there's a new woman in my life....

John Paul lives with a foster mom.

A foster mom!

Do you know how HUGE this is?

Throughout this adoption process I have loved listening to the song Narrow Little Road by Red Mountain Church.  The first line says, "I believe in the love of God.  It is an orphan's wildest dream."

I listen, and I pray.  Oh Jesus, where ever our little orphan is, the little boy you will bring to our family, protect his heart, keep this wild dream alive - that there is a God, a God who loves, and that love is partly manifest (desperately, imperfectly) in the love of a family.

Maybe you've read hundreds of pages about adoption.  Maybe you haven't.  Know this: God does miracles.  All the time.

Little ones who have never been held for a feeding, who have laid in metal cribs staring at white ceilings, who have never had a chance to develop muscles for sitting or crawling or walking, who have stopped crying in the night because no one ever responds to their tears..... these little ones are adopted.  And their new parents fight long hard earthly and spiritual battles to teach their newest child that there is love, and Mama-snuggles at meal time, and a whole world to be seen outside the concrete walls of an orphanage, and a strong-armed Daddy who comes in the night when you cry.  

And God redeems those ugly early years.  And restores those orphans to a family. 

For us, for our family, we have no idea how long or tough this attachment-to-a-new-family battle will last.  I am quite sure I am wholly unable to count the cost that we will pay as we help John Paul unlearn some of life's hardest lessons, which hit him hard, when he was two days old.  John Paul, family is forever, nobody will ever again put you in a box and walk away from you, we are here.  Forever. 

But we do know this - life with this foster momma, that John Paul lives with someone who DOES hold him while he eats, who DOES come in the night when he cries, who DOES carry him outside to see the sky and hear the birds sing - this is a GIFT!  Huge huge gift!  A much more lavish answer to my "keep his wildest God-love dream alive" prayer than I ever imagined. 

We have one picture of John Paul held by a woman - is that her?  Is that the woman who has loved on our John Paul since he was three days old?  Is John Paul her first foster child?  Her tenth?  Does she know that his paperwork for international adoption is complete?  That a family has said "we want him, we want to bring him home"?  That we are coming to get him and bring him to his forever home? We don't know.  

So I wonder about her, and grasp at straws for more information - and praise Jesus that where ever John Paul is right now, she is not far away.  That she has laid a selfless foundation of love and permanence that we cannot wait to build on.  That we will never underestimate the sacrifice she made.