Letting Go . . .

This is a tough post for me to write.  It is probably the second most difficult post I have had to pen, aside from the one where I let everyone know our initial adoption had failed.  That post was about our circumstances.  This post is about my heart.

I have to be honest:  I have not really let go.  I am sure those of you who keep up with this blog are saying sarcastically, Really? You could have fooled us. It is evident in everything that I write.  While the thoughts are not as frequent, the tears not as near, the heart not as broken, I am still clinging to the hope that one day JP can be part of our family.

In some way, that makes sense. August and most of September were filled with worry for JP and then anticipation of getting him into a safe place.  He is there now, and I can rejoice.  Our family can rest in the fact that we can support him to adulthood, that he can go to school, that he will be fed and cared for.

But, something else keeps my heart so tightly wrapped around that little boy. We told JP we would come back for him.  When given the choice between several different options, JP's mom chose us.  We warned her that the adoption may never be a reality, that it would take at least another year for him to become part of our family, if that was even a possibility, but she didn't waver. That is a heavy responsibility that is hard to let go.

In July, a few weeks after returning from my trip, I had the incredible privilege of having dinner with one of the nation's foremost experts in care of children from trauma, especially those in international adoption. Through an interesting string of circumstances, God placed her in our home for some good ole-fashioned chicken tenders and boxed mashed potatoes.   She was so gracious and welcomed our discussion, even when she was just wearing the hat of grandma that day. We asked her the one question burning on our hearts, "If we ever have the opportunity to adopt JP again, based on the trauma he has experienced, should we even try?"

Her advice has carried me through the last few months.  She told a sweet story of one of her babies, where she experienced the value of giving things over to the Lord.

She told us, "When faced with a difficult decision like this one, I always ask myself three questions."

"First, I ask,  Is it Biblical?"  Caring for the orphan is clearly outlined in the Bible.  Because we were waiting to see if family reunification was possible, we felt confident that we could say yes.

"Second," she said, "You need to wait to see if God lines up the circumstances for you to move forward."

I won't even get to the third question because this is where we are stuck.  God hasn't said, "No", yet.  He has said, "Wait."  And in that wait, I have to confess that I have not been trusting Him to work it out.  Sure, my behavior has come a little closer.  I feel I have not actively taken control in any situation, and I praise God for granting me self-control there.

But, as my grief changes and consumes me less and less, I have become more aware that my heart is still deep in turmoil, waging war against the peace God has for me. I constantly check the computer for updates (and when I say constant, ask my husband or any other adoptive parent for the obscene levels of email-checking that goes on through the international adoption experience).  I still experience full-on anxiety when I play worst-case scenarios in my head.  And, what has disturbed me the most is that I hold a little back in my worship of the Lord.  I still praise God for His goodness, but there is something in me that doesn't fully engage.

I know why. Inside me, there is this irrational and unfounded fear--to the point of silliness--that if I release this into God's care, that will be the end of it. If I fully worship Him, if I fully praise Him in spite of the fact that He has not yet answered this prayer, He will think I am over it.  He will assume it still isn't my heart's desire.  It will fall in the cracks somewhere, and I will always wonder and regret whether or not I should have done more. Everyone, including myself, will think we should just go back to normal and forget that there is a little boy, and tons of other little boys and girls like him, who doesn't have a family.  I will have given up on JP.

But, oh the sweet truth that settled on my today. Letting go is not giving up.  

Letting go does not change my or JP's circumstances.  Letting go doesn't even change the future; God is already there, directing it and guiding it and making it align with His will.  Letting go is a change in my heart. It is releasing my hand from the invisible control I thought I had on the situation and placing it in the Lord's.  It is a willingness to let Him lead and to understand that He only expects me to look to Him.  It is a belief in the promise from I Peter 5:7 to "cast all my anxiety on Him because He cares for me."  It is recognizing that God's control is better than mine, even when everything in me wars to hold on.

A sweet friend of mine, who is struggling with her husband's illness, described it as a "ripping from her hands."  It is not easy, but it is good.  I have to believe that He cares for me.  I have to believe that He is bigger than my illusion of control: that if I cry out my desires to Him, He delights in me.  I have to believe that He tells me to only worry about today because He has the future under control.  I have to believe that when I am weak, He is strong.  That when I am resting, He is fighting for me.  That He can direct the hearts of kings and use all circumstances for His glory.  That He has not brought me this far to leave me in this place--either He will provide or He will heal completely.  That His plans for me are greater than my fears.  That He will not put those who wait on Him to shame. He promises all of these things.  But, I will never see them--and they will never shine in me--unless I release my grip.

I wrote all of that on Friday night, when my daughter had a friend over and I could actually think.  On Saturday, she and I went to see the movie Grace Unplugged.  In it, an eighteen-year-old girl rebels against her parents and runs away.  Her father closes his grip on her so tightly that he threatens to hurt his marriage and his faith.  As an audience member, who knows that most movies end well, you just want to scream at him to chill out and let things take care of themselves.  But, then, it was like God came out of the movie and spoke to me.  At the end of his rope, he hugs his wife, looks up, and tells God, "She's yours."  He releases his daughter into the care of the Lord, because he recognizes he never really had control in the first place.

So, here it goes.  Sweaty palms, beating heart, tears streaming. It's amazing how real the illusion of control feels. I take a deep breath.  He's yours, God.  Do with him what is right.  I release him to you because you are  God and I am not.  You are able to do more than I can even imagine in his life and in my heart.    

