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.



Winter Blessings

It’s official… We have received approval from the Chinese government to adopt our new son. We can now tell the world and celebrate publicly. Welcome Jackson Chao Ju Alan Barringer!  This has all just transpired so there is a lot we don't know.  As the days go by, we will update here when we will travel, who will be going, how you can pray.  Meanwhile....

Exceed / Hold Up

Here is everything we do know:
Chao means “exceed”
Ju means “hold up”
We love these names
He is 5 ½ years old
He is from the Henan province, and he lives in the Pingdingshan Social Welfare Institute (orphanage)
He is named for three godly men. His daddy,
CS “Jack” Lewis, and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson
We love him


Once upon a time in the cotton fields of Missouri, I played with my baby dolls in the hot summer sun, and imagined a life of motherhood. I don’t believe I’d ever heard of adoption. Or infertility. Or of how hard life is. There were hints of pain, whispers of tragedy, but by and large I thought that those things wouldn’t happen to me when I was “big".


When I got big, grew up and went looking for work, I applied for my first full-time job at a bank. The manager asked me where I saw myself in ten years. I smiled and said, “Being a mama.” He didn't hire me.


It took a few more years than the ten I’d predicted in that interview, but I did get the mama job.


Have you ever wrestled with Palm 37:4, the part that says that God will give you the desires of your heart. I have struggled with it, and sometimes railed against it. Does it mean He gives you those things you desire, like a Divine Dispenser of the good things you ask for, or that He places the desires within you and you are left to grapple with them?


Could I have known all those years ago, a silly young woman in a business suit and too high heels, sitting in a bank, what “being a mama” would bring?


What if I had known? I would not have changed my mind, but perhaps I would have said it with a little more dignity. A little more gravity.


Motherhood is a fearsome and wonderful calling. There is joy unimaginable. Fulfillment found nowhere else. And yet, for me, it has had it’s difficulties.


Year upon year of month upon month of anguish when another opportunity for conception had failed.
Striving, striving for a marriage in which two very imperfect people try not just to be good partners but to be good parents together.


Watching those we love live in ways we cannot control. Watching our hopes fade, and seasons change, and sometimes seasons of life go forever, while trying to remember and make sense of a God who gives us the desires of our heart.


I did not hold my Samuel the day he was born, and for his first nine months. This breaks my heart.  Now a new life, Jackson’s life, will burst into mine, and there will be 5 ½, maybe 6 years in his life story that I cannot go back through and write “Mama” on each page.


These are not the baby doll dreams from the cotton fields of my childhood. There is no warmth today, only weak winter sunlight, slanting in the window onto weathered hands as I type. But I am thankful, and I am excited.


I will have a 5 ½ year old son, not a baby in a soft blue blanket. What a privilege. I will look into those eyes, and teach him that it is safe and good to look back into mine. I will whisper “I love you“, “you are home” and “I’m your Mama".

And I think that which ever way it works with Psalm 37, I have received the desire of my heart.

Once again.