“Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is
the true self. Every other identity is illusion.” - Brennan Manning
It’s that time of year again – my son’s “Gotcha Day”. For those not familiar with the adoption
world, that is the celebration of the day that we first met him – a birthday of
sorts symbolizing when our lives began with each other. I’ve written quite a few blogposts about what adopting Tariku was like over the past three years. I really don't feel like each annual “Gotcha
Day” demands a blog post, but every single year April 9th rolls
around and I feel compelled to write one.
Maybe it’s because my son’s presence in our lives absolutely amazes me
when I take time out from the daily grind to think about it. He spent the first four years of his life in a mud hut on the other side of the world sleeping next to a donkey and now he sleeps down the hall from me - it takes my breath away sometimes. Don’t get me
wrong. This boy has an ability like no
other to rub me the wrong way and exasperate me every day. Our family life is not all roses and
sunshine, trust me. I lose my temper
with him, I sigh and shake my head at him plenty of times and there are days I look at
the challenges he has in front of him and I think “Um, God… you chose the wrong
person for this journey… this is waaaaaay beyond me.”
But here’s the thing… God took a really broken, complicated situation in
which my son wasn’t properly cared for,
and he brought a whole lot of life and love and happiness from all the
wreckage. And don’t get me wrong… it
wasn’t just my son’s life that was headed for destruction – it was mine too. While he was a victim of circumstance, I was
headed toward a life of selfishness and ignorance. But adoption changed so much
of that for me, for which I am so incredibly grateful.
I was putting T to bed last night and I was telling him about
the first time I learned his name and saw his face load ever so slowly on my
computer screen. I told him how I was
holding the phone to my ear as I saw his picture for the first time, and with
tears running down my face I said to my friend Lindsey “He’s mine. This little boy was meant for our family. I just know it. I can tell just by looking in
his eyes. He’s really, really mine.” I
tried to explain to Tariku last night how we had waited for years for a referral
and how amazing it was to finally see a face and know a name four years ago…
how in that moment, I knew both our lives had changed forever.
I’m not sure why it is, but I have these moments of absolute raw tenderness with my son that I didn’t know were even possible. As I was laying in bed beside him telling him about how overjoyed we are that he is our family forever and always, he reached over and wiped the tears
that were trickling down my face and said “You’re crying because you are happy,
right mom? I know what that’s
like.” And I’m just so relieved that he
does. I’m glad that he knows what it
means to cry because he’s happy, because there are so many children who don’t or can’t
or won’t let themselves know that feeling. He said “I am so glad that you are
my mommy now… because you are kind and you help people, but mostly because you
love God.” Well, okay…. there went an
entire box of Kleenex. Isn’t that all we
can ever, ever hope for as parents?? That our kids see us as kind and helpful,
but most importantly – lovers of God?
All those moments of my failure as a parent and a human being… every
second I have snapped at him or had a bad attitude or been unsympathetic… he
still sees my true self – the person covered in grace who just wants to love
people and God no matter how much I fail at it. He sees the me that God sees. How amazing is that??
When Tariku came into our lives four Aprils ago, I wasn’t
thinking about all the ways he might fail in life, how he might disappoint or hurt me, or the struggles that he would have. I was just overtaken by the
sight of his face. I was in love with
his four year old little arms that reached out to me and his precious little
heart that was just so ready to be loved. There was nothing like it. And it has taken me a lifetime –literally my
entire life, to realize that that’s just how God looks at me - He's overtaken by the very sight of me - He's not worried about all the "what if's". I’ll be darned if God doesn’t look down at me
with my arms wide open and think “Look at her! Just look at
her! That one right there – she’s mine
and I am SO stinking proud of her. I see
her for who she really is and she’s beautiful.
Nevermind the failures. Nevermind
the inconsistencies. Nevermind the mess. I see beauty and power and grace when I look
at her. I made her just right and I’m
head over heels for her.” That one thought right there is absolutely life changing if we let it be.
When I look at Tariku I see a pure gift. He was literally
placed in my hands to love, comfort, guide and grow with. I had ZERO idea how much he would teach me
about how my Daddy looks at me. Tariku
just showed up that day on April 9th as he was… nothing fake about
him – no pretense - he brought all of who he was to the table. And we responded to
his little outstretched arms instinctively with our own arms wide open. There’s nothing Tariku did to make us love
him – we just loved him because he belonged to us. He was ours and that was
enough. God’s love for me and for you is
just the same. It’s not contingent on anything we do – we belong to Him...
every last one of us. God's great big arms are without fail, always open and coming towards us - always. There's just never a time when they're not.
Most every night I put Tariku to bed I tell him all the special things I see in him – I name all the gifts that God has given him so that he
won’t grow up to doubt his value or how loved he is. I pray out loud over him that God would use
his gifts of compassion and his heart for justice to change the world and help
people catch glimpses of the God who is crazy for them. And I wrap my arms around him and squeeze him
tight and tell him that there’s nothing he can ever do to make me love him less
or more. I tell him that he is so very loved just as he is – right now (at
which point he normally farts and laughs so loud I have to cover my ears).
It’s this same comfort level that I think God craves from us
(okay, maybe he could do without the farting, but)… our ability to let down and
just be who we are, without fear or shame or pretense must stir his heart the
same way Tariku stirs mine – and then some.
God’s got his arms wrapped around us saying “Geez… I just freaking love
you!! Do you know that? Do you REALLY KNOW that??” Love like that has changed everything for
Tariku, and Love like that has changed everything for me in recent years. My heart aches when I think about all the years I have spent
striving, fighting and clawing my way to ensure I had that love when the whole entire
time my Daddy was there saying “I’ve got you.
You belong to me. Stop trying to
earn my love – you HAVE it… you always have.
Just enjoy it."
Someone once said that God is never just doing one thing
through a circumstance – He’s always working to accomplish many things through
the one. And so it goes with our adoption of Tariku. Not only was God providing T a home to be
safe, cared for and loved in, but He was teaching me what His love really
looked like. God was showing me what my true home looked like in that same way. I cannot tell you the amount of peace and satisfaction I have now knowing that I am God's beloved.... that there are no lengths He won't go to to show me that. Watching my son grow in compassion has stirred and grown my own heart toward compassion. My son might be my greatest teacher thus far in life, and I am just so grateful for his beautiful, miraculous presence in my life. Thank you, God, for knowing just how much we needed each other and for bringing us together. Life will always be richer because of it.
I’ll leave you with Tariku's “Gotcha Day” video from April of
2010. Fair warning though…get some tissues first - love like this makes you cry
sometimes, but oh it's worth it!
