No Matter What With Claire Cox

[00:00:02] Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptees podcast today. I'm delighted to be joined by Claire Cox. Looking forward to our conversation today, Claire. It's like we spoke on her last week, but it was so brilliant. We only speak to people with big hearts on this programme, but listeners, Claire's one of the biggest hearts, right? So she's got nine kids, including two biological kids, seven adopted.

[00:00:30] And she also leads Unite Ministries of Louisiana. You're the Adoption Director. The Welcome to the programme, yes sir. Yeah, yeah, cool. Oh yeah, we were talking about that SIR thing last time, weren't we? Yes sir. Yes sir, yeah, okay. Oh yes, I forget. Yeah, yeah. That makes me feel a little bit old, but yeah, I love it. I love it.

[00:01:00] So Claire, the big question that we like to start with, right? What does Thriving mean to you? Yeah. So it's such a, that's such a big question. So I want to start off, I guess, that answer by inserting a bit of humility. I am not an adoptee. I have adopted six children and hope to adopt a seventh. Oh, that's right. Yeah.

[00:01:26] Yes. So I, I want to acknowledge that what is thriving mean for me and my family and my children? That answer may differ for my kids as they grow. And I just want to create space for that. I'm doing my best. I'm not doing, you know, but I do want to, I just want to hold space for that. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:01:48] I appreciate that. So yeah, for, for our family, thriving really is accepting what is, even if it's not all good or all okay. So for some of our kids that, and some of us, I mean,

[00:02:10] even me that can look like instead of a kid getting angry and running away, maybe a kid gets angry and says, Hey, I really want to run away. Like that is a reflection of thriving. Like maybe you're growing and we, as a family can still persist and endure in these hard circumstances, which,

[00:02:34] which for us is foster care and adoption. Yeah. Yeah. I ran away once I lasted about, I got about 300 yards, I think. Yeah. We've never had one make it a mile, but the instinct is there and I have sympathy. I have sympathy when things get hard, just

[00:02:58] wanting to, to get out. But then what we've seen is once the little physical explosion is out, the kids want to come home, you know? Yeah. I came back crying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of pent up emotion. Like our little kids don't do that, but we have,

[00:03:23] you know, we have had teenagers that do. And while I've never ran away, I think even in conflicts with my spouse, there's times where like, my instinct is like, I just want to get out. I just want to get out. Yeah. And I'm 32 years old and I like to say somewhat intelligent and have emotional capacity. And I still feel that. So how much on what a greater magnitude might a child that's experiencing

[00:03:50] foster care feel that? Yeah. Yeah. So we were going to start slightly different, weren't we, Claire? Yeah. Because you said something important last week that really landed for me. You talked to, you said, so you and your husband started adopting, sorry, started fostering when you were 21, I seem to

[00:04:12] recall. And you were, you were kind of on the point of ending that first foster placement. And that led, that led to the first adoption, right? So it was a big turnaround that point there. Yeah. And you, you said, you said something like for the first year, you thought you were, you were just surviving.

[00:04:42] Right. Yeah. So to kind of go back to that story, when we were 21, you know, I had nannied and babysat, um, loved kids. And I thought, wow, I'm just going to foster and help all these families reunite. And it'll be the same way as if I'm babysitting for a child that knows that his mom and dad's going to

[00:05:07] come home at the end of a date night. And our experience was just very different from that. Um, even little children, which is what we had experienced grave trauma. And, um, so we had a 15 month old who's now our adopted child and she's precious and amazing, but she came and she screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and she would bang her head on the ground and roll around.

[00:05:34] And then she got strep throat and they didn't have insurance figured out for, and like my husband and I were young. So like we weren't wealthy and I think her medicine was like $300. And it was just like, we can't do this. This is crazy. Um, yeah. And I remember sitting in that, I went to the state building and I remember sitting in that room and just thinking like, this is going to be my out,

[00:06:00] like it's too much. And, um, we ultimately didn't decide that. Um, and I'm so thankful every day that we didn't, but that didn't end the surviving. Um, we went from one to three kids in six months. So in April of 2017, we got Rose. And then in August of 2017, we got our two older or not older. We have

[00:06:23] got Willow and Poppy. They're the older pack now, but, um, and, and I was 22 by the time I had three kids, you know, and it was crazy. It was crazy. Um, and for me, and I think my husband, but I won't speak for him for me at that time, thriving for these kids meant erasing all the trauma, getting it all figured out. Somehow I was going to undo all the horrible things they had done. And until I got

[00:06:51] to that point where everything was, and I do air quotes and I air quotes around until everything was normal, we weren't going to be good. Um, and I felt like a hamster on the wheel because the truth is that's not life. I now have biological kids and I know that like, I mean, they had optimal development, no drugs in their system, anything else. And like,

[00:07:18] we just need to accept what is, um, and I remember a therapist looking at me, cause we talked about the transition from like surviving to more thriving. And a therapist looked at me and she was like, do you recognize that this child can now sit up on her own? And I just remember looking at her and thinking like, why are you proud of that? Like, I should have done that before, you know? And she just,

[00:07:44] she just encouraged me and exhorted me. And she was like, the fact that this child can sit on her own was a massive goal. Like she, that for this child, like this is incredible. And it was just a, it just was a wave coming over me of sometimes the most simple things need to be celebrated.

