A Good Match

I call this one "Baby Faces"

Its nerve-wracking, that whole dating thing.  Isn't it?  Does he like me as much as I like him?  Does he like me a little too much and maybe I'm just not really feeling it?  Will we last?  Does he love me enough?  Is love enough?  Is it even worth jumping in, when you watch your parents or your recently married friends struggle, give up, set TNT around their marriage and just blow the whole thing up?  I don't miss those days.  I don't miss the uncertainty and the sense of how important it was to choose correctly.  And what was supposed to guide me?  Should I listen to the advice of friends?  Should I go with my "gut"?  Is there such thing as a soul mate...and is he The One?  If our relationship is nothing like a movie or CW show, does that mean its wrong? (*to clarify, it actually means you are doing something VERY right...the truth is way better than fiction)  And in the end, and how many of you married folks can say a big Amen to this, the things you were looking at while you were dating end up not being as important after the I do's, and if you are lucky and have made a good match, you will find a depth of love and tenderness and faithfulness that you couldn't even imagine existed before you were husband and wife.  And nine years later, I can look at this man beside me and say YES, we are a good match.  You and me together make a TEAM...we knock out the dishes, we take turns cooking dinner, you bathe the kids and I dress them, and on the rare night that they are all asleep before 9:30, sitting on the couch together and watching a movie is the absolute best thing ever.  He goes out every day and makes the money to pay for the house that I clean, the groceries I buy, the clothes and games and books for the kids that I spend all day with.  We challenge each other and grow together, we share ideas with each other (again, on the rare occasion that we can talk without screaming over four little voices).  He encourages me, tells me I can do it when the self-doubt reaches crippling mode.  I give him the once over before he leaves to make sure clothes are on right-side-out and collars are laid down evenly.  Despite the uncertainty I felt as a newlywed, the intervening years have made me appreciate how well we go together.

Three generations: Linda, Chris, and Winston

So then, when you start adding children to the mix, and you wonder how many?  And what will they be like?  Will we still be a good match?  Will they fit into our family?  When you give birth to a child, these questions are small and easily answered.  Of course he fits here.  He looks just like me.  He laughs like his dad.  He shares his grandpa's interest in moving little figures around in different patterns FOR HOURS.  He is undeniably ours.  But what if you go outside the box (no dirty pun intended) to get your kid?  What if you adopt from Ethiopia, a beautiful chocolate baby who requires homework and training to care for?  What if you become a foster parent and open yourself up to all the issues and problems that mal-treated children bring with them?  Then the doubt comes, and it reminds you so much of high school and dating and crushes, but its so different at the same time because its children who are joining your family and living in your home, and there is no divorce once the judge bangs that gavel and a new birth certificate is printed up.  Will she love me as much as she loved her first mom?  Does he wish we hadn't brought him here, made him one of us?  Is love enough?  And this is what I know, having passed from the hypothetical to the practical, transitioning from the foster mom to the mom (no qualifiers).  Just like I made a list of qualities that my future husband needed to have (not anything crazy, just a few items like having the same religion), a child who comes to our family has to fit within a parameter in order to be a good match.  We got lucky the first time around.  We got Michael, a sweet, angel baby who looks just like us and was our son (and James and Winston's brother) from day one, and I learned that sometimes your soul mate weighs six pounds and wakes up every three hours.  He doesn't know anything other than living with us, nor does he find it strange that he lives with his brothers but only sees his sisters a few times a year.  We rolled the dice a second time, not knowing if this had been a fluke, if it was possible to find, in this system of broken children and hopeful parents, another good match.  But we did.  A little girl has come to stay for awhile (oh, how we love the vagueness of caseworkers, but honestly, there is no way to know what the future, or even next Tuesday, holds for her).  And she runs around with the boys and learns their songs and teaches them to play with guns.  She yells and laughs and jumps on the couch.  She practices karate moves and plays Fight.  She calls me mom, and a few days ago, asked why she isn't in our family photo, the one we took a year ago, long before we met.  And I see, the way I see with Chris, that we are a good match.

Could you say no to that face?

Its not without challenges, don't get me wrong.  But my marriage has plenty of challenges too.  That's what happens when two imperfect people come together and live on top of each other and eat all the Oreos and knock over piles of folded laundry (am I talking about the hubs or the kids?  I can't even tell).  Its why we filled out a profile, we will consider a child with this, we cannot take a child with that.  Right now we can only handle little kids...later, we hope to make room for some older ones.  And our family worker knows us, knows what kind of kid would do well here, and what kids will do better in a different family.  It doesn't mean that it is wrong.  It doesn't mean we made a mistake.  This is why love exists in the first place, to overcome those difficulties.  And love is enough.  Big, perfect, fearless, humble, compassionate love.  It moves mountains.  It changes lives.  It makes strangers into a family.