This was originally posted on
Valentine's Day, but it was brought to my attention that only the title was showing up and not the entire post. Thanks for nothing Blogger!
I wrote this article for my local
MOPS newsletter. I had a really hard time writing it and I'm still not certain that I said waht I was trying to say and that I even agree with everything I said. It's a complicated topic laid out by less than fluid ability, which makes it rocky all the way around. Be that as it may, here it is. I'd also like to give a shout out to
Chrissy for helping me through the process!
Before we get to the serious business of today's post, but while we're on the subject of
LOVE...you should checkout my first
giveaway because you are going to LOVE having the opportunity to win a one of a kind of knitted hat or bonnet or slippers for your little
Valentine.
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The United States Postal Service has a good motto, but their dedication cannot compare to the power of a mother's love--neither spit up, nor blow-out diapers, not vomit, nor middle-school-drama can stop us from loving our children. Because of our great love we would do
anything to protect our children. We live for them. We would die for them. It's not about convenience, (it's sure as hell not about sleeping anymore), it's not about us at all. It's about love.
Love like that has a price though. In this country, we say, "I love her and so I had to let her go" and we mean that we watched her ride the bus to school for the first time like a big girl. Sometimes the price is higher than that.
Could you kiss your child goodbye for the last time? Could you say goodbye knowing that she can't understand? That she'll call another woman mama? You'll never feel her sweet arms squeezing you in a hug, you'll never see her face as an adult, you'll never see her children. Never. Again.
Do you have enough love that would allow you to hand your change to a loving stranger and walk away forever because that's how much you love that child, you're willing to pay that price of sacrifice so she doesn't have to.
Such is the legacy of love my daughter has.
My family is adopting a toddler from Ethiopia. She will become our daughter through the greatest gift and greatest sacrifice that a parent can make. I don't know if I have that depth of love, I hope I do, I pray I never have to.
One thing for certain,
my daughter will know that her first mother had that great love, that she ended up in our imperfect, but loving family, because of a love that refused to see her suffer from preventable causes, left hungry, or without an education. Her first mother had a love that knew no bounds and didn't stop in Ethiopia, but reached around the world and is changing my life and my heart.
Love is
NOT about
flowers,
chocolates,
romantic cards, and
candlelight. Love is about giving of yourself until it hurts, until you've reached the bottom of what you have the capability to give and then reaching deep and finding more. Real love is not beautiful and sugary sweet, it's actually staring into nitty-gritty, dirty details, and nastiness of another person and pulling them to you despite it all.
The Bible says that "perfect love casts out fear". It's true, but that's big stuff, not something we can do on our own. Perfect love is what God offers us through the gift of his Son, redemption from death and suffering, and a place in his family, adopted. When you're enveloped in that perfect love you don't fear because you know that the One who loves you like that has nothing but good in store for your life.
Throughout this adoption process I've been given glimpses of God's perfect love and my own well-intentioned, but far inferior version of love. My best efforts to love leave me riddled with fears...will we get the money we need in time...will my boys be okay while I'm away...will I be okay so far away from my boys...will this daughter that I love but have never seen be terrified of me...am I ruining my family...will we have trouble bonding..do I really have to drive a minivan...? It turns out that on my own I am not very brave and I am a slow student when it comes to trusting that perfect love that has
never let me down yet.
And just like a loving parent God always calms my fears from the ridiculous phobia of driving a minivan before I'm thirty to the mundane (and so typical for me)worries about money to the far more serious worries about bonding. He doesn't shame, humiliate or punish to teach me a lesson. He wraps me in his perfect love again and again and soothes. He shows me how his hand has guided my story. He reminds me that his checkbook is bigger than mine. He points my memory back to the ways that he's provided for us so far. He puts levelheaded friends in my path when I want to panic. He continues to show me that each time a fear comes up that I have to trust more in his love, trust that he only wants the best for me as his child.
God is patient with me through this process. He doesn't rush me, doesn't try and force me to trust his love (good for an adoptive parent to remember!). He accepts my trembling steps as faith as I grow and together through the redemption of adoption, we're bringing home my sweet little girl. And she will know, as I know, that she loved not only by me, but by her first mother half a world away, and not only by her two mothers, but from the majesty of heaven above with the perfect love that only comes from God.
Loved.
Redeemed.
Adopted.
