4-7-16

Well another day has gone by, and it is clearer than ever that Kristi should be here with me.  I miss my family; I miss Ana, and it is so hard to here that she called Daddy in her sleep two nights ago, and to see her get so excited about skype even though she usually couldn’t care less about it.  I miss Jack and the fact that this is the week that he started to smile, which is such big payoff for the lack of sleep for the past few weeks.  And it feels so weird bonding with N in an environment without them; in a way, I feel like I’m cheating on them.  Most of all I miss, and need, Kristi.  N needs a family, not just a daddy; he needs a mama who can tell dad when N is tired and needs to take a rest, or who will make the boys sit and relax a little bit.  I want so badly for N to attach to us as a unit, and not just one or the other.  But, in a few months, we will get our wish!

Today, I got to feed N.  There was just one problem; we were not alone.  So, as I sat with the other little children at the little lunch tables, I felt a series of punches in my gut as each one stared straight into my soul from their tiny plastic lawn chairs. Some would smile as I waved and cheered, others would just continue to stare as if I had done nothing, and others, mostly the older ones, began to change their faces into rock hard defenses, knowing that I was not coming for them.  And N, seeing my interaction with the other kids, immediately started acting distressed and hurt-why was this guy who kept calling himself my daddy leaving me to talk with the other kids? he was thinking.  So, even though a part of me felt terrible, I picked up N from the table and began to play with him away from the other children, yet in plain view of them.  Though I knew it, I have never felt the unfairness of this world more than in that moment.  Why, with so many families able to adopt in the world, are these cute, chubby cheeked, lonely kids still here??  Shouldn’t it be us fighting over them?  Not them fighting to get a family. 

God wanted us so much to be in His family that He gave His Son as a sacrifice for us.  We didn’t even want to be in His family, but He fought, and is fighting, for us.  Our good news is that He defeated death, and we all live forever.  Jesus’s righteousness covers me, and I can have a relationship with the perfect Father.  You are an orphan in need of an eternal family.  He has room for all of us; my arms are big enough to hold N only, but His arms are wide enough on the cross to hold us all.