[00:08:08] And when I started to celebrate those little wins as they came and they, you know, they wash back and come, our whole family started to shift because it was no longer this just like tenseness of, I have to white knuckle and figure out our family. But instead it became, Hey, let's see what the, what family God has given me. Like, let me re-examine this. Like,

[00:08:31] instead of us being a square peg and having square children, like maybe we're a square peg and God gave us stars. And so like, we just need to not shave off the sides of the stars. Like our square has to become bigger and we need to accept all these amazing creative shaped children that we have. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I've not read the book, but it sounds like a great, a great title. And it sums up,

[00:08:59] I think what you're talking about is, I think it's called Radical Acceptance by Tara Bratch or something like that. Um, yeah, radical, radical, radical exceptions. The, the other thing, the other thing, big thing that's jumping out as, as well as acceptance is, is, is expectations as well. And,

[00:09:22] and how we, and how we're hostage to them really. Very much so. I think as an adoptive parent, um, most, I won't, I won't say everybody for myself, like I already hold remarkably high expectations on me, but then stepping into a role where you're tasked to protect a child and encourage a family

[00:09:49] towards reunification or, and if it doesn't go that way to adopt, I mean, we're held to these standards that are super, super high. Um, and, and there's a reason for that. It's good. Like we want adoptive parents held to a super high standard because these kids have endured a lot. The last thing they need is

[00:10:10] to endure more, but perfection isn't the standard and it can't be like, I cannot be expected to undo years of trauma in, in a year. It cannot, it cannot be the expectation on me. Like it, it was going to

[00:10:32] run me into an early grave. Um, and it was going to make my kids live in this constant state of not feeling good enough. Um, I thought I was doing something good for them, but I, you know, I can see where those high expectations I put on myself, kids might reflect those back and feel like, oh, she never thought I was good enough. Not understanding that, no, it was actually mom that felt like she

[00:10:59] wasn't doing enough. Yeah. Cause that, that's huge as, as, um, I think about the many adoptees of, of my generation that I, uh, that I interviewed like the 40 to six year olds, 40 to 60 year olds, um, in the States, they call it, they call this the baby scoop era. Yeah. Um, which is a horrible

[00:11:24] term. Um, the, the, the hangover, our, our trauma hangover is to a large extent, we don't feel that we're good enough. Um, and so we've got that not good enough, uh, in, in the eyes of, uh,

[00:11:50] in the eyes of our, our birth mother. Uh, and, um, then if we've got that, if, if, if, if we've got that coming from our adopted parents as well, we are to put it politely snookered.

[00:12:13] Yeah, absolutely. And it's so interesting because I see this and I don't want to say which child, but one of my children has asked that question, like, why wasn't I good enough? And as a parent, you sit there and you're like, Oh no, that's not it at all. Um, like it's not, I've had, I have

[00:12:39] conversations with your birth parents. Like it wasn't a you issue at all. It never was. And the kids are caught on both sides of that Oreo, if you will. It was never an issue with you. Your birth parent had X, Y, Z going on and that affected you. And the same thing with the adoptive parent. No, you were more than enough. You were so precious. I didn't feel like I was good enough.

[00:13:07] Um, somehow I felt like I had to have superheroes and, and fix it. And I can see where just so much compassion on every side that, you know, I know, uh, media can, can make birth parents look a certain way and Lord knows media can make adoptive parents look a certain way, but I think the truth is much more compassionate than that. I would say, I'll get say 99. I'm sure there's room, but birth parents

[00:13:34] would say, no, I didn't feel like I was enough or I was struggling with this, but it was never a picture often, not a picture of the child's worth of the child's value. And I know for sure in my experience as an adoptive parent, I mean, everything my husband and I do is through the lens of like, we want to make sure that our kids are thriving and we want to give them all these opportunities, um, to do what the Lord's called them to do.

