Suffering Pain

It seems I'm always telling people "You may never know the reason for _______ this side of Heaven..."

But secretly, I always pray that God would open my eyes...that He would share just a few things with me, maybe to deepen my faith, maybe to let me sleep better at night.

Either way, one of the things I have literally begged God on my knees to explain to me this side of Heaven is the loss of my daughter Claire. I went through a short period of time where I wondered what I had done wrong. Where and when I had let Satan in to ruin my life.

I'm far past that now, but I begged God for a long time to share this with me - to let me zoom out and see the end of the movie - the big picture so that I could understand this one tragedy.

I'm there. I can see it. The reasoning. The purpose. The intention. Because God is a purposeful, intentional God. And He forms us to be who we need to be...because He has already written our story and knows what kind of character we need to have long before we do.

I'm so grateful for that.

These sons...these beautiful, African boys, would probably not be in my life. I can't explain that, but I know, had my life been a walk in the park, if all of our plans had come to fruition just as we had planned them, Lincoln and I would not be dependent on God like we are today. And if we weren't forced to our knees and desperate for Him, our hearts would not have been stirred to action like they were 2 years ago when we began our adoption journey.

I can't imagine my life without them, without Ethiopia, without Africa, without my passion for the fatherless...but more, without Him.

Our adoption has not been an easy road to walk. I've not been given an immediate understanding for them.

But...God allowed us to bond on a level that I would not have before. God took my baby from my hands, so that I would experience life changing, gut wrenching pain. Loss of a loved one, torn from my hands, before I was ready, without my consent. The same thing my boys have experienced...very recently.

Isn't God amazing? Isn't He the author of a perfectly timed story? Mine - 5 years previous, so that I would be healed enough to help my sons through theirs when they needed me the most. Right. now.

We are very different - black and white, rich and poor, African and American, young and old. But...the same inside. Healing.

Amazing.

Katie inspires me daily, as I know she does a lot of you in blogland. This post stung so deeply that I had to share her words with you here.



"This week. Mother's had their babies blown from their arms, the storm too strong. Other's clung tight as their infants breathed their last in my best friend's back seat, blood transfusions and machine-oxygen not enough to revive.

I hold the hearts in my thoughts and I pray harder. I lock eyes with this one momma, baby growing cold in her lap and I whisper, "I know." And I murmur a prayer over her but there really aren't words so we just cry and we hold each other all the way home. I remember too well what it feels like to go home without your baby. To wake up the next morning fuzzy and not want to be this woman because things like this only happen in movies and on news stations, not to me. Please, God, not to me?

And no, it won't be ok, but it will be glorious one day when you lock arms in Heaven. And it only hurts this deep because you loved so deep and that memory, that love is what you live on some days.

So we bow down and we pray for you mothers. We snuggle close the babes still here. And while the head spins, "where is God in this mess," the heart knows the answer, "right here."

God is right here with us. And He knows.

This pain, this is what He did for us. Willing. He knows this hurt because He chose it to save us.

And that love is what we live on every day."