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Yesterday I mentioned that I’ll never ‘get over’ losing Jessica and Erika. I don’t mean that I will never be able to function as a normal person again, that I’ll be constantly depressed – nothing like that. I also don’t mean that I will never be able to forgive people, will continue to blame them or want to get revenge. Actually, I think that I’m doing pretty good with the whole situation. Sure, I’m not where I should be in all that yet, but I’ve come a long way. Things will never be the same between me and those that were involved in the situation. I’m not saying they’ll be worse or better – just not the same. There have been stories told about me that are not true, but have been told over and over for 11 months that I’m sure people believe them with no questions asked. People likely believe that I am actually like what is being said about me – this I know as I have heard it come out of their mouths. I really don’t care what those people think of me. I don’t get my self-worth from them.

What really hurts me is that I listened to the people telling me to not be involved in Jessica and Erika’s lives. In the short time that they were with us, against my better judgement and knowing what God’s will for us was – I did the best I could to be the worst father I could be. If I would have known they’d only be with us just over a month, I would have been the father to them that I know that I was supposed to be. Sure, loving an adopted child does not solve all the problems you’ll face with them. That’s one of the extreme viewpoints that some people have. The all the problems are solved if you have enough love. The other extreme viewpoint is that it’s OK if you don’t love them. All you have to do is keep them safe and provide for their needs. Both of those extremes are not correct. You need to do ALL of it. Adopting children takes everything you can give to them. If you have love, give it and give it abundantly. If you don’t have love for them, work on getting it ASAP so you can give it. I’ve heard that love is a choice. I’m not 100% sure about that, but God does tell us in the Bible that we are to love our enemies. So, even if our adopted child is an enemy, we are to love them. Also, don’t neglect to fulfill the needed physical, mental and spiritual requirements. Adopting children can be and usually is hard. You don’t just give up because you’re selfish, hurt, it’s not what you thought it would be, or you’re just tired of it all.

But for me, what hurts even worse than not being the father I knew I should be is giving in and getting talked out of being in God’s will. The other people involved in giving us ‘advice’ may have meant well, but I should have stuck fast to what I believe was God’s will for our family. As the man and leader of the family (but that’s another troublesome subject about which  I could talk your ears off), I  believe that we were led by God to adopt Jessica and Erika. I did not fail Jessica and Erika, I failed with God. Some would say that it must not have been God’s will because it didn’t happen. God’s will always comes to pass. Well, I do believe that God’s will always comes to pass, but I also believe that it’s much more incomprensible for our human minds to understand what that means. The Bible tells us that it is God’s will for all to be saved, yet not all are saved. Jesus died for all men, not some men. It also says that God chose us before the foundation of the earth (the same time He gave us Jessica and Erika to adopt) but how does that correlate with Him not wanting any to perish? See, we can’t comprehend everything about God. Was it God’s will for us to adopt Jessica and Erika? I believe that it was, but WE failed. God did not and can not fail. We can choose to obey or not obey God.

Another part of what I mean when I say that I’ll never ‘get over’ losing Jessica and Erika is similar to when children are abducted. This may sound gruesome, but if a child is taken and ends up dead, there can be some finality to that. You know what the outcome is and people in those situations can often cope with that better than a child being taken and never hearing from them – unsure of their condition or where they are. I’m in the second situation. I have no idea where the girls are, if they are OK, if they are in foster care or are adopted already. Brenda thinks she knows but has not told me other than to say they are in a different state and adopted, but I can not take her word for it. She may not really know and I do not trust that she would tell me the truth, either. I can’t ask because I’ll look like a weirdo, stalker or like I’m trying to hang on to them. I would like to know for 2 reasons. First and foremost, I love them and care about them and want to know that they are OK. Secondly, if I knew their current situation, it may help me heal faster and better. I would not be wondering about them. I do want to hang on to them in a positive, healthy way. Pretending it never happened and being in denial is something that I can’t and will not do. I want to keep the good memories alive and talk about them when they come up – not having to watch what I say and making sure I don’t ‘offend’ anyone. Part of me being able to move on past all this, is being able to live like a normal person would…remembering the past, not having to hide it. I would give up everything I own to get my entire family back….all 6 of us (not including the animals)

I could keep going on for pages and pages (I’m already at 1055 words for today), but will end this part of today’s blog to say that I am a sinner in need of a Savior and thank God that He sent Jesus into the world to live a sinless life and that His sacrifice qualifies as the payment for my sin.

December 20, 2008 was one of the top 5 best days in my life. That was the day our 13 and 9 year old adopted daughters were ’born’ into our family (that was just the ‘physical’ date – in reality, it happened at the beginning of time since God knew that it would happen when He created the world). I was just as proud of a father when we brought home Jessica and Erika that day, as the days that Holly and Mitch were born. I’m sorry if that causes conflict in our family, but it is the truth. It is clear that God orchestrated the events from the beginning of our adoption plans right up to that wonderful day. It’s not just the date and the events that happened on that single day last December that made it so special, it’s knowing that it was in God’s plan all along from the beginning of time. All of the things we went through to get the girls, the paperwork, time waiting, roadblocks, hurdles over the roadblocks – everything that happened in those 2 1/2 years made that day special, too. It was a huge victory for us. God gave us those two girls to be their parents. What happened in Jessica and Erika’s life up that point when God gave them to us – regardless of what those events were, who they lived with and where they lived were not important. From that day on, we were responsible for Jessica and Erika, until our last breath was taken. That’s how I viewed it. I believe that God gave us that responsibility. What we did with that responsibility was up to us. We failed.

