Ruby

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little girl who was worth far more than any precious stone...and her name was Ruby.  And she was from the same orphanage as another certain little girl named Callyrose.  And both girls were waiting...and waiting...for their forever families to come and take them home.  One amazing, wondrous week in July, the wait seemed almost over for Ruby.  She was thrust into the arms of two utterly excited, crying people that she had never met before...but would soon know forever.  And they had kind eyes and trust worthy smiles and full hearts...and for an amazing, wondrous week...she was with her new mommy and daddy.  And they coaxed her to smile and play and laugh...and they LOVED her.  And she knew - and they knew- that they wouldn't be allowed to take her home quite yet...but that it would be SOON.  The mommy was promised "soon" ...the Daddy was promised "soon" and Ruby was promised "soon." 

"Soon" should have been a couple weeks...but a couple weeks turned into a month..and then more weeks.  All the people that were supposed to be helping Ruby and her mommy and her daddy weren't helping.  And so Ruby waited...and her Mommy and her Daddy waited..and they had a REALLY hard time waiting.

WAITING is the hardest part of the adoption process and the hardest part of life in general.  A myriad of faces just cringed as the word "WAIT" was uttered.  A lot are in the adoption process, waiting for their baby's picture to flash onto a computer screen, waiting for a phone call to tell them that it's time "to go," waiting to see if their paperwork and finances come together.  Others aren't in the adoption process, but are waiting for good news from the doctor, to hear back about a job interview, waiting for pregnancy to occur.  So many...waiting.

This morning, I was reminded once again that waiting is a big part of how God seems to work.  Noah, building an ark, waiting 120 years for a flood to come.  Sarah, Elizabeth, Hannah...waiting for a baby to fill their arms.  The Jewish people...waiting for their Messiah.  We, as believers, waiting for Jesus' return.  We wait...and wait...and wait.  Waiting eventually whittles down to utter powerlessness on our behalf - we have done all we can, and can do no more...and then it's just Waiting.  BUT...in the Bible...all of those waits turned into a fantastic display of God's love, power and grace.  Rainbows, Isaac, John the Baptist, Samuel, JESUS CHRIST...all out of the wait.

And so we wait..and wait..because it IS worth the wait.  And we wait on a God who is amazing and kind and has perfect timing even when we can't see it or understand it.  "I recall all you have done, O Lord; I remember Your wonderful deeds of long ago."  (Psalm  77:11).   Ruby is waiting...and her Mommy and Daddy are waiting...and we are all waiting...for our Helper.

Tomorrow, Wednesday morning, is a key morning in Ruby's wait.  She and her parents are waiting for their paperwork to be submitted to the US Embassy - and the past 6 Wednesdays, it hasn't been submitted. Please pray for Ruby and her parents in the next 24 hours.  "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I put my Hope."   Psalm 130:5.

My God is So Big

Last Saturday, I had to take Arabelle to meet her preschool teachers for the first time.  Arabelle has been talking about going to school nonstop for the past six months.  She's been wearing her pink ladybug backpack everyday; she has woken up each morning, begging for THIS day to be the day school begins.  Saturday morning, she was so excited... and I was waiting...waiting for the terror to hit.  She lasted longer than I thought; all the way up until we walked into her classroom.  And then...the eyes started to well up with tears, the shaking began...and by the time we left the building, I had a completely hysterical child.  She wailed and sobbed and shuddered...and no matter what I did, I couldn't get her to calm down...and I thought Wow, Monday is going to be tough.

 Come Monday morning, I woke up with this thought:  I pray to a God who puts kings in power, topples governments, controls the sky and sea...and He cares about EVERYTHING...even a 3-year-old's fear of preschool.  There are men in government right now, praying to God to change the direction their country is headed in..and yet, in that same moment,  I can  be bowing my head in prayer that my 3-year-old isn't too scared today to do something that she's wanted to do for a long time...go to school.  All morning I prayed, and Arabelle walked into that class (albiet reluctantly) without shedding a tear.

It all may seem silly...but it's how I tend to view our adoption.  We wanted to adopt and couldn't stop praying, dreaming and hoping about it for months and months.  But when the time came to enter the unfamiliar landscape of financial strain, another country's whimsy, mounds of paperwork, etc, I felt hysterical a lot of the time and spent the other part in quiet, but frantic worry.  But ....why?  I serve a God who can provide so much more than all the money in the world can provide, a God who can change the course of a country's history in a single breath...and a God who cares about an alone, 2-year-old girl in Ethiopia.  My girls have been walking around our house lately singing that Sunday School song "My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God can not do...for you."  It's soo easy to sing that song...and sooo easy to forget the impact it could have on our daily life - our peace of mind - if we truly believed it.

