I’m breaking my resolution not to look as I scroll through nearly a year of posts on his Facebook page, searching for some snippet of evidence that I exist in his world. I don’t. Except as the unseen photographer in many early photos, or the unacknowledged planner of celebrations and events. He wears the clothes I carefully chose and the Timberlines I gave him for Christmas. But he smiles and hugs another mother and thanks her for his gifts.

I pause on a post with the words, “Happy Birthday Mom. I love you.” I see my son in the photos, hugging and making silly selfies with a mother who isn’t me.

I’ve been replaced.

My throat tightens. I hand my friend’s ipad back. She reaches out to brush wayward bangs away from my brimming eyes. “You are still his mom,” she almost whispers. “No matter what you see there.”

I tell her what happened last week in Target.

“No! No! Don’t stand up!” English with a Ukrainian accent—a voice achingly familiar, yet hauntingly foreign. I am squatting, thumbing through six-dollar greeting cards as a red Target shopping cart slowly passes. The little girl attempting to stand in the cart doesn’t recognize me. I last saw her eight months ago when her mother and I took our kids to the beach together. The teenager pushing the cart doesn’t notice me as he speaks to the child in a serious tone.

Holding my breath, I wait for them to pass before standing. I taste the bile of bitterness as my throat tightens. Breathing and blinking hard I step into the aisle to watch my son trail after his friend’s mom as she shops with her family.

“But, He’s NOT her family!” my soul screams. Tears and snot run down my face as they disappear in the checkout line.

I’ve seen him four times in the months since he moved out. With each encounter I long to wrap my arms around his thin frame, long to say, “Come home. We miss you. We love you. This is where you belong.” Of course, I would never do that. My adopted son’s invisible wall is thicker and higher than Trump’s could ever be.

Putting the card back on the shelf, I wipe my face on the sleeve of my grey hoodie. For several long minutes I stand there, Jerry-Springer-worthy thoughts flickering through my head. I know it’s not right, but I want to blame the other mother.

It’s dark in my car and I’m invisible to the world as I wail on my way home.

God help me. Why does this ache so bad?

“I know it hurts,” my friend says as she takes my hands. “Let’s take that pain to the Father.” As she prays, I am comforted by the unseen One who knows my whole story—He who knows this is not the first time I’ve been replaced. Not the first time I’ve lost a child I love to another family. Not the first time I’ve cyber stalked someone’s Facebook for a glimpse of a kid I thought was mine. No, this is not the first time I’ve rewritten my entire life to accommodate someone in need of a mother or opened my soul to a stranger’s offspring. I’ve been down this old road before.

And that, my child, is the reason for all this pain.

The Father whispers love to my heart as I grapple with the same cyclone of emotions that whirled through my life more than seventeen years ago when the baby girl I was adopting was permanently placed with a friend instead of me.

I repeat the words of my grief coach, a professional I’ve been working with since November.  “This situation with your son has triggered the trauma of your previous loss. You are experiencing compounded grief.”

“My head knows the truth,” I explain to my friend who still holds my hands, “but my heart sometimes forgets. These stories are similar, but not the same. My baby didn’t reject me. She was a victim of circumstances beyond her control. My son is not a baby. He is a young man. He has the power to choose the path of his life. He is not mine. He belongs to God.

My Honey and I are here to love him and to pray for him and to model the unconditional love of his heavenly Father. We are his legal parents. We are the reason he is a citizen of the United States of America. Whether or not he chooses to have a relationship with us, or to acknowledge that we are the people who stood before a foreign judge and promised to be his forever family is irrelevant. Even if we are completely edited out of his life on social media or otherwise, the facts are the facts. It’s just this ache of being rejected and replaced that devours my joy.”

My friend is kind. She listens to my heart. She shares her own experience of being a foster mother to many children – some who were able to reciprocate her love, some who could not. I leave her home with a renewed sense of hope. I have forgotten what hope feels like.

Lord, I’m sorry. I pray aloud in the quiet of my car. My entire ministry is based on hope. Sowing hope in hearts wounded by addiction. That’s my tagline. “God redeems the dreams we thought were lost” is the theme of my book, but I forgot to allow it to be the theme of my life. Forgive me for wallowing in the pain of being replaced. Forgive me for making unholy alliances with the spirits of rejection and depression and anger and fear and envy. I’m sorry for allowing the ache in my heart for the son who is gone to overshadow the joy of the beautiful relationship My Honey and I are building with the son who stays.

As I drive and pray I am reminded of the truth that my Jesus understands. He left his place as heaven’s Beloved to take my place on the cross. He promised that I am His forever. His path of pain as God in human flesh included rejection, abandonment, abuse, betrayal and the sacrifice of so many comforts in order for Him to be the Sacrifice who comforts many. He is the Lamb that was slain and the Good Shepherd who leaves the 99 and goes after the one. His heart understands my heart when I yearn for the one who is not in my fold. Jesus loves the 99, but He risked everything for the one who lost his way home.

Do you trust ME? He whispers softly in my mind.

I trust You, Lord.

I’ve got this. I’ve got him. I’ve got you. I’ve got the two waiting for you at home. Go home. Love the ones who stayed. “…be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5 NKJV).