The One who Gave You Life

 I wrote this post below a few weeks before we went to China to bring Eli home in 2013. I never published it because it was so so deep in my heart and the emotions I felt for what was about to come were overcoming me!  I can look back now and thank the Lord that Eli's birth mother chose to give him life. She had to make a very difficult choice for whatever the reason maybe, we pray for her, honor her and think of her often.  Today on National Birth Mother's Day we pray she knows Eli is loved and the he loves Jesus!

  "A child born to another woman calls me mom. The depth of the tragedy and the magnitude of the privilege are not lost on me." - Jody Landers

As AJ and I are getting ready to travel, you can imagine how many thoughts have been running through our minds.  Me personally have been thinking of every detail possible for packing and getting ready, but there is a much deeper line of thinking going on in my head lately.

Although a person can read a thousand books on adoption, emotions of the process, strategies for handling such and helping your child, NOTHING can fully prepare you for the influx of thoughts that come racing in when you know your only a few moments away for looking into the eyes of your child.  Eyes that you did not create, eyes that look nothing like your eyes, eyes that his birth mama looked into first.

I think about her a lot and what she must have went through deciding to give Eli a different life than the one she could offer.  I think of the pain, the grief and the wonder she had in the unknown of what she decided for Eli's life-a sacrifice I have never known. In a very short time, AJ and I will be taking Eli back to the United States and out of China; his country which is the very last connection he has to his birth parents.  I have to deal with that a bit and the Lord has helped me through the idea that I am taking him from the very last thread connecting him to his start in life.

I pray often for his birth parents and pray that somehow they know in their hearts that their son is loved, cherished and adored. I pray they know he will be safe in our arms,  fed,  will be warm and protected. Knowing they may never find out any of these things is a hard to come to terms with, especially once we need to answer these questions for Eli. There is not a day goes by that I don't think of his China Mommy and hope she knows that Eli's new life with his Mommy and Daddy here is a good one, filled with joy, laughter and the love of the Lord.

Eli will know about his China Mommy and Daddy, celebrate them, talk about them, cry about them. We will always include them in whatever we celebrate and honor them in the way they need to be honored and in a way Eli feels comfortable embracing them in his life. After all, his China Mommy and China Daddy made us a Mom and Dad- Eli's mom and dad.

And for that we are humbled, we are grateful...

God is good, and we are blessed

 For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.

Psalm 139:13-14