I recently received an email from our adoption case worker. It was an email of encouragement to her families “in the trenches”. We always love to hear from her, and this particular message not only encouraged, as it was meant to do; it made me think…about “the trenches”.
“In the trenches” is a military term. Trench warfare is that which places troops down in a network of trenches. The enemy fires whatever they have; the defense is “in the trenches” holding them off. As an adoptive parent, “in the trenches” means answering hard questions from your child about why they are adopted. It means honoring birthparents without condoning to your child choices you don’t agree with or might not want them to make. It means navigating the local culture in which you live as it relates to adoption. It means taking on a life-long teaching role for your child, your extended family, your community, and society as a whole. Parenting is challenging. Adoptive parenting is challenging with its own unique twists. From the trenches you’ll doubt. You’ll wonder if you answered the questions of your child right, if you honored the birth family well, and if you educated in a way that will truly change perceptions. This is the artillery of the enemy.
Adoptive Dad, adoptive Mom, take heart. There is also beauty in the trenches. In the trenches, you are protected. Leading your children to understand adoption in a biblical way puts you squarely in God’s will; there is no better protection. In the trenches, your comrades have your back. You are in it with your spouse, your close family, and the wider adoption community, all of whom support you. And in the trenches, you have some of your best relationships. It’s in the trenches that you quickly come to know your child better than you would otherwise and better than anyone else does. It’s in the trenches that you find unity as you strategize with those closest to you about how to handle the tough stuff…the enemy fire. And, it’s in the trenches that you learn and grow. You learn more about yourself and your child and God than you ever imagined. You grow in patience, love, and contentment, knowing that not everything that’s hard is bad…some things are just hard. You don’t give up. You pray. You strategize. You stay with it. You endure. To do otherwise is to step out into the open, into the “no man’s land” between your trenches and the enemy line.
So, learn to enjoy the trenches. In addition to being protected and sheltered, you find treasures there that cannot be found anywhere else.
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