[00:14:00] Yeah. So on, on my first kind of big dive into happiness and thriving a five, a five day retreat, I, I, I went on 19 years ago. Uh, we, we spent the, I was only the, uh, the adoptee there, right? It wasn't an, it wasn't an adoption thing. It was a, it was a human thing. Right. And we spent five days

[00:14:27] kind of sharing our stories, uh, and more importantly, how we'd felt through, through our stories. And none of us felt that we were good enough, but none of us. And when I say that to adoptees, they think I, I, I sense the thinking, well, no, but, but we've got it worse. We, we, we've got,

[00:14:59] we've got the volume on that negative voice in our head that says that we're not good enough, uh, turned up full or, or, or, or, or, or it's not, or it's not just in our heads. It's, it's not, it's, it's, it's deeper. It's like, it's, it's, it's in the, it's in our, it's in our bones maybe. Um,

[00:15:30] but we all have that. Right. We, we, we all have that. We all have that voice in, in our heads and we all, to a later or greater extent, or, or, and we all believe it to a later, uh, a smaller or greater

[00:15:47] extent. And yet we, when it becomes, when we see that for ourselves, when we see that we're being too tough on ourselves, right? It, it lands to a certain extent, but I think it's, I think it's one

[00:16:14] of those pennies that just keeps dropping, right? You know, like it, it, it, it's, it's the same inside, deeper and deeper and deeper. Like the, the, the penny that, that's thrown into the well goes through the air, lands with a little plink as it, and then it, it wiggles its way down to the, to, to the, to the base. Well, that was one of the things. It's interesting that you mentioned

[00:16:43] that because, um, when we were doing our interview, just like getting to know one another, you had said, or I'd said to you, well, there was a point where I was just surviving. And then I felt like there was a shift and our family began thriving. And when we got off the phone, I had this email typed up to send to you. Cause I was like, I don't want this guy to think that I feel that my life is together. First of all, cause it's just a joke. Like my life is at any given day, you know, we're bleeding on

[00:17:10] four sides. Like it's, you know, life is hard, just like with anyone else thriving for me is not a perspective of I've got it all together, but especially this idea of being merciful, with myself and my children and their families of origin. It seems like every time I turn around, one of my friends that loves me dearly is, is calling that out. Like, Hey, your expectations,

[00:17:35] you're ridiculous. Or, Hey, Claire, like you're being really mean to yourself. Um, and it's like, I'll figure it out in one lane and I'm like, okay, okay. The child that I was referring to that sits up straight, for example, um, you know, there was a lot of question, around what her quality of life would be, what she would be like. Um, but even still I had in my

[00:18:01] head, like we can get her to a certain point. And we actually, it was a, we took her to have a psychologist evaluate her. And he was just talking to us about the realities of like, um, what neonatal drug exposure and alcohol and, and her level of functioning was, and you know, the abuse she endured. And he was just direct with me about, you know, this is what like, um, this standard

[00:18:30] is kind of what you're looking at. And if you can make it hit what he said does, if you can get her to a third grade reading level, by the time she's 18, you were going to exceed, like, that will be amazing. And I felt my husband in the room tense up because I, he knew like she was already third grade age. Like he knew that that answer wasn't going to be good enough for me. Right. But it was

[00:18:54] like, all of this pressure just fell off of me. And I was able to take all this pressure off this child and just say like, Hey, we're going to take one step at a time because this is who you are and how God's created you. And that's going to be okay. We're going to, you know, and she's, she's home with me every day. We homeschool. She's amazing. Um, whereas one point our story didn't look like that. Like it was a very challenging relationship, but as soon as I get it figured out in that child's lane,

[00:19:24] there's a new area that I'm struggling with in a different lane. And it's the same lesson over and over I perceive. Um, but I still just can't get it through my thick skull sometimes. Uh, yeah. Well, it kind of comes and goes, doesn't it? I mean, yeah. Um, sometimes some people say, you know, we, we, we learn the same lesson until we really learn it. Right. Um, but I don't think we

[00:19:52] ever really learn it. Right. You know, it's an infinite, it's an infinite. Well, we say that about marriage too. We say to people, you know, there's no magic place where you arrive at marriage and suddenly you've achieved it. That's part of the joy and excitement of life is we're constantly learning and growing. But I think when we boil it down to the world of adoption for some, I think for some

[00:20:15] reason, there's such a pressure, there's such a pressure to get it right. Um, and I think that can create explosions where they don't necessarily have to be. Yeah. I, I, I feel that I've kind of the, the, so the good enough for me is

[00:20:41] yeah, I've the, the, the, you talked about the different lanes. So for me, one, one of the lanes was, well, one of the lanes was business. That was the first kind of area that was dealt with. And that took a long time. And then the next area kind of the, the, the, the next

[00:21:04] area was, um, was adoption stuff. Yeah. And, and then the, the, the next area for me feels like marriage stuff. Right. Yeah. That's how it, that's how it feels. I'd be curious, like for me, um, marriage,

[00:21:32] which I guess is good considering how many children we have, right. Marriage was the first place that that started to bend for me. I think, um, we were so young when we got married. So we were very impressionable and we had such wise people pour into us, helping us just see into the open doors of their life. Like there were several couples that just like opened up

[00:21:56] the doors of their home. Um, Hey, here's the realities of marriage. And in, in foster care and adoption, we've had some of those same things, like families that on the outside, I'm like, gosh, one day I hope to be as great of a parent as they are. And then you start talking to them and, and you're like, wait, you don't have it all figured out yet. And they're like, no,

[00:22:20] I'm barely hanging on by a tooth, you know? And, um, there's just, I don't know. It just, it takes, I feel like when I'm saying this, it doesn't sound like I'm talking about thriving. It sounds like I'm talking about letting go, but in that framework of, Hey, my life is going to be so much bigger than I ever could have thought or imagined there's fun and there's excitement in it.

