Timing

How can we understand God's timing?  How can I understand, much less explain, how I could become so smitten with a picture of a little girl I'd never met and knew nothing about?  Wynn has asked, "Why did you want to adopt me?"  "Who wanted me first?"  "Who wanted me next?"  "Who didn't want me?"  It's a story-telling routine; all answers must be the same.  If I give the answer the wrong way, she will correct me.  It's like trying to skip a page when the parent is bored with the favorite children's book - doesn't work.  (By the way, the answer to who didn't want her requires me to elaborate that everyone wanted her . . . but Cameron, and even more so, Conor, were worried about getting a big sister instead of a little sister and were worried she'd beat them up!  This makes her laugh, and we talk about how everyone had worries, but that everyone agreed that we wanted her in our family.)

How hard for her to have to have the fear and grief of leaving her foster family and everything she'd ever known to come be with us.  How hard for her that before she got to go through all of that, she had to wait for years watching other children being adopted and wondering why she wasn't chosen.  Would we have been ready if we'd seen her picture sooner?

The other day in the van, she made a passing comment about how maybe her birth mother ("mom" accompanied by gesturing indicating a growing pregnancy) didn't want her because of her heart.  I call it a passing comment because she didn't want to dwell on it - but I have to think that there is a deep well of emotions and questions behind such a comment that I can only superficially understand.  My darling girl.  I tried to explain - and communication is still not perfect - that "didn't want" and "couldn't take care of."  are not the same thing.  I told her that while I don't really know for sure; we don't know the true story; but I really think that her birth mom loved her and wanted to take care of her.  I think so because she didn't go to the orphanage when she born.  I think her birth mom tried to keep her as long as she could.  Of course, we can't really know, but it seems the most likely explanation for a baby who was found, sick, at an estimated 6 months of age.  I can hypothesize and feel that most likely, I am telling a story close to reality - but how can I explain a system that leaves a birth mom with such poor options if an infant needs surgery?  It hurts my heart.

The other day, I was looking way, way back on the family blog for some specific pictures.  Wynn was looking with me and asking how old kids were and what was happening.  She kept tapping my leg, grabbing my arm, and shaking my chair, saying, "Mo-OM, why didn't you adopt me sooner?!"  "Mom!  Why didn't you come get me earlier?"  "Mo-OM!!!"  It makes me very sad about how she had to wait.  And it makes me very happy that she seems to see adoption as a desirable event.

Dear Lord, we've been so blessed!  She would be well within her rights to be filled with anger and confusion, and she is filled with love.  Not to minimize that there is grief and hardship and questions I cannot answer and challenges to find our way as a family.  But she is filled with love.  As am I.