You know what sucks?

A kid telling you that he doesn’t have a home right now.

A kid.

A thirteen year old.

And I’m not talking about a physical house to sleep in and store your things. I’m talking about a mom. A dad. A family.

Someone to hound him about taking a shower and wearing deodorant. Someone to play catch with him in the yard. Someone to help him register for high school. Someone to teach him to drive. Someone to fight over the remote with. Someone to say I’m here for you even when it’s hard and the healing looks ugly.

There’s no one.

I’m not sugarcoating teenagers or adoption or the potential of attachment disorders or anything else. If you could peek in my windows and see the hell I’m in on any of those fronts on any given day, you would know that I know, without a doubt, what I’m talking about.

And please, don’t for a second say I’m a saint or that anyone who steps up to say yes is a saint. I’m the furthest thing from that. Teenagers and adoption will do one thing, if anything, and that is reveal all of the ugliness and sin in your heart like a crystal ball.

His life and future depends on an imperfect and under qualified and hopeful and Jesus- dependent person just saying yes.

I’ve done nothing more than say yes, every day, even through tears, even when it hurts, even when I want to run away. But this is a kid. And his life and future depends on an imperfect and under qualified and hopeful and Jesus-dependent person just saying yes.