Returning Home

As I look back on this trip I don't think I will ever be the same as who I was. How can I be? Things I saw and did, people I met, children I feel in love with, new friends. Adoption changes you. All adoption too not just domestic and not just international. David Platt had it right when he said "Orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they're not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes..."

I held my boys. I loved on them. I showed them affection and attention. I hope that I was Jesus to the least of us. I feel stronger somehow and maybe even weaker too. If that makes sense. I did things I never thought I would or could do and I did it myself, well just me and God. Then it was the things I thought I could handle seeing, smelling, feeling that made me feel weak.

Have a long way home. Weather is bad, delays are happening, flights feel so long. Then think about my boys. Do they realize I didn't show up after nap yesterday? Are they waiting for me? Are they crying for me? Will someone comfort them? They have really great babas and they seem to love their babas. I just don't how long the babas visit or how often. This week they didn't want their babas, they didn't want to go help with lunch, they didn't want to go outside, they had all they needed sitting in a tiny room on my lap. That makes me hopeful. Hopeful they will bond, hopeful they will remember,p hopeful they will make progress once home.

I wonder if they know that soon they will leave the orphanage forever? I wonder if they realize all the people in the pictures I have them are their family, brothers, sisters, a papa. I wonder if they realize that soon they will wear one layer, be allowed to get messy, eat whatever they want (well you know what I mean), take bubble baths with toys! They will know what it is like to swim in a pool, ride a horse, go to the rodeo, learn to read, eat I outside, go throughout the house without shoes or a jacket on, learn to use an iPad, play with a balloon, have a birthday dinner at rainforest cafe and a birthday cake made special just for them by their daddy. They will learn to talk, brush their teeth, walk! They will learn confidence and strength. They will learn about how much Jesus loves them. How to sing and dance and be free! Oh to be free....what will that feel like for them? Scary I bet, at first, but then in time it will become less and less scary.

Oh I just can't wait until they come home.
Be blessed