Jack is coming home!

Really? Are you certain?

Yes!

Really!!

We are going! It is finally, finally time to step out into the world and go for our son. Finally.

Sinking spells? No time! There is much to do!

Manic. This sounds decidedly manic, and that is because I am.

You see, I had begun to believe that there was a place called "Nevergonnahappen" where our adoption paperwork lived. Lived and thrived. Right down to a predictable "and they lived happily ever after."

Well, I've checked the atlas! Pingdingshan is real, and Henan is real, and China is real, and nowhere on Google Earth is there a place near there named "Never". (You know I'd have gotten a drop-down box, so I stopped at Never :-) )

I'm packing!

Jack, I want to remember everything, good and bad, easy and hard that has happened since we saw your face on CCAI's website, and breathed the prayer.... "please".

I want you to hear me laugh and cry and proclaim, "God is good!".

What a sorry specimen I have been. How often I have doubted the timing of this journey.

As the months passed, I have to confess that I nearly lost hope. Other adoptive families received glorious updates, pictures, videos for crying out loud, while we heard very little. Other families traveled for their children while we redid home studies, moved to a new town, and struggled to make a house into a home.

And there is my problem. With me, Jackson, I'm prone to look at what the "others" are up to. But when my eyes are elsewhere, I miss my own "here and now". The good diminishes in comparison, the bad increases. Not the testimony I should have, but there it is.

Well, Jack, from this side of our travel approval, let me bring you up to date!

You are finally coming home:

Home to sister who has longed for you terribly and can't wait to meet you. She has insisted that there are noodles in the pantry.... stacks and stacks of noodles, and she's learned some pretty amazing recipes from Northern China to tempt your palate. Oh, and we have enough back-up rice to last a decade in case our noodle prediction is flawed.

Home to your brother, who at long last grasps the reality of having you IN PERSON, and he is giddy with joy, almost to the point that he'll share his toys. Almost. We'll work on that...

Home to a wonderful extended family... Grandparents, Super Nana, aunts, uncles, cousins... who all want to meet you as much as we want you to meet them.

Home to a church family who is almost as excited as we are, and who will be there to help you get adjusted to your new home and family, and to pray us through the rough spots.

Home to a little town near the sea, where a lovely gray heron comes some mornings to bless us from his place at the pond's edge; a town where people are friendly, and boats wait at the wharf, promising bright summer days ahead.

But first, Daddy and I are coming for you! We will leave here excited, get there tired, and prepare to have our world turned upside down two days later when we finally meet you. We can't wait! Your daddy had hernia surgery last week and can't lift more than ten pounds, so we are bringing balloons and bubbles and LIGHT stuff to play with. He will try to lift you, and we won't let him, for his own good. Will you sit on his lap instead?

And me, well, I'm giddy, Jackson! I am trying hard to have no expectations. I recognize and believe that you are going to be hard pressed as we make this adjustment of bringing you into our family. Don't feel bad, I probably will be too. Yes it's what I want, I understand it, I have chosen it, I have longed for it. And I expect it to be a challenge.

How then will it be for you.  You, who do not understand it, did not choose it?

My prayer is that you will be at peace. That somehow in the strangeness of it all you will feel safety and love. If you don't feel them immediately, we will help you to learn those words and grow to feel them.

Oh Jack, what will you be like? Are you funny? Are you quiet? Do you like to play? Do you like to read? Will your hurts be on the surface, or will we have to plumb the depths of your heart to find them and help you heal?

I can't believe that I will finally get to know you.

I can't believe that I will finally have the privilege of sharing your world. How can it be that I get to love you, to teach you, and share with you what Jesus means to me?

See why I'm giddy?

Greater things are yet to come, greater things are still to be done....

Yes indeed!

See you soon, Jack! I love you...

Mama

R is for Ready!

The old adage that "no news is good news" doesn't hold true for me. When things are going well, it will be duly noted. Hard times, sad stuff... don't expect the written word from these quarters. That’s why it’s been so quiet here.

Now, however, the wind grows favorable again for Jackson's homecoming, as I knew it one day would, even when my heart wouldn't allow me to feel it.

We started down this leg of our adoption itinerary way back in 2006, and thought we'd finally ...well, to stick with the trip analogy: get there. Make it. Arrive the summer of 2011.

It really looked like we were headed that way when in early May, a new job for Alan dropped into our already full laps. Hidden in that good news was a major hiccup: the realization that we could not move forward on the adoption until we settled in our new locale and submitted a home study update.  Somehow, we managed to choose a home that would take us over three months to bring to closing. So the home study update was terribly, painfully delayed.