When the Mundane is Anything But. . .

As I flew home from Africa in July, I read the novel The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.  It is a book about two kids fighting terminal cancer who form a relationship.  They laugh. They cry. They fall in love. It's actually a pretty good book.  When I had been in the plane just a few hours, I ran across a scene that stopped me in my tracks.  There is this beautiful moment in the book where one of the characters--a teenage boy with cancer--is scheduled to have surgery the next day.  So, what's the big deal?  This surgery will take his only good eye and make him blind. So the day before he loses his eyesight, what does he choose to do? Go to his friend's house to play video games.  They just sit there playing video games, acting like nothing is on the horizon. Then, in one moment, it hits.  The boy realizes, or is just unable to hold his emotion any longer, Today is the last day I will be able to do this. Today is the last day I will see the TV and play this game and have life be normal.  And, suddenly, the terror and the anxiety turn into rage.  He begins to scream and throw chairs and wreak havoc on the small room that minutes earlier housed what seemed like a normal day among guy friends.

The mundane became sublime.  The everyday became the day that matters.  

Life is kind of like that really.

When I landed after that trip, I put some hard truths on a shelf, truths that needed to brew and process in my weary soul.  Truths about meeting JP's birth family and how God used a Tuesday afternoon in a small room to steer the events in the life of a child.  

Last Saturday night I was reminded again of God's power in making the ordinary extraordinary in a profound way.

Philip and I were blessed to attend a beautiful wedding--honestly, it was the most beautiful wedding I have ever attended.  The bride and groom were gorgeous, surrounded by other gorgeous recently-graduated fraternity and sorority brothers and sisters.  It also didn't hurt that my friend--the mother of the bride--is a five-star hostess with the Midas touch:  everything she touches in the world of making people feel welcome turns to gold.  But, those things aren't what made the wedding so astoundingly beautiful.

It was the family's invitation to seek the Lord, their fervent prayers that those who attended would see Him.  And, God, in His faithfulness, showed up.   

The wedding was an outside wedding, and as we were seated, the egg-carton sky seemed gray and heavy. Every few minutes the sky released a low rumble, far at first and then closer and closer.  As the bride walked down the aisle to the covered pavilion where her groom waited, I prayed that the Lord would keep the rain at bay until the wedding was over.  What a terrible thing for this lovely wedding to be ruined, I thought.  But, God's loveliness is not my loveliness, and it isn't until I am in the middle of it, that I can see the beauty.

The rain did wait.  And wait. And wait.  The traditional Episcopalian liturgy, though, tested its limits (sorry, my Episcopalian friends. I tell you that I saved a program because the liturgy was so beautiful. I am praying my daughter meets an Episcopalian, so we can use it).  At the exact moment the minister announced that the family would be partaking in Communion, large drops began to fall on the guests.  The mumbles and shuffling grew, and a few guests ran for cover. The mother of the bride and the mother of the groom decided to hide under the pavilion that was already full of a beautiful, and rather large, wedding party.  I am sure they were hoping to protect their dresses, but what happened next was incredible.  The wedding guests slowly filed under the pavilion.  The guests pressed and got closer and surrounded the young couple.

And, there we all stood.  Under cover, with the pitter-patter of rain surrounding us, darkness descending. We began to read the prayers for the couple.  Then, the young woman who hoped to sing with a stringed accompaniment began her solo, a cappella (feel free to click here to listen to the song as you read):

How Deep the Father's Love for Us
How Vast Beyond All Measure
That He Would Send His Only Son
To Make a Wretch His Treasure

How Great the Pain of Searing Loss,
The Father Turns His Face Away,
As Wounds Which Mar the Chosen One,
Bring Many Sons to Glory.

Behold the Man Upon the Cross,
My Guilt Upon His Shoulders,
Ashamed I Hear the Mocking Voice,
Call Out Among the Scoffers

It Was the Sin that Held Him There,
Until It Was Accomplished,
His Dying Breath Has Brought Me Life,
I Know That It Is Finished. 


I Will Not Boast in Anything,
No Gifts, No Power, No Wisdom,
But I Will Boast in Jesus Christ,
His Death and Resurrection 

Why Should I Gain from His Reward?
I Cannot Give an Answer?
But, This I Know With One Accord,
His Wounds Have Paid My Ransom.

She stopped singing.  There was silence, and rain, and the sweet presence of the Savior.  The moment was short:  soon, we all had to get back to our lives.  The wedding party paused, took it all in, and ran in the rain to the reception hall.  We all started the party that would be the celebration of their union.  But, I could tell that moment never really left.  It was evident from the feel, this worshipful undertone that filled the evening. And, something teeny-tiny in me was forever changed by the experience.  

Isn't that how God works? He takes the really hard, the really beautiful, and the really ordinary. And, He shows up.  He chooses to reveal Himself in the moments we least expect Him, and He uses those moments to make teeny-tiny changes in us, chiseling and molding out our very being, until we are in the image of His Son.  He draws us closer through those times we pray won't ever happen, and He says, "I have more for you, my child.  I have Me."  And, we get just a glimpse of His heart for this world and His hope for the next.

I can't wait to worship Him, in a company of saints, as He reunites all that is broken and shows His magnificent power over all of creation.  For now, I have to rest in these moments where I see only a glimpse of the glory that is to come.  If that moment in the rain is any hint, it must be spectacular.