Crevasses

My computer screen is blinking at me waiting for me to type.  I'm not quite sure what I want/need to write tonight but I know I must write so here I go.  Since being home from Ethiopia for the past month I have been filled with so much emotion.  So much, in fact, that I haven't really been able to verbalize it to anyone.  I told a friend today that I feel paralyzed in a way.  I guess that explains my blog silence. :) Our three weeks in Ethiopia were filled with so much.  So much good and so much that is just painful. 

Obviously, the highlight of our time in Ethiopia was meeting our son, Tariku.  I can't tell you what an amazing kid he is.  He is just pure JOY.  We had braced ourselves for so much difficulty but honestly haven't had any trouble since we've been home!  We are just eating up every delicious moment with him (as I know the difficult part will come!).  I marvel at him.  His smile.  His belly laugh.  His sense of humor.  His ability to pick things up so quickly.  His sensitivity to others.

What I think I hadn't expected so soon was that I am grieving for my son.  I know...weird, right?  Why am I grieving for my happy, seemingly adjusting son?  His story is his to tell and I won't go into detail about it.  Suffice it to say he has gone through quite a bit in his first four years of life.  It's hard just having small tidbits of information about his past.  I want so badly to know it all so that I can help him in the way that he needs.  Our little guy is a fighter.  A survivor. 

I think my heart is just heavy with the knowledge of what he has had to bear...things I can't imagine.  Our world is so, so broken.  I can't fix it.  You can't fix it.  All together we can't fix it.  I'm just so thankful that one day it will all be whole and right and that God will make all things new.  Only He can bring full restoration.  None of us can make our past go away...both the mistakes that we have made and the hurt that has been brought on us by others.  But we can let God into those spaces to bring healing and hope.  That's my prayer for Tariku...that God enters those crevasses I'll never be able to fit in and fills him up and meets him there.  That He heals the broken places in his heart and that somehow God uses Ben and I to play a part in that. That as we love him with abandon Tariku will catch a glimpse of just how wildly, crazy in love his Heavenly Father is with him.

For now, I just get to sit with the searing pain that threatens to tear me open some days and also the utter joy that my son brings wherever he goes.  Psalm 30:5 says "Weeping may endure for the night but joy comes in the morning."  I know there's a legitimate place for the "weeping" right now in my own heart.  And the joy has already come in the form of a 48 pound little boy who has changed my life.  I am just so thankful for him...and for the story God is going to tell with his life.