There is a group visiting here from China and have had the privilege of spending time with them and getting to know them. Carolina has especially taken to one particular woman and has enjoyed hearing Chinese and enjoyed the doting she has received. I have to admit, I was a little surprised they took to her the way they did - usually it is the white children that get the attention because they are different than what the Chinese people have seen before. But Carolina has demanded their FULL attention.
The women, in particular, have asked me a lot of questions regarding Carolina's history. Was she in an orphanage? Are her birth parents dead? How old was she when she came to America? Does she speak Mandarin? Does she speak Cantonese?
I was happy to answer all of their questions and even add more of my own narrative to it. I described how little she was when she came, how she loves to eat until food comes out of her ears, how she does speak some Mandarin but no Cantonese...I gave them all the details. Including how she was left on a doorstep and found by caring doctors who called the police and subsequently brought her to an orphanage.
Our mixed emotions came during a company picnic when Carolina preferred to be carried and served dinner by her favorite Chinese woman. She rested on her hip and played with her hair while sharing stories of the bouncy houses and otter swimming in the habitat at the top of Grandfather Mountain.
Bill leaned over to me while we were standing in line and said, "I don't like this." "It's okay," I told him. "She needs to be with people who look like her and speak her heart language."
But, I felt the same way. I may have had the logic in my head, but my heart was screaming, "GRAB HER BACK!! She may prefer them over you!"
Wow. I was not prepared for that, and neither was Bill.
Throughout dinner, Carolina was sitting on their laps enjoying hugs and lots of food from the women. A little bit afterwards, though, she ran over to me and just said simply, "I love you, Mama."
That made me feel a lot better, but shortly afterwards she was holding the Chinese woman's hand and dragging her back to the bouncy houses. Wow, there I was, again, feeling insecure about Carolina's love.
(Side note: I am leaving out the relationship this woman and I built BECAUSE of Carolina...how we were holding hands and laughing and speaking in Mandarin together about the stuff that matters.)
On the way home, after saying our goodbyes and lots of hugs and kisses (and, "see you on Sunday" talk), Bill and I spoke more openly about our feelings. He told me straight up that he does not trust Carolina's affection. He said it made him very nervous to allow her to make friends and even fall in love with a Chinese woman like that.
It's ridiculous, right? What do we have to fear? At the end of the day, she is still ours. Legally and in our hearts. Nobody can snatch her from us. But...well, we know that she could eventually stray. When she is a teenager, or even a pre-teen, she could have feelings of wanting to find her birth mother (we expect this) or just decide she plain doesn't like us and resent us for her upbringing. We have all of these fears and more.
As I was thinking and talking this through with Bill, it occurred to me that I am also adopted. Adopted by my Heavenly Father who already knows that my affection can't be trusted. I can stray from Him and be distracted by something a little sparkly over to the side, or something that takes up more of my attention, which will cause me to momentarily forget that He is still there, filled with love and waiting patiently for my return.
We can't trust Carolina's affection, it's true. God can't trust ours either. I have proven that over and over.
But God...He is my Father. He has adopted me into His family and I am His, no matter what comes in my path to distract my affections, He always loves me.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." Ephesians 1:3-6
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16
1 comment:
This post had me in tears, thank you so much for your honesty and words of truth spoken to this Mama's heart. There are days where I feel like "really?? really God after four long years they would be so quick to attach to someone else?" I needed to hear this encouragment today and take a look at my own heart that is prone to stray too!
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