[00:22:46] Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, it goes to the definition of thriving, right? So everybody's got a different definition of thriving and, and if they hadn't, we wouldn't have got to 702 episodes of the thriving adoptees podcast, right? It just wouldn't work. Right. So, um, you know, I, I, I remember an adoptee, uh, who's a big kind of advocate, does a lot of work,

[00:23:11] um, has made a film, also made a film with, uh, Nancy Verrier, the Primal Wound Lady and all sorts of stuff. And she's, um, uh, she came on the podcast and I said, well, you know, what does thriving adopt to me to you? She said, well, I don't think I'm thriving yet. And I said, well, you're doing all this work, you're doing all this, you know, so it's, it's what our definition of thriving

[00:23:38] definition of thriving is and, uh, and, and how, you know, and, and, and definition and expectation, it's all the, it's all the same. It's all the same. It's, it's all kind of related, but Greg, you know, um, merciful, you, you, you said merciful, being merciful on our, on our, on ourselves, uh, is, is, is, is what it is all about. The, the other word that I hear kind of that links

[00:24:07] to that is, is grace, right? Keeping ourselves grace. Um, the, the, the, the, the big one kind of the big one for me is we've got this kind of, there's a committee in the head, right? There's the committee in the head. Yeah. Um, and, and, uh, that, that, or some people talk about this, uh, you know, internal family system, they call it parts work. So we've got

[00:24:35] the different parts of us. Um, what I interviewed, uh, I interviewed a neuro, a neuro anatomist once. How fancy. Yeah. Um, and she, she said that there's actually a part of the left brain

[00:24:57] where the inner critic lives. Hmm. It's actually part of the brain, right? Well, and, and, and she had a, she had a left brain stroke. So, uh, and was almost, and almost died from it. But in, in her left brain stroke, the left brain was silent. So although she was dying, she was

[00:25:23] in bliss because she didn't have the, the inner critic was silent. That is so. The left brain stroke had silenced the inner critic. That is fascinating. That is so fascinating. My daughter came home with a school project yesterday and they had like put some dots on a paper and

[00:25:49] her left brain was like full, like totally full. Um, and we were kind of giggling and going through it. And I was like, I guess I'm mostly left brain too. Um, so that's interesting. I'll have to go back and, and feed into some of that. You said something about the, um, the lady that talked about the primal wound. Remind me of her name? Nancy Varier. Yes. But she said, I'm not thriving yet.

[00:26:18] Whenever you said that, it makes me think about, um, makes me think about my relationship with God. And whenever I think about the course of my life, like not just being a mom, but from childhood on there've been seasons of my life where my prayer life reflected a game of whack-a-mole. Um, so God,

[00:26:42] if you can whack these 10 moles, I'm going to be good. I've got it. Right. And then the next season comes along and it's the next game of whack-a-mole, but as I've, and I would not say that I'm mature in my faith. I'm just saying, as I've grown, I begin to observe that being a faithful Christian

[00:27:08] and believing in God looks a lot less like asking God to change the circumstances and a lot more like being faithful within the circumstances that he set me in. And I say that because I remember in that first year of having the girls, there was a oak tree that I had planted in the front yard and I, three of them came up. So I'd planted some acorns, three of them came up and they weren't big. I mean, they were like,

[00:27:35] they were little, they were like three to six inches. And, um, I had grabbed onto one and I was pulling it cause it wasn't where I wanted it in the yard. And you can't have three oak trees a foot from each other. And I could not get it out of the ground. And I yanked and I yanked and I fell back on my butt and I was so mad. And I just started praying and I was like, Lord,

[00:27:58] give me patience. Like, give me patience. Will you please give me patience? Cause I, it was just a reflection for me of everything that was going on in the house. Like I was stressed out inside. So I came outside to work in the yard and now I'm mad at this oak tree that I can't get out of the ground because oak trees, um, they grow down before they grow up. And, um, God did not. In fact,

[00:28:26] let me walk inside and the house be quiet and maybe patient. Those things that didn't come the way that I thought it would. As a matter of fact, I remember distinctly that evening I walked back inside and I kid you not one of the kids had taken a laundry basket and just thrown it everywhere. And I'm a very tidy person. Like my home is very orderly, very tidy. Some may call me type a

[00:28:51] clear bin kind of girl. And I just looked and I could just, it was like pulsing just squeals of joy and happiness. They weren't being bad. They were being precious little girls. And I just felt so overwhelmed. And I was like, I thought I just sat in that yard on my butt embarrassed in front of the whole neighborhood, trying to pull a tree out of the gun and ask God for patience. And then I come

[00:29:18] inside and I have mismatched socks all over the house and noise just with a volume I cannot begin to explain. But something spoke quietly to me and it was like, no baby, I'm giving you opportunities for patience. That's a discipline. That's a muscle you're going to work. And, and boy, oh boy has he, I continue to work those, but it wasn't the circumstances that he changed or that were changed.

