An Adoption Prayer
/One of the things which needs to be talked about more with adoption are the deep, spiritual wounds our children come to us with. I'm so grateful that before Judah and Addise came home our wise, trusted pastor-friends, Ed and Stephen, taught us what we immediately needed to do with our kiddos.
They taught us about breaking off spiritual curses and generational sin, cleansing their bloodlines, restoring wounds that may have incurred from a traumatic conception, pregnancy, or birth. The impact from not praying through these issues for our kids can be huge! Night terrors, shame-based or destructive behaviors, attachment struggles, food issues, lying, hoarding, lack of belonging, lack healthy emotional reactions....the list is as extensive as the spiritual brokenness.
Many of these wounds can be prayed through simply with a couple prayers sessions. But I don't know what we would've done without this wisdom.
We experienced some of their wounds within the first week of parenting, particularly on our flight home from Ethiopia. Without going into graphic detail, we experienced intense spiritual warfare and activity with one of our kids from the time we entered U.S airspace (literally!) all the way through U.S customs. We couldn't even make it to customs for what seemed an eternity because of the intense warfare. Our child was wailing out of control, thrashing their body, totally hysterical. We were texting family, close friends, and our pastoral connections begging for them to intercede on our child's behalf. Some thing was happening in the spiritual realm that could not be described in human language.
By the time we made it to customs nearly 2 hours later, all four of us were crying as we got our passports stamped and the officer said "welcome home".
Even in recent days we've seen an increase of wounds emerge with one of our kids. The shift of emotional response was clear enough that we were able to identify this as a wound opening from their past.
Two and a half years later we are in the thick of dealing with their trauma again. I don't expect this will be the last time, too. In fact, it is very normative for kids from hard places to surface old wounds when 1) their environment changes, 2) they feel safe to express that pain, 3) they have the resources available for the wound to be healed. I've seen that in my own kids and the research would agree.
Only a couple months ago I came across this prayer. Within reading a few lines I was weeping. I hope you'll find this resource so practical in helping your child heal from their past. With love and prayers as you parent and provide refuge for kids from hard places.
