The Uniqueness of Adoption
Posted by David Roberts
Once again, not doing so good tonight at sleep. Probably the long day planned tomorrow keeping me up. For some reason, could not stop thinking about Kate tonight. Figured I would post on all the recent thoughts and happenings in our adoption process.
For starters, it is a little strange that a few weeks ago, our Youth Pastor, Rich Griffith presented an entire Sunday message on adoption from a spiritual perspective. He has adopted a little boy from the foster system and it is an amazing story. While we do hear about being adopted by God… all the time in church, I cannot remember a message like that in 36 years of attending church on a weekly basis. The fact that it came in our first year at The Orchard and while we are finalizing Kate’s adoption was pretty amazing. Anyway, this was just another confirmation of what has been an amazing and long process over the past year+.
I have to admit that talking to some people about Kate is often frustrating. We tend to get one of two responses. First, we often get a confused look where the other person is clearly confused as to why we are doing this. The other response is one of telling us how great we are for rescuing this little girl (bla bla bla)… Sadly, the second response is closer to accurate with the roles reversed. In the end, I think it will be Kate rescuing us from ideas and shells we never knew existed.
I think one of the biggest revelations for me in this process is realizing the amazing spiritual side of the process. While I am a true Arminian at heart, I have to admit that this experience at least makes me uneasy around my Calvinist friends. Every time we think we have it figured out, something different happens and only later do we find out the “why”. Even now, we are asking ourselves almost daily why the last part of the process seems so delayed from what we expected. Without even thinking too much, God makes multiple reasons very clear to us. We are definitely starting to trust God more legitimately rather than in theory, but it is not always a romantic experience that makes it all better. There is not a day that goes by anymore that I don’t find myself thinking about life with Kate. Just the other day, I found myself wondering what we would do if something happened and we were denied the final adoption approvals. My mind raced to what amounts of money, time and energy would be expended to overturn such an event. It only confirmed in my mind what I would do if I lost Jordan or Nathan unexpectedly and how I would spend every waking moment of my life to get them back. The reasoning for this is that they are our own, just like Kate even though we have never laid eyes on her before and hold on to a precious few pictures watching her look into a camera in one image with a clear look asking why they have placed her on a brick platform and left her on her own while they must be taking a picture with a mechanical device that she has probably never seen. She looks so confused and almost has an attitude in her look. I like her already.
As time passes without her physically, I continue to daily wonder what life will be like. In theory, we could not be any more different. She is eastern and we are western. She is learning Mandarin Chinese and we speak English. She looks different and has black hair while we are all brown/blonde’s. We have all had parents while she has never known a parent in her life. The only thing I can think of similar is that we are all in the lower 1% of our respective populations in size. For that, Kate will fit right in from the start with all us little people. I check in around 5’6”. Candace cannot be much more than 5’ flat. The boys are uniquely small in their school classes and little Kate is in the lower 1% in sizing charts for Chinese girls. Seems pretty cool that God chose to give us a little girl that literally fits right in. While the differences are stark, there is not an ounce of disconnect with Kate even before she arrives. My mind races continually to how the next 15+ years will play out. Where will she go to school? What will it be like to watch her graduate high school and college? How will I ever walk her down the aisle and survive? What will I say to the little boy that wants to take her out on a date? What details will I describe for him of what I will do to him if he ever violates her in any conceivable fashion? Will I utilize the gun polishing technique in front of him while I am having that conversation? In what amazing way will she server God in her life? These questions and more consume my mind at times and I just want to get on a plane and start the new life as a family. Believe it or not, I keep asking Candace if we are going to do it again! She is not really up for a true discussion there, but we know there is no way we could rule it out. I have a sneaky feeling that somewhere long into the future, we will look back and wonder how much of life we would have missed had we never walked down this path the first time. Cannot wait for the trip very near and I keep rehearsing in my mind that moment in Guangdong when we go up on the platform and take her from a social worker for the first time realizing she is really ours, permanently. Probably not far off from how God feels every time he pulls a life up to a new level. I hope she looks at us like she did this piece of cake on her birthday...
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