Friday, September 26, 2014

Over Breakfast on Asa's 5th Birthday


Today Asa is 5 years old. 


As I stood in the kitchen this morning, I watched Asa happily eating his cereal, so excited that today is HIS birthday.  

My heart swelled.

There have been many, many times in the last 4 years in which I thought that we might not all make it to his next birthday.  Those who know us well know that there are some very difficult moments with him.  There have been a lot of tears shed and a lot of deep breaths taken.  Birthdays are not just a day that we celebrate the birth of a person; we celebrate that God has graciously brought us through another year. 

As I looked at Asa sitting at the table with all his brothers, I thought, “I cannot imagine my life without him.”  I whispered the same to Kenneth.  He replied, “It has taken a lot of hard work to get here.  And God has been gracious to enable us to do it.”  He is right.  I would be ashamed if anyone knew just how many times I have wished for an easier way.

This morning, I sat in awe.  Not soaking up the sentimentality of the moment, but rather just in absolute amazement at God.  It is Asa’s birthday, and even though I never physically birthed him, I truly feel like I did.  I do not feel any difference between my sons who came from Ethiopia and my sons who were born from my womb.  None.  They do not look like me, but I don’t even notice anymore.  And honestly, when people ask us questions, it throws me for a loop because I have to stop and think, “Oh yeah.  They were adopted.  It is quite obvious to everyone else that I didn’t birth these boys.”  I am the one who forgets.

Before Aiden and Asa came home to us, I always wondered if parents really felt a difference between their biological children and those whom they adopted, but just never said it.  I wondered if you could ever feel like this child was yours. 

In the beginning, there was a huge difference in the way I felt about my children.  With everything I did, I wondered if Aiden and Asa’s birth moms would be so disappointed in me.  I felt like I was watching someone else’s child even though I knew that they were now mine.  Our family was in absolute upheaval and it didn’t feel natural at all.  There were days I was downright resentful.

I love each of my children differently, and I admire different things about each of them.  However, the distinctions are about personality, not how they came to our family.  In His goodness, somehow over the last 4 years, God has blurred any difference in my heart that I once felt.

I sat over breakfast just thanking God that I cannot imagine life without Aiden and Asa.  Praising Him that in the day-to-day it never really crosses my mind that they were adopted.  Thanking Him that I don’t even notice that they look different.  It is just so normal to me that this is our family.

That feeling I had this morning of, “This is so normal” led me to love my Savior even more.  What a picture of the gospel!  Through the death of Christ on the cross, we who were once enemies of God have now been reconciled to Him.  We are no longer strangers, but sons.  We were once far off, but have been brought near through the blood of Christ.  We were once wild olive shoots, now grafted in.  There is now no distinction between Jew and Gentile, we are one family in Christ. 

It is only through the power of Christ that brothers and sisters from different countries, different birth families, and different backgrounds can come together and form one family and for it to feel so normal, so natural.  Won’t heaven be so beautiful?!  Praise God! 

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