Your story

Dear Callyrosy-posy (as your older sister Lilah likes to call you)

Someday, you are going to ask me, "Why did you decide to adopt me?"  And I will cuddle you close (if you are still at an age where you will let me) and I will tell you that it is because my life was awaiting you...the same way it was awaiting Lilah and Arabelle and Esme.  And you will roll your eyes and tell me, "That's not what I meant and That's what you always say."  And then I will tell you, "It's not a matter of why we decided to adopt you...but more a matter of when."  And you will roll your eyes some more...but you will cuddle in close for YOUR story...which is an amazing story.

You were born on June 16, 2009 and your mom gave you the name "Melat" which means "treasure left on earth by God."  But right now, in your beautiful birth country, there is rampant poverty and disease...and it has had devastating effects on families...On your family...on your mother.  And I will tell you that I don't know much, but I do know that your mother was very sick, very poor, and very alone.  And that she made a really brave and really hard decision:  She sought advice and was told that you needed to be in a safe place where you wouldn't be subject to extreme hunger or danger.  So she placed you in the care of others with the faith that you would survive and thrive, even if she wouldn't.

In the meantime, God was starting to stir something that had always been laying inside my heart and your Daddy's.  I would tuck your sisters in bed at night, and as I would pray for them, a thought would pop into my head and wouldn't go away.  What would happen if I lived somewhere where I had no money, no family to support me, and I got sick?  What would happen to my daughters?  I would plead with God - beg - for them to be safe and loved by a mother and father with the same love that I have for them."  And this thought kept growing more and more persistent.  It pushed its way into each moment of the day.  Until we finally decided we had to do something about it.

And that's where your story gets even more spine tingling.  It's a story you've heard over and over, but I will never, ever get tired of telling it.  Our forever friends were traveling to Ethiopia to meet their daughter for the first time....and when they were at the orphanage...they spied you.  You, with your sweet smile and big eyes.  And you captured their heart...and they came home and told us about you.  And their story captured our heart.  And we began to wonder if you would be our little girl....but we couldn't DO anything about our wondering.

According to adoption law, we couldn't ask our caseworker about you.  We knew that the director of the orphanage really wanted to find a family for you, but our paperwork said that we wanted a child up to age two...and you were definitely over two!   All we could do was pray...I wanted you soo much, but I knew that God might have a different plan for you.  I prayed that somehow, God would allow you to be referred to us despite the age requirements.

And then...a mere 5 days after our paperwork made it to Ethiopia, we got THE phone call.  The one I had been praying, hoping and waiting for...it was our referral...and it was YOU.

"So...see?"  I will tell you as you begin to get bored of your story and push me away from all that cuddling.  It was Never a Matter of Why... Why is easy: it's because we were missing YOU from our lives.  For your story...it's ALWAYS a Matter of When.  When your mother needed somebody else to love you the way that she loved you.  When I needed my 4th little girl to love to pieces.  When we both needed each other to fill the missing piece of our family hearts that God so designed to be there.

Dear Callyrose

Dear Callyrose Melat,

I wish I could find a way to describe what it felt like to see your picture, your pensive little face, on my computer screen for the first time...with those incredible eyes of yours.  The anticipation, the butterflies in my stomach, the sheer excitement of that moment.  It was the culmination of everything - of months of paperwork and dreaming, prayers and tears, hope against hope that it would really be you who was referred to us.

What scares me is that you may never know how loved you already are...but I want to keep telling you, over and over.  It kills me...right now, you are in an orphanage, all alone, seemingly lost and yet, on the other side of the world almost, there are already so many people who love you, who pray for you, who are doing whatever they can to help us get you home.  You are going to bed tonight, in a small room somewhere, and you don't know it...but you have 3 sisters praying for you to sleep well.  You have a Daddy and a Mommy that will do anything to get to you so that they can tuck you in at night and make you feel safe. You have two sets of grandparents who are hosting yard sales and bake sales, selling their possessions, all the while proudly showing your picture off to everyone they know.  You have aunts and uncles and cousins who want to cuddle you and you already have little girl friends just waiting to have playdates.  You have a church to be a part of, neighbors to help push you on the swings.  You probably feel so unloved...and yet you are so loved.

I don't know when I will get to meet you...I don't know how it will all end up or work out...but I am overwhelmed by my love for you...and by the love of all those around me for you.  And by a God who loves us both even more.