Watching her tiny little hands try to use her spoon to scoop up ice cream pulled at something in my heart. She flipped her spoon over before it made it to her mouth and she lost the hard-worked-for bite. She licked the back of the spoon while I tried to show her how to do it. "No, I do it all by my own self," she screamed. "All by your own self," I thought. I guess you have done a lot by your own self. Like maybe even learned to eat with a spoon by yourself. Or maybe your 4 moms you've had so far each taught you a different way to do every little thing a three year old knows how to do. By your own self you picked which of those ways was your way to do things. Or maybe you just had to relearn and adjust to someone else's expectations each time you changed moms and homes and families. She needs to belong somewhere to have someone who knows everything about her. My heart was so drawn to that need in that moment I just sat watching her. Then Luke blurts out, "Oh my gosh!!!! She's so uncoordinated it makes me want to punch her. We are going to be here forever!!!!!!" Geez. So much for that moment. We don't dare help her, though. We avoid tantrums at all costs. I said, "Luke! When you were three"...and I described the funny, sweet, goofy, demanding, and even hard things that he brought to our family. I said, "And I loved you anyway!" Luke said, "I didn't say I didn't love her." I understand exactly what he is saying. I feel it too. I remember all those things about him- good and bad- with overwhelming love for him. I want to love her like that. But IT IS HARD. I didn't get those helpless, dependent newborn moments that fill your heart with a motherly love and protection, the joys of a first tooth, first step, first word. I didn't get to teach her the things that I taught my children that make my children a part of our family. I stepped into her terrible threes. Control issues from bouncing from caregiver to caregiver. Tantrums from battles between her will and mine. Food issues from knowing hungry. Anger from being forgotten. And it is hard. But I know my help comes from The Lord. After all, I am adopted into a family I didn't belong to. The world taught me how to do things it's way. I'm relearning. God is teaching me how. And how often do I look like a screaming toddler? I raise my fists, bitter attitudes, and angry words that I can't control what I want to have control of. I know the blessings that surround me, and I still scream: why can't I have a bigger house, buy nicer clothes, take longer vacations, travel more, have children that behave perfectly, have a job with no stress, have a home where everything runs my way. It's all so pointless and silly. Yet, I scream and beat my fist against the one who loves me with an unfailing love, who pours an abundance of blessings on me, who has prepared a place for me, who has bought me at the price of his son's blood. And yet I respond to him like a screaming toddler. But still...his love is unending....unconditional....unfailing. And so even knowing the cost, because I have been loved like that- I follow Him and I choose to love her on those difficult days. Then out of his gracious, merciful character he gives days that are beautiful, full of peace, joy, and laughter.
And I can believe that he has planned out each one of her days-and mine-before she ever lived the first one.
