Our Little Dove

2017 ended in the worst way imaginable when we lost Sparrow.

We had been praying for her for almost a year.  So many prayers.  And then, in an instant, she was gone.  Our dream of her joining our family shattered into a thousand little pieces; I stood in the middle of the shards trying to make sense of it all.  Only, none of it made sense.  I've come to the point of acceptance that I will never understand why it happened the way it did.  I also know that she will always be my little Sparrow.  In my heart, she will forever be my daughter.

I don't think I realized that amount of underlying stress and anxiety I had experienced while praying and waiting for her.  It was like a constant pressure on an open wound.

A week after the match devastation, the waiting child advocate sent me a file of a child.  In her email, she said the only reason she sent me the file was because of a conversation that she and I had a month prior, when I was still in the home study phase.  When you adopt, part of the process requires you to go through a checklist of special needs for which you are comfortable accepting.  It's an extremely bizarre experience and nothing about it feels good.  She and I were talking about that checklist and I casually told her how Kristen during adoption #1 vs Kristen during adoption #4 are two totally different people.  I've learned a thing or two along the way, and special needs that would have scared the bejeezus out me then, don't even cause me to bat an eye now.  Almost all of the medical challenges I've dealt with my girls were all things that were never disclosed in their files. 

 SURPRISE!  

You take in the information, process it, adjust, and move forward.  Because at the heart of it, is a child.  A child who needs a family to call their own.  A child who had no control over the special need assigned to them for the rest of their lives.  

She told me this child had been waiting for a very long time, almost two years.  She told me that this special need is one that adoptive parents are not pursuing.  She told me that there are many children with this need who continue to wait and wait and wait.

She told me that she thought about our conversation and wondered if I was interested.

I emailed her back and told her I wasn't interested.  I told her I didn't know if I would ever get to a point of considering another child.  I told her my heart was broken.

She responded.  She told me she was matched with a child for 18 months and then it all fell apart and she lost the child.  Eighteen months.  But then, she found her daughter.  She told me that people tried to tell her that she lost her first child so she would find her daughter.  She told me that she hated hearing things like that and knew I didn't want to hear it either.  She told me that she still thinks about the first child, but it is no longer with sadness.  I told her that I couldn't imagine.

The weeks passed, Christmas came and went, and with it, so did my hope of Sparrow ever coming back to us.  I stood at the edge of the new year and surrendered all of my dreams, hopes, desires, and plans for my family.  As I threw them over the cliffs, I told him not my will but his.  Blank canvas.  Have your way.  Do what you want with me.

He reminded me of Noah and the Ark.  This last year felt as if I built my own ark by stepping out in faith and pursuing Sparrow.  Then the rains came.  And it rained and it rained and it rained.  Tossed around by the storm of grief, I lost my orientation and became nauseous from processing her loss.  It felt as if the swells of raging emotions would never subside.

Then one morning after Christmas, I woke up and something was different.  The wave that used to knock me over the moment I opened my eyes, had become a gentle, rocking sway.  I opened the window of my ark and found the storm had ceased.  Still surrounded by water, I knew that underneath the sea, my landscape was forever changed.  

With each new day, the water began to subside.  Glimpses of sunshine through the love of my daughters felt warm on my face.  The lull from my sea of emotions became familiar and somewhat comforting; but ultimately, I wanted to step on dry land. 

I started to wonder how my new landscape would look.  I started and ended each day by staring at the horizon, hope slowly returning.  I waited for the day the little dove would return with an olive leaf in her mouth, signifying peace and new beginnings.

The waiting child advocate emailed me again.  She sent me the list of all the children for whom they advocated.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to open the attachment.  Something in my heart nudged me to do it.

I scrolled through the many faces.  Every one a jewel, just waiting for their family to find them to bring out their radiance that stays hidden behind empty eyes.

Pages and pages and pages.  

On the second to last page, I stopped.

There she was.

The little girl the advocate had emailed me weeks ago.

Still waiting.

I stared at her little face.  This sweet child who has no control over the future that's in front of her.  

Waiting.

I hit reply.

I asked to see her complete file but deep in my heart, I already knew what I was going to do.  

I knew that I was going to change her status from Waiting Child to Daughter.

My daughter.

Their Sister.

Family.

I am officially matched!

Her orphanage sent us a little video and we all gathered around to catch a glimpse of her sweet personality.

The girls are thrilled for their new sister and my heart is filling with love for her.

But I am changed.  

My landscape is nothing like what it was before.

 God brought me to a deeper place of acceptance and to a fuller understanding of what it truly means to adopt.   Knitting her into the fabric of our family is an honor and obedience of faith.

This precious child coming into our lives is 100% because of total surrender to God and letting him paint on the canvas of my life.

Our little dove fluttered into our lives at the end of a typhoon season and she has brought a sense of peace that I can't describe.  But one thing I can say is that through all of this, God never left me.  We've opened the door from our ark and let down the ramp.  As we step into our new beginnings onto dry land, we know that God is creating beauty from ashes.  We are walking into the new day rising and I know deep within me, 

all is well.

Surrendered Faith

My "word" for 2017 was metamorphosis.

I'd say this year hit that nail on the head.

I am not the same person I was on December 31, 2016.  However, my vision of what I thought the word metamorphosis would mean in my life versus God's version are polar opposite.

This past year, my faith has been stretched, bruised, snapped, and fractured.  The beautiful result of all the trials and heartache I've endured is a depth in my relationship with Christ that I've never before experienced.   I've grown in ways I didn't know were possible and quite honestly, ways that my human self never would have chosen.  

