought popped into my head. I was picking up all the seashells that were whole, not broken (unless it had a single hole in it for a necklace). I skipped right past the broken ones. In that moment, I asked myself, “why are you not picking up the broken ones?!” I knelt down in the sand and picked up a brightly colored orange shell that was cracked and realized how absolutely beautiful it was! I had been missing all of these all weekend because I wanted the non broken ones.
Did y’all know all seashells are broken…technically. A shell is a hard, protective outer layer usually created by an animal that lives in the sea. The shell is part of the body of the animal. Empty seashells are often found washed up on beaches by beachcombers. WASHED UP. The animal died or grew out of it and found a bigger or better one!
Do you get where I am going here? It first makes me think of our adoption process. When Matt and I started the process, automatically we started thinking about adopting a baby. They are new, unbroken by the world and able to conform to our family’s beliefs and standards. How silly we were!
Here are some US adoption statistics:
- No more than 2% of Americans have actually adopted, but more than 1/3 have considered it.
- U.S. citizens completed 19,942 international adoptions in 2007, which declined to 9,319 in 2011 as international adoptions became more restrictive.
- Today, almost 60%-70% of domestic adoptions are now open adoptions, which means there is a degree of openness and disclosure of information between adoptive and birth parents regarding the adopted child.
- 62% were placed with their adoptive families within a month of birth.
- Thirty-seven percent of adopted children are non-Hispanic white, compared with adoptive parents, 73% of which are non-Hispanic white. Overall, 40% of adopted children are of a different race, culture, or ethnicity than both of their adoptive parents (or their sole parent if there is only one parent in the household).
Taken from: https://adoptionnetwork.com/adoption-myths-facts/domestic-us-statistics/
I wonder why it is so hard for a teenager in the system (domestically or internationally) to get adopted? Do we think that they’re broken and unable to be “fixed” by our standards? Do we walk along and skip right by them to pick up the whole perfect ones that haven’t been hit hard by the “waters” of this world? I am not patting Matt or myself on the back here. This is hard and we have made many mistakes along the way. Without the Lord’s prompting the entire way, we would have given up too.
You can take this same principle and apply it to almost anything in life. When I was in high school, I was so ignorant and blind to my special needs peers. It wasn’t until I was older and really until I had Mia that my perspective and focus became clearer into the special needs world. We are all broken, people! We all need someone to stop and pick us up every once in a while.
So next time you are on the beach, bend down and pick up a broken seashell. Look at it, turn it over in your palm and notice how beautiful they are too. The waves, sand and elements have actually created deep layers and made them more beautiful and amazing!
They were once whole, but something caused them to break so just maybe, we can be a part of their journey back together. I step on the broken ones everyday. But today, I will remember we are all broken, but all come from something beautifulβwhether that is the ocean or our remembrance that we are made in the perfect image of our Heavenly Father!
Friends, I love you all and even though each day I mess up and step on the broken, I am broken as well and just learning. Let’s join together to help each other in this crazy life!! Stop and slow down enough to see the beauty in this life.