From another adopted families blog

I saw this on a blog from another family who is adopting from Ethiopia.  Lisa really loved it, I want to share it with you all now.


Sunday, February 14, 2010
Real Love
This is an article I just wrote for my local MOPS newsletter. I had a really hard time writing it and I'm still not certain that I said what I was trying to say and that I even agree with everything I said. It's a complicated topic laid out by my less than fluid ability, which makes it rocky all the way around. Be that as it may, here it is. I'd also like to give a shout out to Chrissy for helping me through the process! Don't forget to check out my giveaway!

The United States Postal Service has a good motto, but their dedication cannot compare to the power of a mother’s love-- neither spit up, nor blow-out diapers, nor vomit, nor middle-school-drama can stop us from loving our children. Because of our great love we would do anything to protect our children. We live for them. We would die for them. It’s not about convenience, it’s not about us anymore, it’s about love.

Love like that has a price though. In this country, we say “I love her and so I had to let her go” and we mean that we watched her ride the bus for the first time to school like a big girl. Sometimes the price is higher than that.

Could you kiss your child goodbye for the last time? Do you have the love that would allow you to hand your child to a stranger and walk away forever because that is how much you love her and that’s the price you are willing to pay? Such is the legacy of love my daughter has.

My family is adopting a toddler from Ethiopia. She will become our daughter through the greatest gift and the greatest sacrifice that a parent can make. I don’t know if I have that depth of love, but my daughter will know that her first mother did, that she ended up in our family, because of a love that refused to see her suffer, left hungry, or uneducated. Her first mother had a love that knew no bounds and didn’t stop in Ethiopia, but reached around the world and is changing my life.
Love is not about flowers, chocolates, cards, and candlelight. Love is about giving of yourself until it hurts, until you’ve reached the bottom of what you have the capability to give, and then finding more.

The Bible says that “perfect love casts out fear”. It’s true, but that’s big stuff that’s not something we can do on our own. Perfect love is what God offers us through the gift of his son, redemption from death and suffering, and a place in his family. When you’re enveloped in that perfect love you don’t fear because you know that the One who loves you like that has nothing but good in store for your life.
Throughout this adoption process I’ve been given glimpses of God’s perfect love and my own well-intentioned but far inferior version of love. My best efforts to love leave me riddled with fears…will we get the money we need in time? will my boys be okay while I’m so far away? will I be okay so far away from my boys? will this daughter that I love but have never seen be terrified of me? am I ruining my family? will we have trouble bonding? do I really have to drive a minivan? … It turns out that on my own I am not very brave and I am a slow student when it comes to trusting that perfect love. And just like a loving parent God always calms my fears from my ridiculous phobia of driving a minivan before I’m thirty to the mundane fears about money (which I never seem to get over) to the more serious fears about bonding. He doesn’t shame, humiliate, or punish. He wraps me in his perfect love and soothes. He shows me how his hand has guided our story. He reminds me that his checkbook is bigger than mine and points my memory back to the ways that he’s provided for us so far. He puts levelheaded friends in my path when I want to panic. He continues to show me that each time a fear comes up that I have trust more in his love that only wants the best for me as his child.

God is patient with me through this process and doesn’t rush me, doesn’t try and force me to trust his love. He accepts my trembling steps of faith as I grow and together through the redemption of adoption, we’re bringing home my sweet little girl. And she will know, as I know, that she is loved not only by two mothers on opposite sides of the world, but with the perfect love that only comes from God. Loved. Redeemed. Adopted.