Dear Mia,
I’m sitting in our hotel room in Wuhan, China, just a little more than twenty-four-hours before we are to meet you for the very first time. As I sit and reflect, one word comes to mind to summarize this whole experience: surreal. Your mommy and I keep looking at each other and asking, “Can you believe we’re doing this?” We are still struggling to put any kind of logical and tidy answer to it, but the best we can come up with is, love.
I mentioned before that a friend of mine once said, “adoption begins with tragedy.” For us, the tragedy was never being able to have another child after your brother was born more than thirteen years ago. We had a few close calls, but they all ended in heartbreak. So when we began our journey to you, we started out wanting something for ourselves; but somewhere along the way, we realized it was all about you and our call to the task of defending the fatherless (Isaiah 1:17). I’m not sure it was necessarily a conscious decision, or even exactly when it happened, but it was one where our focus shifted from us onto you, and with it, our resolve. It's hard to explain, but love did that. And love does that still.
There are so many thoughts and nuggets swirling around in my noggin right now, and some of them will make their way to this page (which the goal all along was for you in time to be able to see and feel what we were going through on our way to you). But suffice it to say, throughout this twenty-month process, it quit being about us and started being about you, or more specifically, the call of God in our hearts to care for you and give you a family. With all the children in the world, I can't say we would do this for just any ole child; it's about one: you. Otherwise, somewhere along the way with the time, expense, intrusion, sacrifice, criticism, and sheer magnitude that this process involves, we would have just bought Disney passes and visit the China pavilion in Epcot to think about what could have been.
But here we are, on the other side of the world, away from virtually all we know and love, for the sake of a little girl we have only seen in a grand total of six pictures and about four minutes of video. That last part seems to strike many people as odd, but to us, it is just a detail in a much broader story.
The time we got the first call from our case worker about you, to the time when you will be in our arms, will span about nine-months, or the length of a typical human gestation. With Ethan and the other babies we had, we kept ultrasound pictures on the fridge and began wondering, dreaming and hoping for the life that was to come. Even though you are now three-years-old, we still kept your picture on our fridge and thought about the wonder, dreams, and hope for your life. We know, we know, we must keep our expectations managed, but God brought us to you, no doubt about it. And since mommy and I are convinced of that, we feel we are living out a shred of God’s promise that is also contained in Lifeline Children’s Services’ mission statement: to give you a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). Even though that hope did not grow physically in our bodies, it does grow spiritually in our hearts. Now, when we see you come through the door tomorrow to enter our world, a new birth will occur and none of us will ever be the same. None of us. Ever.
So while we wait in the quiet for just one more day, let me tell you that there is more. There is a powerful draw and call to this place that strangely reminds your mommy and me of our very own beginning together. It’s something that defies all logic and reason. The list of people for whom we would have embarked upon such a journey is frighteningly short, yet here we are. And while it is bewildering and more than a bit scary, it feels so very right. We have indeed stepped outside of our comfort zone and into the realm of the unknown where Jesus is, and He is holding out His hand, waiting to join our story with yours.
Since July 29, 2012, the little girl who has never heard the name our world has known you by these past nine months is about share your life with us, even with all its ups and downs. Now you have an army of family, friends, and supporters fighting to give you a place, led by your mom and dad. That child is you, Mia. You have your place. And thanks to the transformative power of heeding God's call, it seems mommy and I have ours, too.
I know that probably comes across as awful naive and romantic, and sure, part of it is. But the closest I can put my finger on it is strangely similar to an amalgamation of my wedding and ordination vows: I promise to give all that I am and all that I have, for better or for worse, to go where I am sent, to honor God and the people He has placed in my life. In giving myself to that ongoing task, I have found a Mark — and a Tiffany, for that matter — that I never before knew. And I know that there are more challenges for us ahead, but I am sure a supernatural perseverance will be there to meet us and walk us through it. For as we made our journey across the world, we kept thinking, planning, and praying for how we will make the return journey home, with you, to your place. With your parents. With your brother. With your pets. With your very own room. With your very own bed. With your very own toys. With your very own clothes. With your very own family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and a larger family drawn together not just by blood, but by Spirit and faith.
As we wait the next twenty-something hours after the last twenty-something months, I want to return to where it all started…with mommy and me. We began wanting to do this for ourselves, but now that we have quite literally invested our blood, sweat, tears, and money, we find we are doing this for God, the One who brought us to you — the subject in this chapter of our family’s story. So I close this reflection with a teaching from Jesus (who I cannot wait to introduce you to!) that is gaining an all new appreciation in my life right now: “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.” (Matthew 16:25, NLT)
Love,
Dad
I’m sitting in our hotel room in Wuhan, China, just a little more than twenty-four-hours before we are to meet you for the very first time. As I sit and reflect, one word comes to mind to summarize this whole experience: surreal. Your mommy and I keep looking at each other and asking, “Can you believe we’re doing this?” We are still struggling to put any kind of logical and tidy answer to it, but the best we can come up with is, love.
