I just got off the phone with the legal assistant in Houston. We will, most likely, finalize on Levi's adoption on February the 24th. I'm excited to get that lose end tied up. But strangely, another adoption is weighing heavy on my mind and heart today.
Marina's adoption into the Kingdom. These days, Marina is the first person I see when I wake. After many months of power struggle over her hair and the grooming thereof--which brought her perilously close to a second butch cut--she has submitted to my arrangement of her do's. It crossed my mind that in three short months she will be eight years old. Wow! That shocks me. How can she be that old? This is the age I start to look for the signs. The signs that God is knocking at their heart's door, the signs that they are listening, that they are beginning to see their need of a Savior. Sometimes, they show themselves in their artwork--stick-figure drawings of Jesus on the cross or a love letter to God. Sometimes, it is questions from the back seat about last week's Sunday School Lesson, or a face of rapt attention during service. Signs that I haven't seen in Marina in the smallest degree.
And so, I pray. 'When you can't trace His hand, trust His heart,' right? I pray that I will be ready to council her, maybe answer questions that she will never ask out loud. Perhaps ask some of my own. She's been taught the Truth from infancy on, but she's characterized by stubbornly clinging to fantasies in total contradiction to what she had been told, and wouldn't Satan love to spread some lies in her heart and watch them take root? From a child that never did anything by the book, I shouldn't look for the normal indicators. In the words of the Russian caregiver on the day we took her from the orphanage, "That Olga....she goes her own way." Parenting her for seven years, I can Amen that statement. She goes her own way, in her own time, with her own little way of walkin' it.
But, ultimately, for peace, love, joy and life, her way must become His way.
Costa Rica-- Our Last Day in Alajuela
6 years ago
I've been praying for the same things for Maddie. Until recently I really hadn't seen much in the spiritual awareness category either. But just in the last few weeks I've started noticing her talking more about him...commenting that he made her the way she is, that's she's special and that he died on the cross. I'll keep praying for both girls to open their hearts to their savior...and to be open to talking about it. :) (Oh, and Maddie turns 8 in just a few weeks. Ack! :)
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