Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Removing a rock from the pile with each wake up call!

If you have spent much time around me in the last 18 months you know about how much I love the "pile of rocks" analogy. This is a picture of the cycle of need, but I find a way to weave this illustration into almost any conversation. This is an illustration we learned from the "Because They Waited" training for our adoption. This training is WONDERFUL and we highly recommend it.

Children who come home immediately to a primary caregiver are (in most families) allowed to have MANY cycles of need met each day. When they are hungry they cry and are fed, when they are wet they cry and are changed, when they are scared they are picked up and loved on etc. Children who grow up in an orphanage or somewhere with less than optimal care experience the opposite. They have cycle after cycle of unmet needs. It is heartbreaking to fathom how many times their cries have gone unanswered. Here is where the pile of rocks comes in. Imagine that each time my son's needs were not met for SEVENTEEN months a rock was placed in a pile. Wow, that would be a lot of rocks. Now he is home and surrounded by love and security, but he brought his "pile of rocks" with him. Each time he cries in the night (which was once an hour on Sunday night) and I respond quickly with love an security I turn a cycle of need and help him remove ONE rock from his pile. Oh, how I would love to demolish the entire pile of rocks in one blow, you know hire some high powered machine to push them into the lake, but meeting needs doesn't work that way. For this reason, I count the cost and the blessing every time I hear cries from my son in the night. Yes, I lose sleep, but I also help him attach and release a past fear little by little.

This "pile of rocks" has been so beneficial for us to talk about with family and friends. We all have issues in our lives. Many of these issues, addictions, vices, etc. have formed over time due to unmet needs and unhealthy relationships and behaviors. Some could call this pile of rocks baggage. I think the difference in the pile of rocks imagery is that you CAN NOT remove them all at once. Whatever your issue is you need to heal one rock at a time. When you look at things this way it is amazing how perspectives change!

So, to some I might look like a push-over mom who doesn't want her son to cry, but I know what I am doing. I praise God for each rock removed and I pray that one day he will be on level ground. Of course I don't want him to forget about Ethiopia, the people, the culture, the life he began there. I only want him to forget waiting for food, going to sleep hungry, laying in a wet diaper, longing for a mother's hug...

I hear him stirring now... he has been napping less than an hour... I get very little done these days... but I am removing MANY rocks!

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