[00:29:42] I would argue that my circumstances have become increasingly complex, but it's what I do inside of the circumstances that I have that affects the outcome of our family in any, any given season. So yeah. It's for me, it's like the ramping up of the lesson. Yeah. It's the ramp, the, the bigger, the lesson.

[00:30:08] Um, uh, uh, I, I mentioned this occasionally, like a proud, a proud guy, because I sometimes do some ironing, right? Right. Um, but the, the, the feeling of satisfaction of a, you know, like you start,

[00:30:34] you start a shirt, right? You've got a crisp, you start with something, you make sure that you, you make sure that I make sure that the shirt's not too dry, right? It's going to be slightly damp. Right. Because I know I'm going to get the, you know, five minutes later, I'm going to do this, this and this, I'm going to fold it and it, and it's going to be, and it, and it's going to be there. Right.

[00:30:58] And, uh, and hallelujah. Right. That I've, I've, I've managed to fix, I've managed to do something. I've, I've managed that, you know, like, uh, that, the, the, the ease, the simplicity, the precision, the self-contained thing, right? And then sometimes happens, you know, that the, um, there's some

[00:31:25] calcif, you know, there's some calcification in the steam and it, and it sprays some muck on the shirt, but that doesn't happen too often, but it's pretty, it's pretty much foolproof. It's a, it's a foolproof and, and, uh, and the, the, the sense of simplicity and accomplishment when you kind of just do that compared to, we were talking, I was talking about, you know, ringing PayPal, you know, and, and, you know, you're in, you know, you're not going to get, uh, it's going to be a bit

[00:31:53] of a way. Will you get the thing resolved? What are they going to do? And I, I don't care. Um, but I, I, I do think it's, I, I do think that we are being sent or God is sending us bigger and bigger messages until, until we get it. So for me, I, I had, I tell you about the letter from my birth

[00:32:20] mom in the adoption file about the teddy bear. Tell you about that? I don't believe so. No. So at 40, uh, my conscious, my subcub, my, my adoptee trauma becomes, I become conscious of it. When I blurt out these words, she didn't love me enough to keep me.

[00:32:51] I've never said those words before because I'd never thought that for people. And the lady that I'm talking to at that time, she says, I'm a mom, Simon. And I think you got it. And I think you got it. I think you don't think it would have been like that. I think that's what she said. And I saw the sense, I saw the sense in her words. So that, that, that, um, new thought

[00:33:23] didn't grow roots. Yeah. It didn't become a conscious belief. Right. I realized that it was, wasn't true. Nine years later, I get my adoption file and, and there's this letter in the file. Sorry, listeners, if you heard this one, there's this letter from my, from my birth mom about the,

[00:33:53] about the teddy bear. And it's, it, it's crystal clear from reading that letter that the teddy bear, which I had kind of dismissed as a consolation prize. So I thought that my words were, she didn't love me enough to keep me. Um, the next words were, what's the teddy bear consolation prize? Right.

[00:34:15] So, um, I realized without a doubt that this teddy bear was a symbol of her love for me. Absolutely. It was. Now, I don't get to that straight away. I'm reading a letter. I'm in floods. I'm in floods of,

[00:34:35] floods of tears as I feel her pain and I, and I, I, I, I feel her grief and, and then the grief turns to love. Absolutely. I feel her grief and then the grief becomes love. So it's like, um, what's it called? Um, alchemy. Lead becomes gold.

[00:35:07] Absolutely. And, and in that, and in that moment, what started that, that, that's the, that's the adoption SH1T ended. Wow. It, it, it took, it, it, it, there was two, two moments and a nine year gap between them.

[00:35:32] But that, that issue is, that issue is, is done. That adoption issue is, is that, that, that primal wound thing is, is done in, in, in that instant. But there were loads of other little, there's loads of other, there's, there's load, there were loads of other seeings about that. Absolutely.

[00:35:58] There were loads of other insights about that. That's just the most profound one and the most fundamental one. And the, you know, um, so, and so primordial, like primordial wholeness, not prime, not primarily wounded, but primordial wholeness, like bigger, deeper, stronger, bigger, liver. And, and, and, but that, that happened in a, as I read that letter, I merged with her.

[00:36:29] Absolutely. That's so powerful to hear you reflect on that. Yeah. And, uh, yeah. And, uh, that was like 10 years ago and I, I, I merged with her and I, and now that's what it felt like at the time. But now I realized 10 years later, I wasn't just merging with her. I was, I was merging with everybody. It was the one spiritual being, but oneness.

