Disclaimer: This blog is not a dramatic cry for help for myself personally – I’m okay. This is written on behalf of all adoptive moms going through tough seasons. It certainly does not apply to every adopted child and adopted mom or every season. My only goal is to help other adoptive mothers in the thick of it not feel so alone, and moreso, to help their friends get one step closer to caring for them. I have many friends who have adopted and need support from those closest to them, and we don’t know how to tell you that. This blog is my attempt to raise their voices (not just mine). This is OUR cry for help.

We know the reasons they hate us.

They were abandoned. They were abused. They were lied to. They weren’t fed. They weren’t loved.

They were thrown away like a piece of trash. Over and over again.

They have EVERY. FRICKIN. REASON to hate us – to not trust us.

It’s 5:45 a.m. and Brandon just handed me the cute coffee mug I convinced him I just had to have in order to stay motivated to blog last winter. After not blogging for three months, guilt wins the day.  It just feels wrong to sip that $10.99 Francesca’s mug reading “Blogging Day” without really blogging, don’t you think?

Also, it’s bad when your opening paragraph is off-subject already.

Oh, wait no, I think I can make a Segway.

Blogging. I really do love it. I get to ramble through my insane thought processes and then the World Wide Web lets me publish them…for free. People from all 50 states, China, England, Mexico, Iceland – they ALL have access to my blog – because these thoughts are that good (currently my readership is more like my mom and my cousin, but the cousin is in Iowa so that’s a really big deal).

I got off-subject again. Let me retry that paragraph.

Blogging. Why do I have time all of the sudden?

Oh yeah, my husband quit his job last week.

It’s World Adoption Day, and although I haven’t yet been able to adopt as a parent, I was adopted as a child. So today is a happy day for me.

My father adopted me when I was ten.

I’ve written a blog before telling my whole adoption story, so that’s not what this is about.
This is just a quick thank you to the parents that have chosen to adopt.

Today marks Part 2 of our series centered on pornography and how it affects women, particularly in the church (go here for Part 1). I want to make it clear that my dear husband is fighting the good fight and is finding victory in this area. I also want to make it clear that I’m not writing anything that has not been approved, and even encouraged by him. We both agree there seems to be a lack of understanding and help for women that are affected by pornography and we hope that together we can begin talking about the issues of porn and lust in a way that isn’t often talked about. Our prayer is that it begins conversations that need to be had and offers help to women who feel like they are barely hanging on.

I’ve been a part of three churches now in which a pastor has stepped down or been let go of due to unresolved lust issues. Still, it took me getting married to begin to actually explore the subject of lust from the male perspective. I found it was much harder to shake off the deep, unresolved fears residing within me in the confines of a marriage.

After we got married, Brandon and I began having conversations I hated but couldn’t help but continue. I’m thankful to have a husband that has not shied away from answering my questions.

But when I began to fully understand the threat of lust in the life of a man, I was devastated. And I had no idea what to do with it.

None of my friends talked about this subject. None of my church families growing up tackled the subject.

So I reacted by doing what was natural to me: I turned inward.

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No woman dreams of marrying a man that struggles with lust, but the sad truth is a lot of us do. It’s a truth that many “church-grown” women neglect to understand or acknowledge until a serious relationship arises. Sometimes it even takes years into a marriage before it comes to the surface.

But for the large majority of us, we eventually have to confront the reality of our husband’s very real temptation to lust after another woman.