The Seams

I saw a friend recently that I've known for several years, but haven't seen since we have been home with our new daughter.  She asked me how things were going (she doesn't know about my blog to read it).  I gave my usual answer that really our new little girl is doing amazingly well, that we were prepared for the worst and things have gone better than we expected.  (Which is all true!)

Then she asked, "So, was it seamless?"

I was very confused at that question, so I repeated it, "Seamless?"

She said, "Bringing her into your family, was it seamless?"

Actually that's what I initially imagined she meant by the question, but thought, "Surely, no, that's not what she means."  

Because, really??

If a 3 year old raised in your family were one day placed in my family, we'd have issues, seams, because families are just different and there is a steep adjustment for both the new child and the rest of the family.  And that would be a 3 year old who was used to living in a family, used to the American way of life, and spoke English!

Four and a half months ago we took a 3 year old child who had lived her entire life in Ethiopia, 13 months of that time in two different orphanages, who didn't speak any English, flew to America, and brought her home to our family as our daughter/sister.

Has it all gone better than we expected?  Yes!

Seamless?  Oh no!  Not even close!

I'm not offended at all by the question and hold nothing against my friend for asking it that way.  My husband and I just had a good laugh about it later!  

I simply replied, "No, not seamless."  Of course then she asked about issues we'd had and being that all four of my children were nearby, I just answered pretty generically about some of the challenges.

I know my friend's intention, and from being in a Bible study together a few years ago, I know her heart, she was truly happy for my family and our conversation was short as we ran into each other unexpectedly, she likely just wanted to tie a neat bow around the whole thing, kind of giving our adoption story a happily-ever-after ending. 

But, that's never reality, and while I try to focus mostly on the positives, it's just not accurate to say that's all there is.  The truth is, there are often times the seams bring all of us to the end of ourselves.

But, the beautiful thing is that God is there in the seams and I am so thankful that He is creating something beautiful despite us, despite the seams.  And really, I've lived long enough to see that God does some of His best work with a lot of seams!

Find more Thankful Thursday here.