May Update

Friends, thank you again for your outpouring of love and support for us and for Asher the past month and a half. It is hard to believe that he is over 7 weeks old now and that we haven't seen him since April 4th. We received word recently that he was discharged from the NICU and is at home with his father. The father doesn’t yet have full custody, but was granted temporary guardianship until things are finalized. Asher’s new name is Jason, so we’re going to try to call him that from now on.

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My parents have come to visit a few times which is such an encouragement

I’ve probably started to write this post a hundred times in the last month, but it is difficult to know what to say. We are trying to move forward with life, and have good days and bad. Like I said in a previous post, this trauma is much less spiritually devastating than we've had before, yet we are still extremely sad and have so many unanswerable questions.

We've been blessed to have family and friends surround us during this time, and they have been a welcome distraction. The worst times are those fleeting moments between the scenes of life... when our minds inevitably wander to what happened and what might have been.

In spite of our setbacks, we are still in the process of adopting... we love the agency that we're working with from Cincinnati, and trust that they will find the right situation and child for us. Obviously, we're probably not ready to have an open, ongoing relationship with a birth mother again after being deceived like we were, but our desire to adopt children hasn't wavered. We'd appreciate your prayers for that process, and especially for wisdom for the adoption agency and birth mothers.

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Through our situation, we've heard multiple stories of families who have had children ripped away from them in much more horrific circumstances than ours. Just recently, a foster family who had raised their son from birth, had the courts give him back to his unstable, recently incarcerated, birth father as an almost 3 year old... I literally cannot imagine that family's heartbreak. My chest felt like it was going to explode after just 8 days with Asher, and I still struggle walking into the nursery we had prepared for him, even though he never came home with us. We still love him dearly, and pray for him and his birth father regularly.

The response to our blog posts has been overwhelming, and we are thankful to all who showered us with love. I am also humbled by many who have thanked me for writing honestly, for not being afraid to hurt openly, and for asking tough questions. I feel like I don't know much these days, but I do know that God is big enough to handle difficult questions, as well as our pain. He has to be. As a Christian, I don't think that I'm supposed to have all of the answers or feel like I have to protect God or His word... those things can stand on their own without my help.

I’m not trying to be crass or disrespectful; I just don’t think that God needs me to change my rhetoric or sugarcoat my feelings for fear of making Him look bad.  Jacob, David, Paul, and others in scripture cried out to the Lord, were angry with Him, wrestled with Him, or questioned Him on their journeys. Even though we don’t understand, I believe those raw, genuine struggles shape us as people and vet our true beliefs. 

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Thanks so much for your love and support!

During the last few weeks, I've written out many thoughts and struggles, but it is difficult to know what to share or even if this blog is the right venue. We’re trying to have faith, to trust in God’s plan for our lives, but in so many ways (even beyond this failed adoption) we feel completely stuck… in limbo. Almost every big decision or event in the last 3 years has been a struggle, ended in heartbreak, and/or I fail to see God in it. However, even though we don’t understand and don’t necessarily  feel close to the Lord right now, we know that He is there, and we are continuing to seek Him.

I think I am starting to understand how the Psalmist can write, “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?” followed a few stanzas later by, “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.” Though they seem at odds, those emotions don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Sometimes there seems to be a disconnect between the God I say that I believe in, and that one that I am experiencing (or not experiencing) in practice. It seems to me like it would be easier, or possibly make more sense intellectually, to be an atheist or an agnostic… to explain away my problems and the depravity of the world as a cosmic accident or coincidence. Surely a loving God wouldn’t allow all this to happen, right? But I can’t actually believe that… even if I want to, my heart won’t let me, and that fact – that my faith remains in spite of me – is some of the most real proof to me that God is there, and my faith in Him is not misplaced.

Thanks again for your encouragement and support, and mostly for your prayers for us and for Asher/Jason. We really cannot express how much we appreciate the love that has been shown to us the last month and a half.

-Cason

Want to give these guys a home?

PS - This didn't seem to fit anywhere else in the post, so I'll stick it down here.  Colleen got some foster kittens from the humane society a week or so after we lost Asher. As strange as it may be, it really was a Godsend. To have something to nurture and to laugh at was the best kind of therapy, especially for her. Two of her kittens have been adopted, but there are still two needing homes, so let her know if you are interested – they have been smothered with love and are incredibly sweet!