I know that toxic emotions can damage one’s body.

It is immensely difficult to hold one’s head up under any onslaught of grief, anger, resentment or any negative emotion. We adoptive parents enter the world of adoption, naïve and untroubled; deeply desiring to simply help a child. We want to share our many blessings, often we simply feel called by God to do so.

We enter the arena, particularly the realm of older adopted children, starry eyed and fairly ignorant. I know I was as dumb as a doorknob, now in retrospect.

Sometimes it may seem that we have accidentally opened the door to Hell, as what follows in our lives blindsides us. The children have been so badly damaged, so hideously mistreated, and they are righteously, justifiably angry about it.

In a very simple explanation, they then feel safe enough to pour that anger out on us, to try and make us leave like everyone else did.

This is the hardest thing for us parents to endure. We didn’t do this to them. But we need to love them through this, through their rampant destruction of our homes, and often our lives, through the seething fury poured out on us often like steaming turds, smelly and rank. It hurts.

1. Worry is stored in the nervous system of the stomach
2. Fear is stored in the nervous system of the kidneys and urinary bladder
3. Anger is stored in the nervous system of the gall bladder and liver
4. Sadness and grief are stored in the nervous system of the pancreas, spleen, and colon
5. Lack of acceptance is stored in the nervous system of the heart and small intestine
6. Guilt is stored in the nervous system of the upper back and lungs. The Chinese originally observed empirically that the autonomic nerves of all internal organs traveled through specific, consistent, identifiable paths on the skin's surface which they call acupuncture/acupressure meridians.

Imagine what it does to them, to the children that we are trying to parent.

I’ve dealt with this over and over and over again. Sometimes I’m so bowled over by it that I want to dig a hole in the ground and hide. Even after all these years, I’m still astonished by the painful intensity. I battle my own resentment at what this is doing to my emotional health, they come angry and by the time they grow up and leave, I’ve absorbed their anger and I’m looking rough, wondering if I can make a complete sentence without drooling in the dirt.

Yep, I’m stronger than that. I can do this. I can feed my faith, read and listen to uplifting motivational and inspirational speakers and authors. I listen to my rip roaring, beloved country gospel music and remember that why I do this, why I’ve subjected myself to this mental abuse.

Simply because I’ve also seen so much eventual success. Someone once sent me a quote about sliding into home plate (Heaven) bruised, dishelmed, worn out and spent while hollering something to the effect of, “Wow Lord! What a ride!”

That’s my goal. I’m old enough now to know that life is short, we human beings need a major purpose, a challenge, a reason to live, and I have 39 reasons plus my grandchildren.

I was brought to tears this morning, after I dropped the kids off at school, listening to the words of a song that I’ll now badly paraphrase. ‘Now more than ever, I cherish the cross’, as the guy sang about hurt feelings and the whys of life. “All the miles of my journey have proved my Lord true.” I get it, thanks Lord.

All the words are here, I apologize for the teenybopper pics on this site. I just feel that the words are so appropriate for my mood today.