Three years ago, we went to the store and let the kids pick out gifts for Aida’s first birthday. We took them home and taped them up with red and white wrapping paper and hopes and dreams and longing. We stored them in my closet for later. For when we would bring her home. A promise for one day.
I have a confession to make. Three years later and they are still sitting, red and white (and a little torn), at the bottom of my closet. Most of her things we packed away in a box. We gave away her crib. We donated the stroller. We put away all the little baby things in our garage. But, for some reason, I can’t seem to move these two packages. Can’t figure out what to do with them. These two gifts unopened. A promise broken. Life just doesn’t turn out the way we expect…the way we hope, dream, and long for. It happens to all of us…in some small or great ways. We have a future in our mind and then that future becomes our present and we collide (sometimes gracefully, sometimes clumsily) with the reality of our unmet expectations. And we mourn for what should have been, could have been. The baby we never held, the job we never achieved, the relationship that never healed, the school we never attended, the child who never grew up, the place we never lived, the moments never celebrated, the marriage we never had. All these little red gifts sitting at the bottom of our closet never opened. 2015 felt a little like the year of reality of unmet expectations. Our youngest started kindergarten, and I had no babies at home to take care of. I could go back to work because there were no longer children at home. We visited Africa for the first time (it was a wonderful trip), but not to meet her like we always thought. We moved forward in a completely different direction in the adoption process; trying not to reel at the closed doors and to be grateful for the open ones. It’s here in the hard realities, the crushed dreams, the stings that we are reminded—He is the best actuality, He is the greatest hope, He is the most soothing balm. He sits with us on the bottom of the closet with the unopened presents, and He says, “I am the ultimate gift”. And I've realized that it's in the unmet expectations of life that we understand it more fully; this world is not our home. It’s not the place where we will be complete; where we will have everything we need and want. It is now that we tredge and stumble through the mud with Him, so that one day we can dance free and graceful before Him. It’s in our broken dreams that we’re reminded: eternity with Him is the sweetest thing to long for. This morning, I got up early and set in the stillness of a house asleep. I thought about her four years of life so far and how she lost parents as an infant, how she left the only place (her transition home) and caregivers she had ever known when she was a toddler, and how (we believe) she now lives in a overcrowded and understaffed orphanage. I thought about her growing up and, with a catch in my throat, I wondered if she would ever even have dreams, plans, hopes, expectations. The thought took my breath away. Because having no hopes at all seems harder than having hopes unrealized. I pulled out my journal and wrote my birthday prayer for her. That she would have someone at the orphanage who had a gentle touch, a soft answer, an encouraging word. I believe it earnestly and pray it desperately: just one kind person in a world of harshness would make all the difference in her present and in her future. Just one person to be dependable, to feel like family, to stick up for her, to share a secret with, to bring a smile to her face in a world where smiles are few. Please Lord, don’t let it be too much to ask for just one. But mostly just one person to whisper His name to her. One person to tell her He was the balm she needed. One person to tell her what she already understands so well—that the world is harsh and undependable and crushing. He is peace and steadiness and healing. He wants to give her future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11). One person to tell her, He is the best birthday gift. So today, this week, in honor of her birthday, I am praying He will show me to whom I should be that one person. I can give someone the only hug they received today, the only encouraging word, the only friendly smile, the only listening ear. I can be the one person who speaks truth and life and love to someone. Father, use me to make a difference in someone’s present so they have hope for You in their future. I can’t give her the little red presents wrapped up in my closet. I can’t be her one person. But I can pray that someone else will be. And I can pray that I can be that one person for someone else. And those are my dreams, my little hopes born fresh this morning. Can you be the one person for someone today?
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Some days there are no words. No beautiful phrases or metaphors or poetic similes. No new divine revelations. No sweet stories to share.
