Last November I was approached about writing and gathering content for a "Forever Families" blog on the Disciples Today website. It was something that fell into my lap and honestly was such a great match for my interests, passion, abilities, etc. Since then, the small amount of time and creativity I possess has been funneled into that, and attention to this blog has been severely lacking. June 10th we celebrated Mayah's birthday with our annual balloon messages. This piece that I am posting on Disciples Today was sort of born out of that and I thought I'd share it here:)
Bird's Eye View
I have a clematis vine that climbs
the outside of our screened-in porch.
Unfortunately, from the inside we can’t see the beautiful flowers, only
bare vines and a few green leaves. Not
very pretty, but it does a nice job of blocking the view of a busy road. Awhile back I noticed a couple of cardinals
spending more than their fair share of time on the vine. Then a nest snuggled in its branches. And most recently, two sparsely feathered
babies, instinctively craning their necks toward an invisible food source. So tiny and magical. The kids set up a little viewing stool on the
porch and starting referring to them as “the babies”. And suddenly from our side of the screen we were
no longer staring at bare twigs, we had a birds-eye view of miraculous.
Where we live, it’s rare to get a
peek inside nature like that. It can
feel even rarer to get a peek inside God’s thoughts and plan for our lives. We know God is good and loving and wise, but
we’re often at a loss to understand his loving plan, especially when it
includes suffering. Deaths are
particularly difficult in that respect.
This March marked the 9-year anniversary of the death of our daughter,
Mayah. We were in the process of
adopting her. China had sent us her
referral almost a year prior. In the meantime,
we had completed mountains of paperwork, sent letters and care packages, filled
her closet with clothes, and plastered her pictures all over our refrigerator
(not to mention our friends’ refrigerators.)
We were head-over-heels in love. Then
she died suddenly, about 3 weeks before we were set to travel. We never got to hold her, hear her voice, nor
in many ways even properly mourn her death. In 25 years of being a Christian,
that may have been the closest I’ve come to leaving God. Not storming off in a rage, just quietly
succumbing to the deep mistrust that was brewing in my heart.
Thankfully, I had lots of people in
my life who helped me to hang on. And lately,
God has been giving me my own glimpses into the miraculous. Those Holy Spirit
nudges that help us make sense of God’s plan.
What I discovered was this: Somewhere
along the way, a cosmic shift had happened in mine and my husband’s lives. Early in our marriage, adoption was a means to
an end (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that). But after Mayah’s death, we went from desperately
wanting a child-- wanting to fill OUR need-- to feeling a passion to meet
others’ needs. Mayah taught us that every
child deserves to know what it feels like to be loved and to be safe, even if
it’s only for a short time. Because when kids are loved and safe, they can
focus on other things. Things like
playing and learning and eventually maybe even seeking our creator. Wouldn’t that be something?
Those baby birds are almost big
enough to leave the nest. I saw one
perched precariously on the edge the other day.
Our family is also about to start a new adventure as our social worker
stamps “approved” on our brand-spanking-new foster parent license. When you’ve adopted a couple kids and want to
foster a couple more, people generally think you are either crazy, or a
saint. We are a little bit crazy, but
trust me, we are far from saints. We
complain, we argue, we yell at our kids from time to time. There were days, soon after Mayah’s death,
that I wished we had not loved her.
Wished we had not wanted her or even known her. I was convinced that God could have spared me
a lot of unnecessary heartache. But not
anymore. Now I feel sure of just a few
more things than when we started this journey.
Sure that the “fatherless” are meant to be a huge part of our personal ministry. Sure that God used our daughter’s life (possibly
considered of little value by many) to ignite a passion in us that we didn’t
know existed. And sure that she is still
making an impact today.