Being a Child

We found out this month that we again did not move on the list, still at #16. As we took the news in and I cried sweet Bitty rubbed my back and prayed for us. She said that he knew in the very center of her heart that Pearl was coming home, she also said that Jesus knew exactly what He was bringing us (I found it interesting that she didn't say when, as if the promise is all He sees and all He wants us to see, not the when/the wait). Then she told me that God was ready to take my sadness and put it in the trashcan when I was ready to give it to him, HA! Thank goodness for the ministry of a 5 year old.

I was so encouraged and so moved by her reaction to it all. I realized that waiting looks so different for a child than it does for a mother. There is a trust and a fierce love that Bitty has about the whole process. As a child, as she waits for this baby, she longs for her without the burden of feeling like she needs to know exactly when/how it is going to happen. She is postured as a child, trusting her parents, trusting God to supply all her needs.

Each day as I long for Pearl I am trying to posture myself in a way that is open to God molding me into who I need to be for her, for all my children. Bitty needs different aspects in a mother than Boo needs, and Pearl needs and will need different aspects as well. Lately I've been so overwhelmed by not knowing how to mother a child who lives across the world from me. All the not knowing is frankly at times too much to handle. Especially, when at times it feels like I may never get to her. How do I love her now and meet her needs and keep her safe? The only way I can do that is by trusting my Father to do all of those things for me. If I am going to give these things, this love, this safety this provision to my child, then I first have to receive it. Simply, you cannot give what you haven't recieved. I believe God forms us this way, so we will give only out of the overflow of what He has given us. (I wrote a whole post on that overflow here if you missed that) What I've felt like God is has been showing me and whispering to me over and over is There will come a time when what Pearl needs from you is for you to be a Mother, her mother. What she needs from you now, in the waiting, is for you to allow yourself to be a child. My child.

Adoption is so different, and loving adopted children is so different and so beautiful. I know I have a lot to learn in this area, but I'm learning some now in the waiting. One thing she will need from me, from all of us, is to see how to be loved as our child. She will be placed in our home, quite different from her native land, and we will tell her everyday how cherished she is, how loved she is, that we cannot believe she is ours. We will tell her that she is our daughter. We believe that God will knit us together in a way that only He can do, that she will trust us, allow us the honor of meeting her needs. But with my biological children I've never needed to tell them that they are my daughter, they just know. That is a new step this time. Thankfully, I know what it feels like to be told that I am a daughter. I am learning to receive that love on a spiritual level because I have been scooped up and loved by my Heavenly father and told that He loves me in ways I cannot understand or contain. I have been told that I am His and He is mine, and because I know He loves me, I believe Him.

I belong to Him, Forever I belong to Him. She belongs to Him, forever she belongs to Him.

You are His child first. Quite simply, you are the child of a loving father who delights in providing for you. So many people and occupations and talents have come to mind as I've pondered being a child first... For a surgeon, You are saved before you save lives. For a new mother, you are reborn before you give birth. For a leader, you are a sheep with a fiercely loving shepard before you lead the masses.

I really believe it becomes more simple when we are first loved. Maybe, just maybe what He meant by asking us to have him as our first love was him reminding us to be loved first. And wow, when you see how loved you are you'll fall right back in love with your first love, a King, a Savior, a Father who is mighty.

So for now, I am waiting, but I am letting myself be His child and reminding myself that before I am their mother I am His Child.