The Other You.

We are going to have a child soon. A beautiful little boy or maybe girl from a country far away. Ethiopia to be exact.

We are just starting the process...raising money...filling out applications...researching and more researching....reading books....

And my mind is constantly filled with thoughts about our child. What will he/she look like? Boy? Girl? Newborn? 1 year old?

And as much as I am picturing taking this little child for walks...watching them grow up... playing and dancing in the living room to cartoons...snuggling during the winter months and running through hoses in the summer...hearing the soft breathing of a napping infant.... I have become even more overwhelmed with this:

This baby will come into the world grieving. Losing the one thing it has been so intimately connected with for its entire existence. It's mother.

I know that at some point, Scott and I will be the only scent that this child knows. the only voices that bring security. the only heartbeats they will hear. But when our little first one comes into the world, it will only have had one heartbeat...one voice...one scent... and it wont be ours. and it will be gone.

There is something so beautiful about adoption. but there is something so tragic.

We are adopting not to fill our need to be parents. We are adopting not to complete the family circle that we long for. No. I am realizing that more and more how incredibly selfish that is.

There is a child who has a mother that does not want them. There is a child who has lost both parents to death, disease or poverty. A child who has cousins running around somewhere in the world and aunt's and uncle's and grandma's and grandpa's who share their smile, their laugh, their quirks, their bloodline. Who they will never meet.

I understand grief. I do not understand rejection. I do not understand loneliness.

So, as the reality of adoption is setting in, I am completely sobered. The feeling of responsibility is heavy on my heart. This child needs love and we will give that unconditionally. This child needs security and we will provide that. But, this child will need to heal. And this is the part that I am praying the Lord shows us how to handle.