This year has been the season for hurricanes. With little warning or time for preparation, they arrive on land with fierce winds and rain. The voracious force of these storms consumes everything in their path.

This can be like our adopted children, especially when they are first adopted. They are overwhelmed by their new surroundings and relationships. They can be as terrifying as they are terrified. Old ways of doing things must be relearned. Many tears may be shed. There can also be physical destruction of things (and sometimes abuse of others).

None of this is intentional. If it were, we would be able to redirect the path of hurricanes so that they would stay out over the water. Even so, attempting to redirect the emotions of our children (who may have been damaged in many ways in the past themselves) may prove to be a challenging feat. But love them, we must.

One particular challenge for our adopted children was teaching them that everything in life has consequences. It was as if they had no inner compass to know that what they did had results. Having come from an orphanage, they saw life as random, especially not having a family that they could call their own. The pain inside of them bubbled to the top more than once.

The best thing to do in advance of an approaching hurricane is to prepare. We would have been better off knowing what and how to prepare as we approached our adoption. This pattern continued to repeat itself throughout the teenage years. Just when we thought we had learned what we needed to know, we found ourselves lacking. This, of course, led us to our knees, as we implored our Heavenly Father to give us the wisdom we needed to survive their attacks.

We are now in the phase of enjoying the calm after the storm. Adoption has changed them, and it has changed us. Some things in us needed to be changed or even knocked down. One was certainly the self-assurance we had that we knew the “right way” to parent before we had children. We benefitted from much counsel and from friends who surrounded us and comforted us when we had to face the storms. Prayer helped!

If you find yourself in the midst of a hurricane right now, don’t be afraid to reach out to others. No one should judge you for doing so. Last I checked, the only perfect parent was the Heavenly Father. And He even allowed His Son to go through suffering and “hell on earth” to accomplish the great plan of salvation.

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