[00:36:58] Yeah. No, that's so powerful to hear you say that. And, um, I know this is a different point than you were making, but, but talking about how one emotion floods into another, I think that, I mean, that occurs as an adoptive foster parent as well. Um, that faithfulness that we were, that we were just discussing, um, despite circumstances, part of that's required

[00:37:26] because as a foster parent, you know, we have to have faithfulness without promised outcomes. Right. I don't know the end of the story that I've just been dropped into, but there is an undoubtable, there's a shift, there was a shift in me. And, and I remember, I think it actually occurred during my time in prison ministry, um, is when it really began. So, you know, you get it,

[00:37:55] the way that foster care works here is you, they call you up and they're, Hey, I have baby Claire. Um, she's five years old, sexual abuse, whatever. And, um, you say yes or no. And then they bring you in and that's all, you know, and so you're, you're left with a child in this, in the state that they're in, whatever they're talking about. And that's it. And, and your imagination fills in the rest.

[00:38:23] Um, and sometimes due to circumstances, kids do get to visit and, and you get to kind of know the parent really quickly. And, uh, that is an interesting experience. And sometimes you don't get to meet the parent for a long period of time, but what I've, what I've realized is every single

[00:38:45] parent whose child I have fostered or adopted. So, so my kids birth parents specifically, those were all children that at one point I would have been head over heels in love with to foster themselves. And whenever I started, I think it was like looking at kids and then looking at their

[00:39:11] parents and you no longer see them. You don't see the birth parent by the actions that they inflicted. Cause I think we, I had shared with you and maybe your listeners, we should define this real quick. So there's private adoption in America and that is where, um, a parent chooses to surrender their child to an adoptive family. That's a very specific process. And then there's foster care

[00:39:35] in foster care adoption where something the state has had to step in and say, this child is not safe in the home that they live for a variety of circumstances. Um, so for me, no longer seeing a birth parent by like the decisions that were made that got their child in my home, just seeing their face transposed on this little face that I love so much. And I, and it just,

[00:40:00] what's happened to me is I just love these stinking birth parents so much. Not cause they've really done anything great. Some of them really don't enjoy my presence, but like I love their kids so much. And I remember that bleeding together and realizing like, I can be mad about the circumstances that got us here. I can be sad at the consequences of your

[00:40:26] decisions, but I love you so much and I want good for you. And in the same way, when you're parenting these kids, right? Uh, I can be sad that you have to go to timeout for punching your sister or whatever you've done, but I love you so much. Um, and it's just neat to see those things kind of merge together.

[00:40:47] If that makes sense. Like I used an Oreo picture earlier when discussing the adoptee in the middle, but in that, in that story, I kind of feel like the cream in the middle. Like I get to love both pieces so much and it's, it's really neat. I mean, it's not perfect. I know I'm painting it like a fairy tale and I want to make sure that I don't do that too much because foster care is brutal and

[00:41:11] I don't want to oversimplify it, but just talking about these deeper realities. Yeah. Um, uh, and our, our view of people changes. Absolutely. So as I read that letter, I, I just, I, I felt a grief and

[00:41:38] then I felt her love and then I merged with her and then I was one at one with, with her. And, um, love is the absence of separation. Love is one of like Bob Marley, one love. Yeah. Um, and I, I had this, I had this moment at this moment must be eight, 10 years ago.

[00:42:09] I was coaching. I was, I was coaching, I was, I was coaching training, uh, um, an Egyptian, an Egyptian mom, a mom in, uh, and, and I was doing this kids happiness coaching and she, she said to her husband, I want to do kids happiness coaching. And she said, and he said to her, well, why don't you Google it and see if you can find anybody that's doing it already?

[00:42:36] And so she Googled it and she found me and she, she rang me from Cairo or wherever it was. Oh, or emailed me. And then we zoomed or Skyped or whatever we did, but she, um, she had, uh, you know, traditional Muslim headdress on, right? You could see, could see her face. It wasn't a full.

[00:42:58] Sure. But for me, like a part of, um, part of, uh, uh, you know, hair is important as part of, is it part of a woman's beauty? And, um, I, we touched, we got onto this, this sort of depth of

[00:43:20] conversation, uh, that we're having, uh, we were talking about love or love for our kids or love and oneness and the separation. And she's, we were in love with each other. We were in, we were one.

[00:43:46] I didn't mean, I don't mean romantic. Sure. I mean, we were in love and, uh, but the other thing is she, she, she, she looked, she looked beautiful when she didn't look beautiful to me before.

[00:44:06] Absolutely. So it, it, it, it, it, from that place of being in love, other people actually look different. And that sounds to me a little bit like what's going on. You're looking, you're looking

[00:44:31] on, on, on, on one level, this, this birth parent is, is their behaviors, but on a far more fundamental level. Yeah. They are, they are love and you've, you're falling in, you're in love with the kids and you're in love with them. Yeah. Well, I think I had shared with you the experience of carrying my

[00:44:58] first biological child out of the hospital and how I, all I could think about was one of my daughter's birth moms and her leaving the hospital without her child. And it was just consuming to me. But I think about, um, one of my children's biological father's unspeakable things happened.