Today is one of those days. Today is Aida's third birthday. Here is what I wrote on the blog two years ago on this day. Here is what I wrote on the blog last year on this day. And here is a small part of what I wrote last year in my journal on January 6th, 2013: "Draw her to You, Lord. Let her come know to You personally and intimately and experience Your saving grace. Let her live her life for You in the richness and joy of obedient faith. Help us release her to You and Your plan. Now and always. No matter what happens. You know we love and yearn for her Lord. We know You love and yearn for her more." So today, when there are no words... I'll remember last year's. Happy birthday, darling Aida. Praying every day for a family you can call your own. It all began with a red heart. A red heart created in Sunday school, colored and cut out, and brought to me by a 6 year old boy. “It’s for you, Mama.” And I smiled at a gift all simple and innocent and beautiful and leaned it against a jar on my desk. Later, one word was added in black. A name scribbled in kid font. And he brought it to me again all sheepish smiles, handing me his love for his sister on a crumbled piece of paper. His heart for Aida. And I brushed away tears and we hung it on my bulletin board. Months later, I finally managed to put together the Christmas cards I’d been dreading and I stared at the stack of envelopes all ready to be stuffed on my desk. But I felt lost. How could I send them…cards with 1/5th of our family missing? An all too familiar ache and confusion caught in my throat. And then I saw it. The red heart. I recruited some help. Our boy drew his heart for me again and this time he added two more words. His daddy scanned it and shrunk it and copied it over and over. Then our little artists, the three year old and six year old, sat down. They colored and painted and created 80 hearts all unique, all special, all perfect. And we finished our magnets and slipped them into envelopes now exactly the right amount of full. Sweet pictures began to creep up in my Instagram feed with colorful hearts and some on my facebook wall. And I felt like a little soothing balm had been applied to my aching soul. Christmas break we traveled over the river and through the woods to Georgia and then North Carolina. And for two days on our long way home to Texas, as we traveled through hills and trees, and over long bridges, and through big cities and middle of nowhere back roads, I thought about her and what was coming. Her 2nd birthday. And I thought about her 1st birthday and how I never dreamed then that I would celebrate her next one without her too. And I thought about the moment months ago when I quietly released my hope that she would be home for Christmas, be home for her birthday. And I thought about how I didn’t know what to buy my daughter for her birthday because I didn’t know her. And I thought about her birthday gifts from last year wrapped and unopened at the top of my closet. And I wondered and we discussed and I prayed over and over as we drove, what do we do for her birthday? What do we give to a child we don’t know? Can’t see? Can’t sing too? And I thought about the heart. And the last words added to it. Pray for Aida. And I breathed deep, knowing the answer fully. We could give her the gift of prayer for her 2nd birthday. What better gift could we give her? But not just us praying for her. I could beg and plead and rally the saints. I could use this blog that I have forsaken and ask you humbly, graciously… will you help these weary parents give a birthday gift to our daughter? Will you cover her in prayer today? Will you give 2 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour? Will you ask our Father to work His best out for her, no matter what that looks like, regardless of whether it involves us? Ask Him to protect her and love her and draw her to know Him, please? And if you give this most precious of birthday gifts to our girl, will you do one of two things? 1. Comment below with your name so we can write it on a heart for her. 2. Or print out the hearts from the file at the bottom of this page, write your name on one, and stick it in the mail to us so we actually have it in your handwriting (send us a message for our address)! One day, Lord willing, we will make something with all the “hearts for Aida” and give them, the physical symbol of all the prayers lifted up on her behalf, as a gift to her. So, today on our darling Aida’s second birthday, we celebrate her. We celebrate the beautiful child that Our Creator brought into being 2 years ago and even then, set into motion writing His perfect story for her life. We celebrate the Aida that we may never know but yearn and beg and plead for; the Aida that is known and loved fully by Him. And we ask you to celebrate with us too. Will you give her the birthday gift of praying for her today and write your name into her story? Your heart for Aida.
