Monday, March 31, 2008

A Look Back Before We Move Forward


I have been thinking about our last adoptions as we sit on the edge of another. I have gone back through all my journals to remember each moment...
One stands out as a marker in my life, a time when I put some big pieces of life's puzzle together for the first time. I wrote this excerpt from my diary after we had taken Denis back to the orphanage. It was our first trip to Russia to meet Denis and we had spent three glorious days getting to know our new son. We would not see him again until the court date was set which was indefinite, maybe weeks if we were lucky or more probably months before our return to take him home. Dropping Denis off at the orphanage was one of the hardest moments in my life!! Here is what I wrote...

"Once we finished with the notary office that terrible time of departing was almost upon us! So...back up the hill we went past the Ministry of Education, turn right, past the cracked buildings, past the many stray dogs and broken sidewalks, down the tiny alleys... left...right, past the piles of rubbish and half-finished, abandon construction...left, through the huge, weathered, iron gates, past the rusty, broken playground slide, into the cracked parking lot sprinkled with fallen leaves. We are now outside the barred windows of what is now Denis' "Home-Sweet-Home"!! Please Lord let it be quick that we can take him home!

We exited the car and stood not wanting this parting to come. I pinched back my ocean of tears...my mother's heart is breaking. Denis hugged us all one at a time, his new backpack his new brother Noah gave him was loaded with his treasures. He entered through the narrow door, back into the arms of the only caregiver he has ever known...her name is Orphanage #1.

My heart just entered the institution with him where it will live until, with God's help, I can bring them both safely home for good. America is sleeping just now in her soft, warm bed as a boy alone returns to his familiar, cold, hard world. In one moment two ends of the same spectrum suddenly meet in the middle of the adoption process. The haves and the have nots, now joined together for the glory of God...and hope comes into the world! Neither one alone could or would be complete. Left by themselves each is nothing more that a separate world moving through life...one enjoying, the other coping...one striving, the other hoping. Neither world completely satisfied, but in unity Christ brings purpose and fulfillment to each. And as the heavy metal doors bang shut I am reminded that this door to Russia and America has and will not be closed forever because what God has started He will finish and the door that God opens no man can shut!! But the wait is part of the process and so as we drive away the floodgates open and my tears are released!! Good things come for those who wait...

1 comment:

Rob and Candy said...

hi- thank you for your post. I have goose bumps.. I to remember leaving Igor at the orphanage... Only through God's mercy were we able to get through the following 6 months when we were united again.
candy (awaa)