I'm sitting here looking at photolistings on rainbowkids. Something I probably should not be doing. Every photo I click on (which is every photo on each page) I imagine picking that child up. Holding him or her in my arms. Loving them. I feel like I could just spread myself into one huge, super mother and take them all into my heart. Never go hungry again, sweet ones. Never let one tear go unnoticed. Never ever to be abandoned again.
Just keeping it real here, I think about money an awful lot. I think about the lack of it here, and the excess of it elsewhere. I try to devise and connive, to find a business, something everyone needs that would allow us to adopt another child. And keep adopting. Because there are so many.
I am frustrated. I am forced to wait. I have nothing against learning a little patience. But when what you're waiting for is not a new shirt to come in the mail, but to rescue a vulnerable, abandoned child, come on, that's torture! Out the window I see dark clouds, trees wild and black against a sky that is shrouded in untimely nightly-ness and full of ominous threats. The wind whips a small leaf up, around, away. Out of my sight, in the power of an unseen force.
I see the threats. I feel the danger. Such a small, fragile one you are, Daniel from somewhere in Africa, with a birthdate a few months before Harry's that makes you special needs. Small, sweet brown face with, no doubt, dimpled knuckles on your sweet little boy hands.
Not a day goes by that I don't think about you, you small orphan somewhere in Africa. Or Haiti. Or Jamaica. Or China. Or Russia. Or USA. Or wherever. I worry that the world has forgotten you little one. I worry that I won't get there, to help you.
And I reflect that you are more than just a puppy in a pet store. You are a human being, with a birth family, a bloodline, a broken heart. A complex, wounded, precious child of God. Not a project, not a trophy. A soul. Not to be part of a collection, but to be integrated and grafted into an imperfect, but hopefully loving, happy, healthy family. Meant for a family.
The thing is, all children are made for moms and dads. They need them. No child was made to be able to survive alone. The alarming thought is that so, so many don't have either or anyone!
And there's only one comforting thought is all these frightful musings. And that comes to me as a lay in bed and feel in my heart the child that is sleeping in the dust, alone, somewhere far away. The children that run wild on the streets, and sleep in black, empty doorways, in cities full of strangers. I want to be a spirit and spread myself over these little forgotten faces with hungry eyes. And then I'm startled by the thought that they already have that. There is a Father to the fatherless. And He loves these lost ones more than I ever could.
So I'm back to the starting spot. This is why I shouldn't be looking at photolistings (pictures of actual, darling orphans.) Because He hasn't opened the door yet. I'm peeking under the crack, trying to peer through and see what's next. I ask Him every day to open that door. Sometimes I cry, and pound at that door. I kick it and try to break it down. I hate that darn door. But, like many other things in my life, without God orchestrating this great venture, it will just be a bunch of meaningless noise and wasted effort. And just because I'm asking for something that is ostensibly altruistic doesn't mean I automatically get it.
But please, can't it be. And can't it be now. In the great cosmic, awesomeness that is God running the whole universe, can't a cog move and a gear shift and suddenly something be set in motion that would produce an object that stays in motion? Something that would propel us across the ocean, through reams of endless paperwork and fees, and to the door of an orphanage where we could fill our arms with child, sweet warm, busy wild little bodies. So we can swirl the waters of this house back into chaos and laughter and tears and uproar (ok, so maybe we're already there, but there would be more). And that moment, at some point in each day, like now, when lashes brush round cheeks and breath is warm and soft, and busy life is cocooned into soft, safe nests?
There is a hole in my heart. I feel that someone is missing. Where are you little one? And when will you be home? When can we start looking for you?
"Home, let me go home, Home is wherever I'm with you."
