My Prayer for You

Aside from this blog, I also keep other personal journals offline.  I've kept one for my son since I got pregnant with him, then continued after he was born.  Writing ever so often about little things he was doing at each stage.  Little things I never wanted to forget.  Also how I felt about him and the things he would do, how much I loved him.  I started one for Hannah sometime after we decided to adopt, writing about how I feel about where we are in the process, how much I loved her even before I saw pictures of her, and how excited I am now to see her soon.  I don't normally share what I write in these journals, but I feel impressed to share an excerpt tonight:

My prayer for you at this very moment, my darling, is that they did not take you from your foster parents and put you in the orphanage this past week or any time before we come for you. I pray that right now you are in your foster parents’ home, perhaps eating breakfast or a mid-morning snack, and that you are happy. I hope that they have been talking to you about your new family, and how much we love you, and that it’s a good thing for you to go with us. I don’t want you to be afraid to go with us, but I completely understand if you are. I will cry with you when you leave your foster family, and I’ll tell you it’s ok for you to cry, to grieve the loss of these wonderful people. It will always be ok for you to grieve, and to talk about your family with me, whether it be about your foster family or birth family. But I do so hope that right now, at this moment, that you are happy where you are, as you should be, as you deserve to be.

We are now a mere 7 days away from meeting Hannah Claire Shi Lin.  There really are no words to describe what I'm feeling, so I won't even try.  If you've been down this road before, or are on the same kind of journey yourself, you know what I mean.  There is no describing the feeling of your own, God-chosen child being on the other side of the world from you, while you wait desperately for the day you're allowed to go and get her.  When you're pregnant with your child, even though you can't see her face, at least you have the comfort of having her right there with you all the time, keeping her safe.  But this experience is so different.  Not better or worse,  just different.

My faith has been strengthened so much by this process.  Since I cannot do one thing to ensure the safety and well-being of my child, I've had to completely give all my worries and anxiety over to my Heavenly Father, who is glad to take it in His hands and shape it into something else--the pure belief that He knows what He's doing, that He has a plan for me as His own adopted child, and that that plan includes adopting my own child.  So no matter where Hannah is at this moment, He is still with her, and I believe He will protect her, until He draws us together into a moment where I can finally provide safety for her with my own arms.