OK...so this is what happens when I write and then post as soon as I finish...I forget all the things. So I'm adding a post script (aka P.S.) to my last post. If you haven't read it yet, you might want to start there and then come back here.
P.S. Before I even turned the last page in Looking for Lovely I purchased a copy from Amazon. Because I knew I was going to need it in my life and I was going to need to read it over and over and over again. And because I need to let some people borrow it. Or I'm going to force some people to read it.
P.P.S. I know I said I wasn't trying to rip off Annie F. Downs...but I totally am. So, Annie...if you ever find yourself reading my piddly blog, please know that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
P.P.P.S. In my post, I mentioned that I started walking April 2nd and I want to clear this up for you folks living in NC. I am not walking at that little park near my work right now. Because highs in the 90's + 1000% humidity are not my thing. But I plan to return once the temps and the humidity lower a bit.
Now that I have that all out of the way...
I have been watching an adoption unfold on Instagram and it has been the loveliest of stories. Sometime after I returned from my first mission trip to Armenia, I stumbled upon an Instagram account that I fell in love with. I literally spent the next 2 hours looking at every post, reading every caption, crying over sweet babes that had been abandoned and given hope. Sometimes their happy ever after story was found here on earth...sometimes in the arms of Jesus. Watching these little lives come and go has been such a bittersweet and beautiful journey. I've laughed...I've cried...I've sat in awe at the stories that God has woven together. Truly amazing.
I don't know when Toby arrived at Morning Star...it seems that he has been there forever. A tiny warrior with a broken heart, both physically and emotionally. He was declared "inoperable" by Chinese standards...so a team from America came and gave hope to this sweet boy. He is brother to Theo and Chara and all of the other babies at Morning Star. And over the last 2 weeks or so, I've watched his story change as he has gone from abandoned and orphaned to loved and wanted and adored. The truly amazing part is that I've been able to see both sides - from the side of those who are releasing him into the arms of a loving adoptive family and from the side of that loving adoptive family receiving him into their family. Forever theirs.
And it has been beautiful. And heart breaking. All at the same time.
Because while he has gained a forever family to care for him and to love him, he leaves behind the only true family he has known in his little life. Brothers and sisters and Ayi's and Meredith's...people who are not biological family any more than his adoptive family, but family nonetheless.
I have always loved the picture that adoption paints. People choosing to love a child forever...not because biology says they must, but because they want to. I know people on all sides of adoption...and no matter what, the story always contains loss and gain. Love and heartache. Beauty and sadness. Release and redemption. A picture of God's release of His Son Jesus to be our redemption. The choice on both sides to allow one who didn't belong, who was abandoned, who had no claim to be a part of a family to become completely a part of a new family...to belong and to be loved.
I don't deserve God's love, grace, kindness, redemption...but I've received it. I received it because I believed and I chose to accept all of these things...knowing they weren't what I deserved but what God wanted to me to have.
And that is a lovely picture to behold.
No comments:
Post a Comment