Bittersweet {revisited}

Today is a day that this Momma spends in quiet prayer and reflection.

No matter the crazy that we have planned (heh, or unplanned in most cases),

August 15th will always be a bittersweet day for me.

I can't say it better than the previous years that I've said it,

so I'm reposting my first thoughts on the place
that August 15th holds in my heart.

I hope you enjoy it - and join me in prayer

for that special woman to whom I am joined now, forever.

(from 2008, while we waited for our Travel Approval)

. . . One year ago, on the 15th of August, my sweet baby {Li'l Empress} was left outside the local police station in her province, to be found by "common people" and turned in to the local authorities.

I spent much of the day running errands and grocery shopping. But my mind and heart were very pre-occupied with thoughts of {Li'l Empress}. With prayers for her birth-mother. Many adoptive parents feel similar mixed feelings as I've been experiencing, and I've read some beautiful posts honoring the excruciating choice to give up a birth-child. I've also read some sad, heart-wrenching posts about the issues surrounding the choice to abandon.

Sometimes, given the lack of information that we adoptive parents have regarding the circumstances of our child's "finding day," there exists a tendency to romanticize the story and even embellish what we surmise to have happened. To assign feelings that would be ours and put them onto a woman or a circumstance we don't fully know. I understand that some of us adoptive moms want to empathize and understand the choice of a birth-mom to give up her child. In the process of attempting to identify, however, I think that some of us tend to look at the issue through our own lens, through the filters of our Western mentalities and our American sense of justice and right vs. wrong. I've been reluctant to put voice to my feelings about these issues, for several reasons.

There is still a lot about the abandonment conversation that I do not understand.
Even with as much as I've learned about China and the circumstances that have created the conditions by which we are blessed to adopt from this beautiful nation, I will be the first to admit that I still do not know enough. I do not understand the deep-rooted belief that boys are more valuable to the institute of the family than are girls. I do not understand the economic structure that contributed to the one-birth policy. Although I AM learning that the details and the contributing factors that played into this policy have often been mis-represented and mis-interpreted by many in the media and in our culture. I do not understand the idea that children with special needs, birth defects, or difficult birth circumstances are considered "unlucky." These things that I do not know and do not understand are only the very tip of the iceburg in the conversation of adoptions from China.

What I do understand, what I am fairly confident of now, is that {Li'l Empress'} birth-mother desired for her to be found. She wanted this beautiful baby to be taken in and cared for. How do I know this? She was found to be fairly well-nourished, alert and in a place of common traffic. I know this now because I have learned that most provinces and most towns, regardless of their size, have local police stations in centralized locations. I dare not romanticize a story of grief or pain, and I dare not surmise her birth-mother made a "plan" for delivering her baby girl to a specifically chosen location. I don't know those things for fact. But on this day, when my heart was heavy for a mother whose arms are now empty, when my own heart is aching and my own arms are restless in their emptiness, I do know these things.

I know that in HIS infinite wisdom and love, My Father in Heaven is working to bring to fruition the beautiful plan that He has for {Li'l Empress'} life. I know that her birth-mother played a significant (I dare say annointed?) role in the journey of her life so far. I know that the plans He has for {our girl}, and indeed our whole family, are beautiful. They are for our good. They are for our work on this earth that is purposed to bringing Him glory. I know that, should she choose to seek Him and cry out to Him, her birth-mother can find healing and comfort in His arms.

And until the day I die, I will say a prayer of gratefulness for this woman. And I will pray that she find Her Father and experience the filling of her heart that only He can bring.

"I'll show up and take care of you as I promised
and bring you back home.
I know what I'm doing.
I have it all planned out -
plans to take care of you,
not abandon you,
plans to give you the future you hope for."

Jeremiah 29:11 (The Message)