Hi, sweet Baby Dale.  I think this blog is the place where I talk to you.  I can’t talk to you inside of me, so I type these words and send them out into the cosmos.  In some ways it makes me feel connected to you, and in other ways, I feel farther away than ever.  Today is Thanksgiving.  It’s this American holiday where we watch a parade, eat Grammy’s incredible food, and hang out with family all day.  The whole day is filled with warmth and love, and squishy furniture that’s perfect for napping or cuddling with babies and doggies.  It’s a fabulous opportunity to reflect on the year and to thank God for His blessings and wow – today I am most thankful for my children.  Both of them.  For sweet Elliott who is hitting his choo-choo phase hard, I mean, like choo-choos are his big thankful item this year for sure.  And puzzles.  Yep, choo-choos and puzzles.  And for you, who is growing in your birth mom’s belly and growing in my heart every day.  I am SO THANKFUL for you, so thankful that you exist, so thankful that you’ll be my baby forever.  How big are you?  I have no idea when your birthday will be.  Are you the size of a lemon right now?  Maybe smaller, maybe bigger?  Do you have things like fingernails and hair yet?  Oh, will you come out with lots of hair?  Elliott did, a big chock of straight dark hair that fell out and was replaced with blond curls.  I know, weird, right?  I think you’ll really like him as your big brother.  He’s hilarious and loves to play rough with his friends, but is surprisingly very gentle with babies.  I think I must’ve kissed him a thousand times today.  I love kissing Elliott and I can’t WAIT to kiss you over and over and over.  I will never run out of kisses for you.  I will kiss you and kiss you until you’re so old that you don’t want me kissing you around your friends anymore.  And then I’ll still kiss you before school and after school when you get home and can’t be embarrassed because no one’s around.  I am so thankful to have you in my heart, to have you in my thoughts, and someday soon, to have you in my arms.  I love you before you’re born and I’ll love you after you’re born and I love you in Ethiopia and I’ll love you in America and I love you I love you I love you.  I hope you can feel these big hugs that I’m sending your way, feel them over the ocean and across Africa and into your birth mom’s belly.  I hope you can feel my love.  God, please help my baby to feel my love.  God of miracles, surround my sweet Baby Dale with my love, which is really Your love, because You are love and You make it possible for me to love.

Ok…Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 came out last week.  I found myself drooling over my computer as I read reviews and feasted on eye-popping graphics.  I even dragged my wife over to my screen so she could share in my excitement, but she just stared at me with blank eyes and said, “I don’t get it.”  I carefully walked her through the new features and design enhancements of the game thinking that might help.  Nope.  Nothing.  Just a gentle smile to let me know she cared but I was definitely alone in my enthusiasm for this moment.

So here’s the point (if you actually need one beyond the video game) – several months ago, we decided to adopt.  The decision hit so quickly that it knocked the wind out of me, igniting a passion for orphans and Africa that I never expected.  Now I’ve been passionate about things before…started nonprofits, held fundraisers, designed collateral, blah, blah, blah…but this is different.  A true call of duty.  Since making our decision, we have received tremendous support from friends and family.  But every now and then a person stares at me from across the table with blank eyes and says, “I don’t get it” – even when I lay out all the reasons.  This bugs me.  After all, I’m an ENTJ; it’s in my DNA to convince people, even if it means I’ll lose friends and alienate family. However, I’ve recently come to realize something: they don’t have to “get it” to care about me or even support me.  It’s my call of duty not theirs. 

Romans 14:1 (The Message) says it all: “Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don’t see things the way you do. And don’t jump all over them every time they do or say something you don’t agree with — even when it seems that they are strong on opinions but weak in the faith department. Remember, they have their own history to deal with. Treat them gently.”

In the next few days, I will get our final documents notarized.  I will snuggle the final pieces of our Ethiopian dossier into a FedEx envelope and drop it into the mysterious box in front of the post office.  After three months of typing, printing, collecting, gathering, stamping, notarizing, meeting, calling, emailing, and investigating, I will hand these pages that I have lovingly assembled over to strangers, strangers who will ship them to and fro, stamp them some more, and eventually translate them into Amharic, this incredible language unique to Ethiopia.  These pieces of paper, my life rendered in black ink, will lead me to my child.  It’s strange.  With pregnancy, I had blood tests, peed in plastic cups, listened to the heartbeat, saw the squiggly ultrasound.  My eating changed.  My pooping changed.  My belly changed.  My butt definitely changed.  I had lab results and doctors’ appointments and birth classes.  With my next baby, I have these documents.  And now I’m sending them away.  I’ve hurried and hurried to get to this point when my baby is no longer waiting on me.  I’ve done my part.  And now…I wait.  This adoption is no longer in my hands, not that it ever was, but the small sense of control that I’ve felt over the last three months, the satisfaction of contributing, of working toward something, is leaving.  I wait.  I wait on strangers.  I wait on God.  With each of my children, God has called me to wait.  That’s my place, my journey.  It’s a familiar path, but no less painful, even after years of practice.  Painful, yet beautiful.  I’ve never felt more connected to the heart of God than in my waiting for children.  I want to hold my baby right now, but as I comtemplate the indefinite wait ahead, I know that God will use this uncertain time for His glory.  Will I waste it with anxious thoughts or will I choose to glorify God through my waiting?  God, let me choose the latter.

Tonight I’m just contemplating humility.  Humility is the most attractive quality in a person.  Humility in leaders makes me want to follow them.  Christ’s humility breaks down every claim that I think I have.  The closer I get to God, the more I discover His heart, the more I am broken by my own lack of humility.  He scrapes away layer upon layer of my pride to reveal new depths of selfishness, self-centeredness, and self-promotion.  The more humble I become, the more I ache with the knowledge that I’m not humble enough.  I’m not talking about self-flagellation and mea culpas.  I’m talking about an innate sacrifice entwined with the very core of my being.  “Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant” (Phil. 2).  That’s my model.  That’s a leader that I get excited about following.  What makes me think for a second that I can exalt in an accomplishment or consider myself above anyone?  My Lord took on the nature of a servant.  Am I living so that people will see the things that I do or the things that I wear, or am I living so that people will see the God that I serve, the God that humbled Himself enough to serve me?  I have no idea how to “accomplish” humility.  It’s not something you check off a list.  Hopefully, the closer I get to Jesus, the more I imitate Him, the more I will absorb His humility and start to exude it myself.  And I have a feeling that there will be many more of these nights, when I stare despairingly at my computer screen and come face to face with my self-absorption.

Just a few short months ago I didn’t think about orphans.  My heart didn’t shatter again and again into tinier and tinier pieces when I thought about children in institutions, children with no food, children with no mommies and daddies.  It seems like a lifetime ago.  Today, when Elliott bumps his head and runs to me for comfort, I have to choke back a lump when I think about the children who bump their heads and have no one to rub the pain away, to murmur, “Poor baby.”  I still call my mom from time to time when I need a “poor baby.”  When I have a tough day, when I’m sick and still have to take care of my child, make dinner, and straighten the house, I call Mom because I know that she’ll say, “Poor baby.”  She always has.  Every child needs a “poor baby” every now and then.  Elliott is getting so independent, but if he scrapes his knee, bangs his head, or gets his feelings hurt, he comes running and buries his head in my lap.  Poor baby.  Comfort.  I want every child to know that they’re someone’s baby.  That someone is ready to hold them and comfort them and take away the pain.  Today I think about orphans.  Today I pray that they would feel the comfort of the Father saying, “Poor baby.”  Today I pray that He would stir the hearts of His people to bring comfort to the little ones who need it.  Today is Orphan Sunday, but my question is what will you do with tomorrow?