My darling Aida,
I wrapped a gift for you today. We took your big brother and big sister to pick it out. I slid it under my bed for the future. Today is your first birthday (or what we currently have as your birthday but that’s another story). There are no candles to blow out and no cake for you to eat. The birthday banner is still tucked in its drawer. You aren’t here. Not yet. I sure wish you were. Today, I am mourning. And today, I am celebrating (at least I’m trying to). I am mourning this birthday without you -- your very first one. I am mourning that there will be no first birthday pictures, no off-key birthday song, and no rocking you to sleep tonight while I think about the past year. I am mourning that you are in a transition home and that I don't know if there is any celebration for you today. I am celebrating for the promise of future birthdays when you will be here to blow out candles and open gifts and to run around laughing and celebrating with your siblings. I don’t take the gift of hope for a future lightly; there are mommies and daddies who don’t have it. I am mourning all that I have missed already, all the big milestones and all the simple ordinary moments that will have made you into the one-year-old we will bring home. I am sad because I will be able to tell your big brother and sister about the first time they laughed and rolled over, but I won’t be able to tell you about when you did those things. I am celebrating the moments I won’t miss and the memories we will make together and the years to come: holidays, first bicycle rides, late-night conversations, proms, laughter, tears, pillow fights, and college applications. I am mourning all that you have lost and all the hardships that you have come through in the short little span of your life. I am mourning because our gain came from someone else’s loss, and that we live in a world where such things as poverty and hunger and grief exist. I am celebrating that God in His wisdom can make something beautiful out of tragedy and that through it I will get to be your mother, I will be the one you call Mom and the one who gets to kiss your boo-boos and argue with you over eating vegetables and tuck you in at night and wipe your tears when you are sad and laugh with you when you are happy. I am mourning for you the loss of your background and the knowledge of where you came from -- the loss of living in the country where you were born and having the same color skin as your family, the loss of knowing how to fill out the form at the doctor’s office that asks for your family medical history, the loss of your culture, the loss of hearing about how you have your grandma’s eyes and your dad’s chin, and the story about the moment your mom first felt you kicking in her belly. The loss of knowing your biological family in an intimate way. I am celebrating the future Aida I will know and celebrating because while your past is a part of you, it is not all of you. Celebrating that we get to walk beside you when you grieve all that you lost and that we will be here to help you sort through all the little pieces that remain and try to make sense of it all. I am celebrating because you may not look like the father you are gaining but you might share his laugh or pick up his mannerisms. You will get to wrestle with him and hear his prayers for you and sit in his lap and one day know how much he longed for his second daughter to come home. And I am celebrating because you will gain an amazing brother and an amazing sister who pray for you every day, talk about you all the time, and keep your photo by their bed. Get ready, sweetie, I’m not sure they will be able to contain their excitement when you finally come home. I am mourning for all the other orphans you leave behind: for the ones who will not have a home and family and who will spend their days in an orphanage or in foster care and will spend their adult years trying not to become what the statistics say they will. I am celebrating that you will have a home and a family and you will not live in poverty or in a transition home or an orphanage all of your childhood; I am celebrating that you are one less orphan out of the 5 million reported orphans in your country. I am mourning because I know that our first interaction will not be of you running to me and hugging me and thanking me for coming to get you, but it will involve distress in your eyes and fear in your heart because we will smell weird and talk weird and look weird and threaten the only world you know. And I mourn because I know the moment we’ve been working for and wanting so badly -- getting to take you home -- will be one of the most difficult moments, because our baby won’t want to come home with us. I am celebrating because we will work through it and it will be hard and challenging and exhausting but worth it. Oh, so worth it. I am mourning because this year I didn’t hang an ornament on our tree that said “baby’s first Christmas,” and because this year I opened your gifts, and you spent Christmas day in a transition home millions of miles away from us. I am celebrating because next year we will know what size you wear and what toy might make you laugh, and we will add your stocking to the others, and you will actually be in your chair at our table as we walk through advent each day and we will rejoice together over what the season celebrates. I am mourning because just a few weeks ago, I read about your favorite foods and the number of your teeth on a form. I am celebrating that soon I will know what to cook you for dinner and that I’ll be able to count your teeth for myself. I am mourning because there are lots of people where you come from who have never heard the Good News and will never find freedom and peace and joy in knowing Him. I am celebrating because we get to share the gospel with you, we get to tell you about Jesus and whisper His promises in your ear and pray for His name to be written across your heart. I am crying for you today my darling: tears of sorrow and tears of joy. And I remind myself, “Weeping may last for the night but joy comes in the morning.” Someday someone might try to tell you that you are “lucky” that we rescued you and changed your life. But I hope you know the truth we already know … HE rescued us, HE pulled us up out of the pits and adopted us. And we are just two flawed people clumsily trying to live out the grace we have been given, doing what parents do and loving our child, our daughter, our gift. We are “lucky”. We are changed already … because of you. Happy birthday, my sweet Aida. I am praying you home. Love, Mama |
AuthorWe are a family of five (Ben, Beth, Tucker, Libby, and Zane). We started this blog during our 7 year journey to bring home a child through adoption. This is our story of how God is faithful in the good, the bad, and all the in between. Archives
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