there is no baby growing
here inside my empty womb
but my daughter grows nearby me
in a not too distant room
for now the thoughts of her are fuzzy
and this preparation strange
to think that she is really coming
to know our lives will so soon change
how do i love this full-blown stranger?
how can i give her all my heart?
when truth and many laws abound
that could too soon tear us apart
this road to family is so odd
the path to join us legally
so many courts and laws and judges
before we can be truly free
i do not know how i can love you
my heart it shudders in this stretch
but here it sits wide, so wide open
just waiting for your soul to catch
oh how He loves you little stranger
and gently holds your every part
from long before planned us together
and placed you deep within my heart
August 8, 2018
Our daughter was born two months after I wrote that poem, and because of various and sundry legal and pandemic-related delays, we’ve endured almost four years of the “courts and laws and judges” I envisioned.
Four years of hand-to-hand, bloody combat with fear, doubt and uncertainty, inadequacy, impotence and impatience, hopelessness, pessimism and despair. We’ve endured the siege warfare of bureacracy, both foreign and domestic, and lived through levels of exhaustion never before experienced.
Re-reading that poem, I can remember sitting on our balcony in the summer afternoon, iced latte my husband prepared for me sweating nearby, trying to birth the words smothering my lungs before the heat of the direct sun sent me inside.
I was wrestling in those days — with fear of the unknown and the out of control, yes, but also with the ridiculous notion that we were preparing to walk into a darkened den …willingly… with not a single solitary assurance that we would make it out the other side intact, let alone with a child in our arms.
But we have finally emerged — victorious — thanks entirely to the good God who walked with us through a den that stretched on and on, so much further than we expected or hoped, long, long past our ability to endure. At every step He gave us what we needed, only just, never enough that we could run ahead a little. At times He fought off the vipers, at times He let them bite us — but only ever so strategically so that it was never a wound unto death.
Thanks be to God.
Today we stand in the light, and we are blinded.
I think of all the altars I’ve constructed over these years, all the moments God has met us in our deepest need, come to sit with us in the most profound powerlessness. My mind flips through four years of the faithfulness of our unrivaled, unparalleled Father, walking in the shadow of His mercy, protected by His mighty right hand, even as it tugged us back again and again from our desire to race ahead of His perfectly-timed pace.
But I also think of the laughter and the glee and the moments of flying. I think of the hilarity and the dance parties and the indescribable turn of events where this little hand reaches out for mine.
I think of the JOY. My Joy. My little stranger.
Thanks be to God.
So very beautiful. It both tore at my heart and filled it. Tears. What a journey. Can't wait to see all of you face-to-face. We'll try very hard not to overwhelm Joy!
I love this - I can feel it with you - the completion of the VERY LONG journey!! So can’t wait to hug you ALL!! 💕