‘…I won’t shield God from my anguish by claiming He’s not involved in the ache of this world and Satan prowls but he’s a lion on a leash and the God who governs all can be shouted at when I bruise, and I can cry and I can howl and He embraces the David-hearts who pound hard on His heart with their grief and I can moan deep that He did this – and He did.  I feel Him hold me – a flailing child tired in Father’s arms.  And I can hear Him soothe soft, “Are your ways My ways, child?  Can you eat My manna, sustain on My mystery?  Can you believe that I tenderly, tirelessly work all for the best good of the whole world – because My flame of love for you can never, ever be quenched?”  I only close my eyes…Enter the dark too.  Sometimes we need time to answer the hard eucharisteo.’

‘…the tears of faith streaming down his cheeks into his smile…that kind of faith puts real vertebrae into a verse like Ephesians 5:20: “always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ….”  That lets the Word take on their flesh, their lips speaking hardest eucharisteo.’ - One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp

I read this passage yesterday.  I read it, and as I read it, my stomach clenched, knowing that I was waiting for big news, big happy news, and reading this and feeling so inspired by the giving thanks when it’s hard, really hard, and I felt fear deep inside that reading this now would mean that I would be called to put it into practice, that the phone call I’d been longing for and imagining would bring hard news.  That I’d pick up the phone with elation and immediately hear the pregnant pause of not yet.

That’s exactly what happened.  Phone tag again and again with bits of hard news, more waiting, more out-of-our-hands.  It’s not our time yet.  And I asked God, “How do I glorify You in this?  How do I walk this well?  Because I feel like a child who needs a nap and has run out of patience.”  And He reminded me of what I’d read.  Bury my tear-stained face deep in His loving arms and flail and dig deep, so deep for the thankfulness. 

Thankfulness for a daughter who is worth every bit of this battle.

Thankfulness for a God who so clearly knows our pain and knows our daughter’s heart and knows the perfect moment when we will be together.

So much for which to be thankful.  Actually, being thankful is passive.  I’m choosing to give thanks.  Giving it.  Giving my thanks to a God who is worthy of it.  I woke up this morning.  And I give thanks for that.  I ate food today.  Giving Him thanks.  I’m wearing clothing.  Thanks thanks thanks.  Laughing with good friends and a warm shower to cry in and big Alex arms to hold me and sweet Elliott lips to kiss me and call me Mommy.

I don’t feel like giving thanks right now.  The tears keep coming and I’m tired and weak and feel emotions that are human and ugly.  But with the nudging of God’s Spirit, I’m speaking thanks, writing thanks, thinking thanks…until my heart has no choice but to feel it, too.

Our case will be reviewed again on June 21 and in court on June 22.  I’m giving thanks for all your faithful prayers.  God is so good, and it is well with my soul.  We will wait on Him a little longer.  Just like when I’m running, or any other activity that I don’t particularly enjoy, I think to myself, just a little longer, just a little farther.  So here we are.  We made it to the phone call.  But now we can wait just a little longer.  We can dig down deeper and bury our knees on the floor a little harder and bow our heads a little lower.  She is so worth it.  And I wouldn’t trade the journey, our journey, for anything.

I was struggling with feeling insignificant today.  What do I do?  Does what I do really matter?  My least favorite question is “What’s new with you?”  The tires of my brain spin in the mud of my sluggish thoughts and I come up empty.  What’s new?  What’s new?  Laundry, cooking, board games, building “caves” out of blankets and pillows, straightening the same room in the house over and over, and oh, yeah, still waiting to finalize my daughter’s adoption.  It feels like nothing I do really matters.  I feel like I need to hop the next flight to Africa or write a book or sell everything or adopt the sibling group of four that I just read about and really, really wish I could adopt.

In desperation, I asked Elliott if he wanted to go to the dollar store and buy sand toys for the beach.  It wouldn’t be significant, but I’d have stuff in plastic bags to show that I accomplished something for the day.  But he said, “No thank you.  I want you to please stay here and keep me comforny.”  It’s his way of saying “company.”  I love that it’s a combination of “company” and “comfortable.”  Like he’s comforted by and comfortable with my company.  At first I was incredulous that my son did not, in fact, want to go buy more STUFF.  He always wants to buy more stuff and I rarely let him.  But then, I was convicted by the simplicity of his need – my company.  That’s my significance.  To provide company for my sweet boy while he’s building a cave of throw pillows and couch cushions.  I feel boring whenever I talk to someone who isn’t in this same stage of life.  But today, Elliott reminded me that I’m not boring to him.  And after all, what matters more than that?

He told me at dinner tonight, “I love my sister so much.”  Apparently, God’s knitting ESD into the fabric of his heart, too.  She’s certainly in mine and Alex’s.  There were 30 of us from our agency caught in a backlog of cases waiting for court approval, from December through April.  The “forgotten 30,” we like to joke.  As of this week, that number’s been cut in half.  I feel a strange mix of anxiety and hope.  At any moment the phone could ring…but just like the proverbial boiling pot, this phone ain’t gonna ring with me staring at it all day!

One thing that I’ve heard a lot lately is how “lucky” or “blessed” my daughter is to “get” to grow up here in America, where she’ll have so many opportunities.  This sentiment hurts my heart!  We’re not adopting ESD because she’s poor and we want to give her things.  We’re adopting ESD because she’s an orphan and we want to give her a family.  I love my country.  So much.  So grateful to be an American.  I love a lot about my culture and heritage.  But I love Ethiopia, too.  I love the people and the culture and the history.  I have no desire to rip my daughter away from that.  I ache thinking about her leaving everything she knows, the smells, the language, the beauty, her homeland.  But.  Every child, from every country, deserves to have a family.  And it is such a privilege and a joy to get to be hers.  I cannot wait to get the call that declares that I’m her mommy forever.  Someday soon, she will become an American.  I welcome that.  I’ve now done that paperwork twice.  I hope she loves her new country.  One of my favorite things about my country is that it’s the melting pot where people from cultures around the globe can come celebrate from where they came and walk through life together.  She will be an Ethiopian American, an African American, and I will bend myself over and again to honor that and teach her to love her country of origin even more than I do. 

Someday, maybe more babies will get to stay in their homelands.  More Ethiopian adoptive parents.  More Ethiopian birth moms will be able to survive childbirth, keep their children, raise Ethiopian babies in Ethiopia.  (Click here for how to help my friend Steffany make that happen!) 

It’s a tragedy that my daughter is an orphan.  A tragedy.  My heart aches for her.  This world is so, so broken, so fallen.  The greatest joy is getting to be part of God’s plan of restoration for ESD.  An orphan no more, she will take her place in our family.  She will come with all her wounds, her scars, her pain, and we will embrace her, her wounds and scars and pain.  We will embrace them, absorb them, carry them with her, for her.  We will be her family, and that’s what family does.  That’s what God does for us.  Takes us, all our pain, our wounds and scars, takes us, adopts us into His family.  We are grafted into His family tree, and by HIS wounds, we are healed. 

What a model.  I am nowhere near the parent that God is, but I’m honored to get to adopt as He has adopted, by His grace, with His Spirit, to beckon, in a whisper, “Come,” to my little girl.  “Come, let us love you, let us choose you.  Join our family forever.”