[00:45:21] Um, and my husband, my husband is like six foot five and this guy's like five foot four. And so my husband went out in the hallway at court. They were like, where, where is so-and-so? Where is he, where is he at? And my husband was like, oh, he's out there. I'll go get him. So my husband walked out and was like, um, Hey, so-and-so court's coming in. Like you need to come into court. And Josh stood there and held the door and he held it like this. And this is the first time I remember

[00:45:49] experiencing this with this dad. Cause up until that point, I, you know, I didn't care, but he walked completely underneath my husband's elbow, like just standing straight up, you know, like a child. And he did this like shoulder kind of like push it together and cock his head and made this face. And, uh, but when I say laughed, I wasn't laughing at him in a making fun of way. It was just

[00:46:17] all this affection just welled out of me because he looked exactly like my child when she did something that she didn't want to do. And it was just like, I don't know. It was again. And then we, you know, we get before the judge and you're talking about all this horrible stuff that happens. But I remember thinking, what is this conflicting sensation inside of me where I like, there needs to be justice for

[00:46:43] what happened. This, this child deserves justice. But on the flip side of that, like you just kind of love, I mean, just got to love them, you know? And so, yeah, I think that's a similar experience. Like there's such a, there's something so there's something so spiritual about the act of adoption. Um, one of the things many of my friends know about me is that I don't like to use the word

[00:47:10] adoption unless you're talking about human adoption. So like, it's a kind of a joke in my friend group. Like people send me pictures of like adopting a dog on the billboard or something. I just don't, I don't like it. I think it minimizes what adoption is. And especially in my faith, like, like what adoption represents is just so serious. I don't like to minimize it. Like

[00:47:34] we don't adopt a senior at a nursing home. Like adoption is a serious thing. And, um, yeah, I can only see it. I just see it played out in these experiences and these things we're talking about. Like there's just so much love despite horrific circumstances. It doesn't make it easy. It doesn't mean things aren't going to come up. It doesn't make it any less hard,

[00:47:58] but it makes it beautiful in a way that is, it's hard to articulate without experience. If that tracks. Yeah. I think it, it's an insulate, it's an insulation. The love kind of insulates stuff.

[00:48:21] Yeah. So my own experience was that, so I had, I had this merging with my birth mother and then six months later, I found out that she, or six months, nine months later, I found out that she died. I'd suspected that she had her. I got the confirmation that she had. Wow. And, and,

[00:48:42] and I didn't grieve because the connection I'd had with her on a spiritual plane insulated me against the grief when she was actually, then I found actually that she died. And so we're back to, you know, one of the words that I, one of the phrases that I wrote down 10 minutes or so ago

[00:49:05] that you mentioned was despite circumstances, this is all about despite circumstances, love, despite circumstances, um, I, despite circumstances, unconditional love. I, uh, I was just before we chatted, I was chatting to a guy called, uh, Rob Shear who's adopted him and his husband have

[00:49:31] adopted five, five kids, uh, from foster care. He told me this incredible story of something like seven years of battle, court battle, um, battle with one of his kids.

[00:50:01] It took, it went, it was, it was seven years of court battle and emotional battle and all sorts of other stuff, battle and yeah, yeah, I won't go into the details, but seven years of hell.

[00:50:19] Absolutely. Wow. Seven years of hell. Yeah. And come on in, come on in. I'm not leaving you. I'm, I, I, I, I'm, uh, unconditional. Absolutely. Absolutely. Unconditional love. Absolutely. Unconditional love. Yeah. After seven years of, and welcoming the, the, the, the boy back into the fold after the,

[00:50:49] the worst stuff that could possibly happen. I mean, that reflects the love of a father ultimately, you know, the, I think about the story of the prodigal son, the, the son was like, Hey, screw you dad. I'm out. Give me my money. And when the kid came back, it wasn't that the kid came all the way back to the father. No, the, the kid was coming home and the father ran to the child. And of course that reflects into the gospel.

