The Greatest Gift

Olivia is sick today.  It's been a long time since she has been sick, and it reminds me of all we have been through together.  In the middle of last night, when I was hooking her up to her breathing apparatus ("nebulizer"), I said "Olivia, do you realize how long it's been since we've had to do this?  Do you remember how many times we used to do this?"  To which she said "A jillion".

If you've never had someone put a newborn baby in your arms and said "here, have my child", there is no way you can understand what that feels like.  Every other gift I have ever received in my life all put together can't come close to that moment.  Even if that baby is very tiny, here too soon, and going to be really sick for the next two years of your life.  And often sick for the next ten years of your life.  But rarely sick now thanks to the healing power of our mighty God and an army of doctors and specialists.

The first time I saw Olivia, I was scrubbed, gowned, sanitized and walking into a dimly lit room containing six tiny creatures in little plastic boxes clinging to life.  She was due on October 31st but came September 12th without lungs that were ready for air, among other problems.  I had driven all night because the woman who birthed her had said at midnight "Come now...she is your baby, not mine."  A tiny, red alien with tubes and tape and beeping machines. I thought she was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. 

Kiel Tweitmeyer, father of 13 kids (with only three from his seed) recently said "I thought adoption was a gift you give someone else, but I have learned it's a gift you give yourself." 

Back then when Olivia came home, people often said things to me like "You are such a good person to be doing this".  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  I am not much of a "good person" on my best days, and I was even less of one back then.  "SOMEBODY GAVE ME A WHOLE, GORGEOUS HUMAN BEING!!!" is what I wanted to respond. "What have you been given lately?"

I feel sorry for people who don't get to experience the gift of adoption.  It trumps every other joy in life...

Right now, a tiny boy thousands of miles away waits for me.  I really can't believe he still waits...it feels like more of a gift than I could ever be worth.  Jalia, the orphanage director, told me yesterday "Nathan still asks every day when you are coming...I tell him to pray".  How can a small boy from another world still wait for me after 417 days?  417 days of believing that some white lady he met only once will come back to be his Mommy.  How much can a child yearn for a parent when you are just one in a sea of 600 children at the top of a mountain with not enough arms to hug you at night?  How can he know that I will come back enough to still believe?  What does he say to God and how much must God love him for his faithfulness?  What could ever be bigger than that love?

The last time I saw this boy, there were tears making tracks in the dust on his face.  As my taxi pulled away, he sat at the top of the road that carried me gone down the mountain.  He did not run after the car or wave.  He just sat silently with tears dropping off his chin.   His last words to me in his new English were "Mum, I want to come with you."