So the summer turned out quite differently from the one we’d envisioned when we submitted our paperwork for Jackson all those long months ago.  But we managed to keep busy…

First of all, by travelling to a wedding!  My beautiful niece Andrea married her love Matt in a gorgeous ceremony... always the perfect excuse to draw close to extended family. What a time of relaxation, joy, and FUN!  

We also cheered from the sidelines and prayed with exceedingly great joy as my dear Texas penpal and her family went to China and brought home their beautiful daughter. God is so very good! Welcome home Little One!

We said farewell (sniff) to the Harry Potter movie run…

And hello to Hurricane Irene.

And finally, after two months of maintaining separate households and another two months in a summer rental, we closed on our new home, tossed the welcome mat in front of a pile of boxes and called our home study agency.

So the adoption train is back on the track (am I mixing my metaphors, and does it really matter?), we are full tilt into a beautiful autumn with our sights set (once again) on China. The grip of despair has loosened on the part of this mama's heart that could not accept or stand the delay, no matter the circumstances that brought it to bear.

R is also for refreshed. I am. No, the house isn't perfect, but B is for Basement and Basement is for BOXES, so there's a place to sit upstairs, and we'd love to see you. Come for a visit.

But you'd better hurry.

We are getting ready to go to China, you know!　

Fingerprints!

Another step closer!  Today, we had our biometric fingerprint appointment with the United States Government.  This is the last government tasking we will undertake prior to receiving our approval to go for Jackson. 


 

Jackson, that exercise in bureaucracy, those fingerprints, mean something to someone who wants to know you will be safe here.     You will be.

 

I have never before felt such a strong compulsion to come for you.  You see, there is much amiss in the world. Many, many suffer, and we wonder and we pray.


The tragedy unfolds in Japan, and I want you close, under my wings. And yet, closer to home, and closer to my heart, a fearful, heart-breaking, wonderful thing has happened.

We have just come home from Texas, and there we said a goodbye that we had not planned to say. There we said goodbye to a child whom we expected would grow up knowing you.

Thank you to Wikipedia, which provides:

“A fingerprint in its narrow sense is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. In a wider use of the term, fingerprints are the traces of an impression from the friction ridges of any part of a human hand. A print from the foot can also leave an impression of friction ridges. A friction ridge is a raised portion of the epidermis on the fingers and toes, the palm of the hand or the sole of the foot, consisting of one or more connected ridge units of friction ridge skin.”

A friction ridge...

The past several days have been one of the most God-honoring “friction ridges” I have ever had the privilege to walk.

In these beautiful days of preparation before Easter, I have watched a beloved family love and leave a tiny little boy, whose short time in the womb may well be the vessel by which the Bread of Life is offered to many. I watched a Mama open her heart and her womb, and let go a child called too soon to glory. I watched a father weep and tell the beautiful story of how those tiny lips were his mama’s lips; how his tiny hands were perfect.

Fingerprints ~

Friction Ridges ~

I watched brothers, too young to bear such grief, bear it with dignity.

I want to tell you about his feet. Liam’s feet.  Feet that were the size of his mama’ s fingernail.    Liam’s feet hold the majesty of a Creator God who, to quote his pastor, “does not do random”.

How lovely on the mountain are the feet of Him who brings good news.

Liam has that good news. Liam will never tread the path of sin, or feel the thorns of life’s pain. We rejoice. And yet we tread the deep water of anguish ~ missing him.

“A print from a foot can also leave an impression of friction ridges.”     Liam has left such an impression on many.

It was a terrible, strange, and stormy March morning when his mama called to tell me he was gone. I felt angry and tossed and dangerous at this news. And I felt that God, in that unexpected weather, was forgiving me those unaccustomed feelings.

God is faithful. As we stood at the cemetery a week later and watched his family say goodbye, the sun fell hot on my back, burning through my dress, reminding me that Liam is in a place of wonderful Light.

“consisting of one or more connected ridge units of friction ridge skin.”

You have no idea, Jackson, how each moment of the last week was orchestrated with great care for Liam‘s family. God connected many, many people through those “friction ridges“. This is how our God works! He draws us forth, He pulls us together. He uses the least of us to see that fingerprints ~and footprints~ are remembered forever. He takes these friction ridges and He connects them across years and miles to show His love. For Liam. For Liam’s family. For You.

We are all being swept forward, as Liam was swept Heavenward. This will be a story of God’s faithfulness that I will ever be glad to tell you. To proclaim to you what God was doing, as you waited in Henan.  His fingerprints were all over it.