[00:51:18] But I mean, we see that play out in foster care. I, I do believe that one day my children, if they decide to experience their biological parents, I hope for that unconditional love and our kids. I mean, this summer has just been so hard with one of our kids. It's been, it's been so hard. There's just been a lot of circumstances that have been really bad and

[00:51:46] decisions that were made that just have really hurt our family. And the moment that this kid said, mommy, dad, I'm sorry. I've spit in y'all's face and rejected you. And you are my parents. I mean, it's just like everything washes away and you're like, I just love you so much. Just come on back and we'll figure it right out. It doesn't make it easy. It's not like there aren't consequences for our decisions. It doesn't mean that trust isn't ruptured, but love doesn't have to,

[00:52:14] to go away just because hard things do happen. No matter what, despite circumstances. Absolutely. And that's some, some people's, I hear this say this, I hear people saying this and they say, love isn't enough. And I just think, no, it's not. But why, why say that? Why deride something

[00:52:41] that's so fundamental? Why don't do that? But I hear people say love isn't enough. And I think as a foster parent, maybe it helps me understand that a little better. I've never looked at a birth parent and thought they don't love their children. That has not been an experience I've had. And, and my, and yeah, I think I told you children have not survived some

[00:53:09] of the things that parents have done to kids in my home. But love is followed up by an action. It's followed up by a series of subsequent actions. Yeah. Claire, you, you, you. And it's just, well, when people are saying love's not enough, I think.

[00:53:38] Oh, did it go out? Yeah. There's a bit of a glitch on the, a bit of a glitch on the audio. It's all right. Go, go again. Yeah. Let me, let me text my husband and take his phone off the wifi. Sometimes he'll log his computer on and it'll pause it. But so what I had said was that when people say love's not enough, I think what they're reflecting

[00:54:00] is an emotion, right? The emotion of love is a feeling, but, but love is followed up by subsequent actions. It's a decision to put someone else above your, above yourself in many ways. And so when I say love is not enough, like when we have had the state of Louisiana has had to terminate parental rights, that's what they're saying. I know you love your child, but we have to make this

[00:54:28] action to keep somebody safe. So I think the emotion may not be. Yeah. Well, consuming, but what that emotion provokes us to do. And that is the, the act of the seven year battle that you just discussed the action that came attached to that emotion of love. And it's not like you can transcribe it in a book and say, here's, you know, here's the book of all the things you need to do to love somebody.

[00:54:56] Like that is a hard thing to reflect, but. I'm not, I'm not talking about lovers as a feeling. I'm talking about love as the, the absence of separation, the oneness. Yeah. I see that. I, I've, I can't. I'm saying when people say love is not. Oh, okay. Right. So they're using,

[00:55:23] they're using different, they're using different definitions of the word love. Like we're talking about different definitions of the word thriving. Yeah. Correct. And like we had talked about a few minutes ago with like adopting a dog, like that being a, I know what you're saying. I get what you're saying. It's not confusing, but I think we're saying, I think we're talking about two different things. So love the feeling is not all consuming. That's not quite enough that fluctuates, you know?

[00:55:54] But yeah, the oneness and the, the actions that, that provokes in you is what helps create, I believe a system where people can't thrive. Yeah. That feels like a good place to bring it in. I love it. I love it too. This was a lot. I wasn't sure what to expect in this. I'm so thankful for

[00:56:21] this opportunity. Typically, whenever people talk to me about adoption, it's just so circumstantial. And we talk so much about, yeah, the daily grind, I guess. And so this has been very thought provoking and challenging and depthful. And I really appreciate you allowing me to be a part of this.

[00:56:45] And likewise, back at you, I appreciate you being part of this. And we are intentionally profound. This, this is big stuff. This, this is, this is big, deep, deep stuff. A friend, not, I don't see him very often anymore. I wouldn't say he was an ex-friend, but we did have a fallout. But he said, he said to me a while ago, and he said, the problem with you, Simon, is you're too deep.

[00:57:15] And I was so taken aback by what he said, I couldn't think of anything to say. And he's really quick-witted, far more quick-witted than me. So he would have had a comeback anyway. But I thought about the perfect answer the following day, which was, would you prefer me to be more shallow? Right. Right. So this is an, this is, this is a big area. This is a deep area and it is intentionally,

[00:57:45] that's why we go deep on it. Right. That, like, it's, it's deep stuff. That's what, that's where the good stuff is, right? The thriving adoptees logo is a diamond. You've got to, it's, this is, you've got to dig deep to find the diamonds. You've got to dig through the layers of rock and, and, and, and dirt and all that sort of stuff. And, and when you're, um, when you're looking to

[00:58:09] find the diamond-ness in, in, in, in, in us, you've got to dig through the layers of trauma to get to the, to the stuff underneath. But, um. Yeah. That's one of the things we tell our girls and now son, that, um, when, when they're under a lot of pressure or they, they perceive, um, it's, it may not be super accurate, but I say there's two

[00:58:35] things that are really made under pressure, acne and diamonds. And I know which one I want to be. And so kind of the, the challenge to them is like acne will pop and it looks gross, but diamonds are invaluable and, and beautiful. And, um, yeah, it's just kind of a playful thing, but it's true. I mean, that diamonds are made in, in terrifically challenging circumstances and, and that's what I want to be,

[00:59:01] you know? Yeah. And that's what you are. I appreciate that. That's quite a compliment. Yeah. Thanks, Claire. Thanks listeners. We'll speak to you again very soon. Take care. Bye-bye.