Why Older Child Adoption is So Hard

Jesus is the Light, our Hope

Older child adoption is a beautiful thing...but at the same time it's a deeply hard thing.
And when the face of the child is SO beautiful, SO smiley, NO ONE CAN IMAGINE that it's not all sunny and rosy all the time.
But it's not.
Plain and simple.
When you've fended for yourself for ten long years, in an institutional environment, you learn to survive.
And those skills? They were reinforced again and again in her previous life. They are what made her STAY ALIVE.
You have your life whirl-winded off to another land, another culture, language...you wear different clothes, eat different foods, go by a different name, begin new things like walking, school and self care...
but the old habits are still lying underneath. Ready to rear their ugly heads.
Ready to be employed when deep emotions start to surface.
They worked before! They will work again!
But, well, not so much.
Not here. Not in a family.
My sweet friend sent me a message today. Her perspective on parenting and WHY this might be so hard:
Deeply praying for you all during what looks like a potentially long hard road with her. It's obviously a heart issue...and she's had less than one year of her 11 years of ANYONE teaching her what that even means. You're stuck/privileged (depends on the day how you see it, I'm sure) with having to make up for 10+ years of no one teaching her right and wrong and positive vs negative attention and lying and how to be in a family and the list of what we teach our kids is soooooo long!!! It's hard enough when we get to start from the beginning of their lives! Praying for wisdom and endurance and extra measures of grace for you to give to her, and a softening and opening of her heart to all you've been trying to teach her in these last 10 months!
And isn't that the truth? It's HARD when we start with our children at birth! Let alone massive trauma at the front end! And don't forget to factor in atrocities suffered in the years while waiting for a family. How could we think that we can teach her what she needs in a few months?
We don't. But, on a daily practical basis, we expect things from her to keep our family functioning...afterall she's CAPABLE, but then again...she's not because of so many, many factors.
Older child adoption is hard because we are starting past the middle! We've lost formative years, laying groundwork and building trust. Trying to go backward to fit it in doesn't work because there are paradigms pre-existing in those places in her brain...and they were critical to her survival. I can't in one word, one week, one month, one year say ANYTHING to debunk them. 
It's a slow, plodding work.
Times like these I see the inside out yuck of my own black heart and sit in awed wonder at the grace God has on ME.
Please pray for Esty. Pray for us as her parents. Pray for her siblings. These things affect us all, wear on us all and we need to remember that we are called to this, no matter what.  (This is why adoption is intense ministry!)

We must cling to the hope of Christ in it all.