Losing Sparrow the very hour I was finally able to be matched with her has been brutal.  I covered her in prayer for almost a year.

And then, she was gone.  

It threw me into a tailspin of questioning; a vicious cycle of never-ending whys.  Why did God allow that?  Why did he bring her into my life?  Why did he knit her so deeply into my heart?  Why did he give me such a powerful dream about her?  Why did he provide signs and assurance along the way?  Why did he open the pathway to her just to slam the door at the last minute?  Why did he allow me to experience such excruciating heartbreak?  All of those and more led to further questioning:  

Do I even know God's voice?

I've been a believer and follower of Christ for many, many years and this question shook me to the core.  I thought I knew his voice.  I study his word.  I pray all of the time.  I seek wise counsel.  How could I have been so far off?  It's like I took a hard left when really I was supposed to go right.

I was content to be finished with adoption.  My girls have been the biggest blessings ever and I'm beyond thankful I get to be their mom.  They are thriving and we were ready for the next chapter.

And then he brought me Sparrow.

I go over and over and over all of the details but I never get an answer to my why.  This last month since I lost her, has felt like my faith played a giant game of Jenga.  I pulled perseverance from the bottom and precariously perched it on top.  Hope was drawn out from the middle and I tried to slide it in next to perseverance.  Trust was pulled and gently placed on hope.  Finally, I carefully extracted faith from the foundation of this structure and gingerly placed it at the very top.  

And it all came crashing down.

In my tirade of emotions, I took my arm, angrily swiped it over the panel, and sent the pieces hurling into the air.

I sat staring at the blank game board of my life.

Where do I go from here?  How do I move forward?  This adoption journey has consumed the last eight years of my life.  I've been stuck in what feels like quicksand; a perpetual land of waiting, where the only movement I felt was the ground sinking beneath me.

***

I bought Roopa a Batman big wheel for Christmas.  She didn't even know they existed.  It came complete ~ decked out with stickers, rims, and alllllll the buttons you ever wanted to push.  Each one with flashing lights and a corresponding command:  "Moving left!"  "Let's get to work!" and of course, the Batman theme.  This gift elevated me to new heights in Roopa's mind.  Her eyes filled with wonder and excitement.

"Mommy, how did you even know I wanted this?  Oh, wait.  I know.  You used your mommy powers!"

I laughed and then grew quiet.

As Roopa's mom, I see her in ways others don't.  I know her heart.  I know her reactions.  I know her deepest desires and her greatest fears.  I know how she responds to correction.  I know how she processes new information.  I know how she learns and plays and thinks deeply about life. I know her gifts and talents.  I know where she needs growth.   I know all of these things and more because I am her mom and she is my daughter.  I spend almost every moment of every day with her.  I knew that she would love that gift.  I knew that because I know her. So even though Roopa had no knowledge of its existence, I knew.  And it brought me great joy to give it to her.

In my questioning and my doubt, God used Roopa to reveal more of himself to me.  I will never understand his ways.  I will never get an answer to my whys.  I will never be able to see things the way he sees them.  I will never understand his theology.  He will always be a mystery to me.  

The only thing I do know, is his character.  I know he is always good.  I know he loves me more than anyone ever could.  I know he will never leave me.  I know he is always with me ~ in the deepest depths of grief and the highest mountaintops of joy.  I know that his plans for me are good.  I know he wants to transform me; he leads me through the refiner's fire to make me more like Christ.  He is the potter.  I am the clay.  He molds, bends, and shapes me.  Sometimes, I become hardened, which makes his work more difficult.  He adds water through my tears spilled during trials and tribulations to once again bring me to a place of pliability.  

He is the God of the universe and the Creator of everything and everyone.

Who am I to even slightly begin to understand his ways, his thoughts, his plans?

So I enter 2018 with the words, "Surrendered Faith."  

I have no idea what his plans are for me or my family.  I don't know if he will bring Sparrow back to me.  I am hoping against hope he will.  I don't know what the next chapter will entail.

What I do know is that he loves me and wherever he calls me, it will be good.  It might not be good in the initial way I see it, but he has a way of washing away the dirt and dust that clouds the mirror through which I view myself.   He draws me closer to him so that I can see through his filter the beauty he has crafted within me.

I walk into this new year with a blank canvas, open arms, and no vision of my own.

I humbly await to see the brushes he puts into my hands and the colors he chooses for my palette.  

I know that by letting him guide my hand, whatever he paints into my life this year will be a masterpiece.  I've painted enough to know that a truly beautiful work of art is not just made of highlights.  Shadows are critical to the depth of emotion that is elicited from viewing such a showpiece. 

 I am at a point of total surrender; knowing that he will lead me to the mountaintops this year holds for me, but more importantly, he will carry me through the deepest, darkest valleys. 

I learned this truth, however painful it was.  

My God will always be with me.

"Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever."

Psalm 23:6

Not By Sight

May 26, 2017, God gave me a specific promise about Our Little Sparrow that she is ours.  Even though it right now it seems impossible, I know that God's promise will prevail.  

He does not lie.  

He intended her for our family and on the day that I can finally share her story, it will be clear TO ALL how perfect his plan is and why she fits perfectly in our family.  

It. Will. Blow. Your. Mind.

So now, I'm patiently waiting as the Holy Spirit continues his work, removing the mountains that stand in the way of bringing God's promise to fruition.

Can I get a witness? Amen to the glory of God!

Mohini True Home Forever!

So many emotions wrapped up in this video.  I have a gazillion unwritten blog posts in my mind to describe all that we experienced while we were in India, but for now...

Much love to all of you who have followed along showering us with your love, support, encouragement, and prayers!