I went back and looked at my blog entries over the last few years to refresh my memory of what happened. What I wrote didn’t include every detail that happened before or after we brought Jessica and Erika home. Some things aren’t fit to print. But, I still do not believe I was wrong in what I believed God’s will was for us. My goal was for us to become one integrated family as soon as possible. I was told by a couple people that they thought I ‘idolized’ Jessica and Erika or adoption in general. I was told I gave too much attention to the girls. I was told to do things that I know were not Biblical, not God’s will, and not the right way to go about having a successful adoption. I was told to back off – to have very little or no interaction with the girls. I believe we were given bad advice based on false assumptions, over-reactions and things that were not true. I was told that I had to choose between Brenda or Jessica and Erika. I knew there was a third option – that we all stay together as a single family and deal with it. I do not accept the notion that I had to choose, that was not valid because that would be rejecting God. We were a new and improved family. We were the new family that God created as He planned for us when time began. I didn’t want us to live as separate families, nor did I believe that it would be right to do so. I did not love anyone less because I also loved Jessica and Erika as daughters. I did not love Jessica or Erika more than anyone else, either. Our old family did not exist anymore. This was not a try-it-and-see what happens thing. It also was not likely going to be an easy thing to see through. I did not want to give up. I was told that because God created marriage before children that Brenda should be more important than Jessica and Erika. I can see where you can come to that conclusion. But tell me what is more important: being in God’s will or out of it? Is anything more important than being in God’s will?

I know that I did not do everything correct. Things should not have gotten to the point they did, but I don’t believe that is any reason to disregard what God put together and the responsibility and blessing that He gave to us. Both Brenda and I saw how other families we know who adopted handled things and made decisions…some things they did, we agreed with and some we didn’t. We talked about those situations and how we would handle them – and were in agreement before we picked up Jessica and Erika. When the time finally arrived for us to face those ‘obstacles’, things were different. I did not understand how we could go from what seemed to be excited and on the same page as a family to the point of not being able to rationally discuss things and to become willing to give up so easily. How could those same people who thought I was overboard (which I disagree with, I believe that God’s will for us was to adopt Jessica and Erika and be as one new family – that’s not overboard, that should be the goal of every adoption) think that giving them away like kittens would not also have implications and that we could not just go back to the same family as before. Someone was going to lose either way, and it was me. I lost what God gave us, I lost two daughters and along with that I lost my prior family because I lost Jessica and Erika. I know that’s hard to follow, but I know that it’s exactly the way it is – it makes perfect sense.

What’s done is done. There is no going back and fixing things with our adoption fiasco. We’ll likely never be approved to adopt in the future, even if we wanted to. I really don’t want to adopt again. I would only be willing to adopt if we were able to get our daughters back – which won’t happen. Additionally, we can’t talk about what happened, which I suppose isn’t so bad when looking toward reconciling things in the future…but it’s something that I’ll have to deal with on my own. I can’t talk about them or have pictures of them out. I can only keep it inside. Today and tomorrow will be hard days for me, though they represent one of the 5 happiest days in my life. Christmas time for me will likely be a hard time from now on. Some may look at this and think I’m not over losing Jessica and Erika. I will never be ‘over’ losing them. I’ll explain in the continuation of this blog entry tomorrow.

No, I’m not calling you ‘baby’ – it’s the title to a VERY non-religious holiday song. I won’t even call it a Christmas song. I usually skip over that one when it comes on the CD or radio. But it sure is cold outside. How do I know? At 8am it was around 0 F and very windy. I was out on the lake with the snow blower clearing the ice for a skating rink. It’s close to regulation hockey rink size….but just a little bigger. More is always better, isn’t it?

vimeo Click this Link to see the video on Vimeo

Did you see the movie Spy Kids 2? The third brain lives – was a line in the movie. Well, I don’t have a third brain, but the third light controller lives!

The first 2 Renard SS24 boards were working just fine (so I thought) until I added some lights on bushes in the driveway island – connected to the 2nd controller. All they did is flicker very dimly, even with the data cable disconnected. Something was really wrong. It seemed that channels 17+ on the board didn’t work correctly, and the third SS24 board in line wasn’t receiving any data. I triple-checked the data cable and even ran a new one, but it didn’t help. I didn’t want to remove all the wires and take the board out to check solder joints or do other troubleshooting in the 0 F degree temperatures, so what’s the next thing to do? Ask the experts, of course. A quick post to the DIYC forum and I had a good suggestion about 30 minutes later. It turns out that the 3rd PIC microprocessor on the board runs the last 8 channels on the board (17-24), along with passing the RS-485 data to the next board daisy chained down the line. All that was needed was to re-program the PIC and it’s working. I hooked up some more lights today so we’ll see how it looks tonight.

The last thing to do is get some more Cat5 and extension cords so I can hook up the last light controller board. It’s really necessary because there are 6 mini trees that are critical to some of the sequencing. Without those trees flashing, it loses a lot of the impact.

After 3 trips to Menards and one failed trip to True Value, I finally finished the bypass around the water softener. It was almost done when the last joint to solder leaked. It was right up against the water softener and I think some water came up and ruined the solder joint. A trip to Menards to buy another fitting and an ‘alternate’ way of putting it together solved the problem. You all know the song from Fiddler on the Roof – If I were a rich man…..If I were a rich man, I’d be a plumber. Now I can get the chlorine and sanitize the well.

Mitch had a band concert tonight. They were really good. From what I remember of my Jr. and Sr. High bands, these middle to high school kids sounded much better than we did.