Are We There Yet?

As a child, we took many trips around the country for vacation or to visit family members. 12 hours to one set of grandparents and 14 to the other. Doing the trip about twice a year, we got used to it pretty quickly. At some point, I started asking for the map so I could follow where we were in relation to where we were going. I know that didn't make the trip any shorter, but I'm sure it kept me occupied for a few hours every trip and kept me from asking if we were almost to our resting spot for the night. I always knew we were almost to Grandpa and Grandma Daggett's when we turned at that gas station and started on the two lane road over quite a few hills. I always meant to count how many hills we had to pass before we would see their house, but I never could remember how many there were. Either way, once we turned down that road it was time for me to start putting all my toys in my backpack and get ready to unload into my grandparent's house. So on this adoption road, I would say we are almost to that turn at the gas station. We should be licensed in about a week or so at this point. At that time we'll have to lean on God to help us decide which kids we should submit our homestudy for. It's so weird to think about picking kids like you would clothes out of a catalog, but that's what we are preparing ourselves for. We've been told to not fall in love with the first kids you see. Do you realize how hard that is going to be for me? I fall in love with kids I see across the restaurant that I don't even get to hold or talk to and will never see again. I'll always remember this little girl I met in Nicaragua. I haven't actually thought about her in a while. I went there on a mission trip when I was 13. She didn't speak English and I couldn't speak Spanish, but I know she felt safe with me. Her dad, or whoever, was holding her and she was just crying and crying. I went over and reached out my hands to her to see if maybe I could help the situation and she came right to me. She immediately stopped crying and just laid her head on my shoulder. I sang to her a song she had no way to understand, but it brought a smile to her face. And when I would stop, she would look up at me with longing eyes, and I would continue to sing again. I don't know her name or have any idea where she is or what she is doing. I gave her dad my address so he could send me a copy of a picture he took of us, but I never received anything. How do you love a kid you can't communicate with? How do you bond so deeply so quickly? I don't know, but I suppose it has something to do with God's love, so deep and yet so irrational. It doesn't make logical sense to love someone who can offer you nothing, who can't express their feelings to you, and yet I loved her so much. So I anticipate loving our kids will be just like loving that girl. I can't say that I know what they will have been through, but I know that God's love never fails. I won't understand what they are feeling, because I haven't been there. My life has been so simple, so normal, relatively. The classes we have taken have tried to prepare us, but I'm pretty sure its all going to be inadequate. Because love doesn't make sense. You love with your heart, not your head. So I pray for our kids and I pray that God will help us love like he does. I pray that when we see/meet our kids that we'll just know they belong with us. Nope, we aren't there yet, but at least I can look at the map and know where we are in this process. I see how many more hills in the road, and I can see the next chapter of our lives around the corner.