Remember our adoption story? Remember how everything that could go wrong, did go wrong? How we lost Nepal? How incredibly long (longer than average) China took? How we lost 2 jobs? How we moved, lived apart, had car accidents? How we needed out of network surgery and had huge medical bills to pay? How our Nebraska house wouldn't sell for nearly a full year because the market tanked as we were selling?
Satan was working overtime back then to try and stop us from adoption, from following God's call on our lives. Satan hates love, adoption and family. He tried his very best to make us give up.
Try as he did, as painful as it was, he didn't win.
Oh, but then what happened?
We have the most beautiful little girl in the world, but years later we get horrid behaviors that only get worse with time, not better. We get diagnoses from multiple professionals. Reactive Attachment Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And love is not enough to heal these children! [Please stop leaving the comment "Look what love can do!" on happy adoption posts because it makes RAD parents feel like failures!] Our family has been spiraling down quickly with no hope.
Enter: Hope.
Somehow or other, we were invited to attend a week long, intensive family therapy camp at the end of April. These camps are way out of our league, at a cost of nearly $1000 per person. I'm not kidding. We could never afford that. Yet somehow, this camp was coming to Minnesota, someone had a heart to help a family in need and started drumming up donors before they ever even heard of us, and then they started searching for that family in desperate need of help. Word got around, and bam, we were invited. We're going to family therapy camp at a fraction of the cost.
Oh, but Satan doesn't want our family to heal. He wants us to remain hopeless, broken, angry, detached, regretful.
Satan is working overtime... again.
So, what's the first thing he does? He attacks me where it hurts me the most: my beloved emotional support dog, Reese. Her back injury left her unable to walk on hind legs, a herniated disc putting pressure on her spinal cord. Surgery would be over $5500, something we could never dish out. Meds, chiropractics and weeks of crate rest have brought marked improvement. She's hobbling, but walking again, but she has long way to go yet. We're only on week 4 of recovery now; we have 4 weeks left to go. Yet we're leaving her mid-recovery. And our neighbors are out of town when we will be, so we've hired a house-sitter for the 2 healthy dogs. We have a friend very graciously willing to watch our crate-resting Reese for the time we are gone! So thankful!!!
But Satan didn't stop there.
Then he makes that lovely "Service Engine Soon" light illuminate on my dashboard, after we've already put over $300 of work into Jay's car last month (and it's still leaking oil - darn Fords). Auto Zone says it's idling harder than it should, but then again, it could just be a bad sensor. Knowing I have a bad tire sensor and a bad door sensor, I truly believe this is another stupid, bad sensor. Thankfully, after much prayer that these attacks would cease and desist, that light went off 1 day after it illuminated and hasn't returned.
But Satan kept on trying.
On our way to Easter church services, we witnessed road rage first hand. Some guy tried to run us off the road. Then he proceeded to get behind us and video us, when we were doing absolutely nothing illegal! He had to be on something. Very scary.
Still more attacks kept coming.
During all this, Jay and I have been fighting more and more too. And we never fight and argue. Disagree? Sure. We're human sinners. But big arguments and fights? Hardly ever. I'm a happily married woman, enjoying life with my best friend. But this month, whew, not a good month for the marriage. Doesn't help that it's April, a pretty traumatic month in our family history.
So, yeah. We're being attacked all over again when it comes to our Quiet Tiger. From adoption, to home and healing, Satan just wants to destroy us. And I hate it!
This is how I know that this therapy camp
will be life changing,
a complete game changer for us.
With that, I am asking for my prayer warriors to commit to praying for us from April 27-May 3, the dates of camp.
- Pray our house and 2 other fur-balls will be safe and sound in the hands of our house-sitter.
- Pray for safe travel and well running vehicles (we have to take 2 because the kids and I will go down early and Jay will come after an evening work engagement).
- Pray for us to be open, honest and teachable as we learn new parenting techniques for Reactive Attachment Disorder and PTSD.
- Pray that Quiet Tiger will be receptive but also that she'll show her true colors for the therapists to see exactly who we see everyday.
- Pray that the boys will learn how to better cope with their sister and slowly learn to love her again.
- While we are gone, pray for Reese to make huge strides in her mobility, but also pray for her to stay quiet during her recovery too. We don't want her overdoing it one bit. I keep praying the 4 R's for Reese: Repair (of the bad disc and nerves), Relief (of all pain), Restoration (of all mobility), Rest (she's gaining energy and wants to run and play, but isn't fully healed yet).
- Pray our friends watching her for the whole week, for their strength, patience and compassion.
- Pray for Super E, who will be turning 10 while we are away, that we will be able to celebrate him and that he will feel honored on his big day.
- Pray that the evil one will be stopped in his tracks in every way, as we press on diligently towards hope and healing for our entire family, dogs included!
Thanks for the prayers, friends! We are so very grateful! This is a huge blessing and opportunity for our family!
Absolutely huge!
OH!
One last PS....
Quiet Tiger CANNOT KNOW ABOUT THIS CAMP!
One last PS....
Quiet Tiger CANNOT KNOW ABOUT THIS CAMP!
We have been told by the professionals not to mention it!
So, PLEASE DO NOT MENTION ANYTHING TO QUIET TIGER!
Thank you!
Thank you!
