Contentment

When you invite a couple teenagers to come be apart of your family through adoption, a lot of baggage will come too. Was our plan to adopt teens? Well we said we would on the paperwork we filled out for the state. Did we actually expect to get teens, no. A lot of things just matched up. Our path was set to merge.

After the honeymoon phase was over, both of them began struggling with who they are. I could understand why. While growing up your identity begins to form. Pieces of who you are start to fit together. Your parents help mold who you become. This process for them never started for them. So where do we begin with teaching them who they are. How to have peace… contentment.

To show them what contentment is, we also had to explain what discontentment is. I believe discontentment is: always being angry at anything, never satisfied, depressed, frustrated, anxious, longing for something better, blaming others, mindless consumption, and just not knowing what peace is. We had to teach them how to be at peace. With what you have. With who you are. With where you are.

How to be content with what you have. Coming from a life where you have no childhood belongings. Nothing from your previous life before adoption. It’s like the first part of your childhood didn’t exist. When they came, they came with just themselves and very little clothing from foster care. Learning to be content with having nothing. We showed them how they didn’t have nothing, they had each other. They also have two new people who were willing to dive into a new life with them. They needed to learn to have peace with their past and be content with starting a new life, with a new family.

So how do you be content with who you are? Hard to do when you come with no self-worth. That has been the hardest thing to explain and show our kids their self-worth. Depression and anxiety came with a new transition into a new family. We would sit with each of them to help them discover who they are to themselves and who they are to us. We would begin with the basics of having them describe themselves physically. Then we would go deeper into how they see themselves as a person. Kind, good listener, athletic, messy, etc. Still even today, after being with us for three years, they struggle with knowing their self-worth. This process of discovery will go on for the rest of their lives.

The last one being content with where you are. Not emotionally, but locationally. Where we reside is surely not where they want to be. Our oldest has grown fond of it here, but they still long for a place with more to do. Our youngest mentions often about never stepping foot in this county ever again. Of course it breaks my heart to hear it. But I have to listen past the words. I have to ‘hear’ their heart. To them this is a temporary place to keep them till they are old enough to leave. They were so used to being on their own early on, it’s what they know. This has been their greatest struggle being content here. Not through lack of our love for them, but from their anxiety of letting themselves be at peace with a new life, a new family. The realization of knowing this place where they reside is the longest they have been in all of their short life.