I mentioned before that a friend of mine once said, “adoption begins with tragedy.” For us, the tragedy was never being able to have another child after your brother was born more than thirteen years ago. We had a few close calls, but they all ended in heartbreak. So when we began our journey to you, we started out wanting something for ourselves; but somewhere along the way, we realized it was all about you and our call to the task of defending the fatherless (Isaiah 1:17). I’m not sure it was necessarily a conscious decision, or even exactly when it happened, but it was one where our focus shifted from us onto you, and with it, our resolve. It's hard to explain, but love did that. And love does that still.
There are so many thoughts and nuggets swirling around in my noggin right now, and some of them will make their way to this page (which the goal all along was for you in time to be able to see and feel what we were going through on our way to you). But suffice it to say, throughout this twenty-month process, it quit being about us and started being about you, or more specifically, the call of God in our hearts to care for you and give you a family. With all the children in the world, I can't say we would do this for just any ole child; it's about one: you. Otherwise, somewhere along the way with the time, expense, intrusion, sacrifice, criticism, and sheer magnitude that this process involves, we would have just bought Disney passes and visit the China pavilion in Epcot to think about what could have been.
But here we are, on the other side of the world, away from virtually all we know and love, for the sake of a little girl we have only seen in a grand total of six pictures and about four minutes of video. That last part seems to strike many people as odd, but to us, it is just a detail in a much broader story.
The time we got the first call from our case worker about you, to the time when you will be in our arms, will span about nine-months, or the length of a typical human gestation. With Ethan and the other babies we had, we kept ultrasound pictures on the fridge and began wondering, dreaming and hoping for the life that was to come. Even though you are now three-years-old, we still kept your picture on our fridge and thought about the wonder, dreams, and hope for your life. We know, we know, we must keep our expectations managed, but God brought us to you, no doubt about it. And since mommy and I are convinced of that, we feel we are living out a shred of God’s promise that is also contained in Lifeline Children’s Services’ mission statement: to give you a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). Even though that hope did not grow physically in our bodies, it does grow spiritually in our hearts. Now, when we see you come through the door tomorrow to enter our world, a new birth will occur and none of us will ever be the same. None of us. Ever.
So while we wait in the quiet for just one more day, let me tell you that there is more. There is a powerful draw and call to this place that strangely reminds your mommy and me of our very own beginning together. It’s something that defies all logic and reason. The list of people for whom we would have embarked upon such a journey is frighteningly short, yet here we are. And while it is bewildering and more than a bit scary, it feels so very right. We have indeed stepped outside of our comfort zone and into the realm of the unknown where Jesus is, and He is holding out His hand, waiting to join our story with yours.
Since July 29, 2012, the little girl who has never heard the name our world has known you by these past nine months is about share your life with us, even with all its ups and downs. Now you have an army of family, friends, and supporters fighting to give you a place, led by your mom and dad. That child is you, Mia. You have your place. And thanks to the transformative power of heeding God's call, it seems mommy and I have ours, too.
I know that probably comes across as awful naive and romantic, and sure, part of it is. But the closest I can put my finger on it is strangely similar to an amalgamation of my wedding and ordination vows: I promise to give all that I am and all that I have, for better or for worse, to go where I am sent, to honor God and the people He has placed in my life. In giving myself to that ongoing task, I have found a Mark — and a Tiffany, for that matter — that I never before knew. And I know that there are more challenges for us ahead, but I am sure a supernatural perseverance will be there to meet us and walk us through it. For as we made our journey across the world, we kept thinking, planning, and praying for how we will make the return journey home, with you, to your place. With your parents. With your brother. With your pets. With your very own room. With your very own bed. With your very own toys. With your very own clothes. With your very own family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and a larger family drawn together not just by blood, but by Spirit and faith.
As we wait the next twenty-something hours after the last twenty-something months, I want to return to where it all started…with mommy and me. We began wanting to do this for ourselves, but now that we have quite literally invested our blood, sweat, tears, and money, we find we are doing this for God, the One who brought us to you — the subject in this chapter of our family’s story. So I close this reflection with a teaching from Jesus (who I cannot wait to introduce you to!) that is gaining an all new appreciation in my life right now: “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.” (Matthew 16:25, NLT)
Love,
Dad
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