Today I was invited to a lovely (and I'm talking LOVE-LY) tea party. While chatting, one of the women (very innocently might I add) asked me this,
"Aren't you worried that when you adopt a child you won't love them like you love your own kids? What if that kid hits or is mean to your own kids?"
Completely unbidden my eyes filled with tears and I said,
"Don't you understand? That will be MY child just as Hailey and Libby are mine. Just because I didn't conceive and bear the child does not mean they weren't with me before we came here to Earth. They're mine. I just haven't found them yet."
I don't fault her those feelings. I had similar fears when I first found out that I had a uterine tumor. But little by little the longing (and panic and desperation and hope) for a child has lead me to some pretty serious growth in my soul. And I know now as I have never known with such a ferocity that we are all children of God and that He doesn't care how we got to the Earth. He cares only that we return to Him. He doesn't care if I physically bear a child. He doesn't care if that child is a baby or older. He doesn't care if they are black, white, or anywhere in between. He doesn't care. All that he cares is that I love them. That I teach them that HE loves them. And that I do my very best to put them on the path back to his heavenly arms.
I still mourn that I will never again feel the flutters of a growing baby in my belly; that I will never experience the sweet agony of childbirth; that I will never again see a child come out of my body a completly separate human being. Because those experiences were miraculous. The best of my life.
But I also look forward to the sweet assurance that will come to me when I hold a little child in my arms, look so deeply into their little eyes that I see their soul and can say without hesitation, "It's YOU! I've found you. I've been through agony and now you're here. Six billion people on the earth and somehow, here you are, perfect you. My needle in a haystack."
I probably won't love my adopted child like my bio children because I don't even love the two of them in the same way! Hailey and Libby are opposites, how could I love them the same? I love them in equal measure but differently. I am one hundred percent certain that however my next child comes into my life I will love them differently, but just as much.
In 2004 a friend gave me this little poem. I thought it was sweet. I was ignorant.
Not flesh of my flesh or bone of my bone
But somehow, miraculously my own.
Never forget for one single minute,
You didn't grow under my heart but in it.
That little verse means so much more to me now than it did in 2004. Each minute of every day my child is growing in my heart.
"Aren't you worried that when you adopt a child you won't love them like you love your own kids? What if that kid hits or is mean to your own kids?"
Completely unbidden my eyes filled with tears and I said,
"Don't you understand? That will be MY child just as Hailey and Libby are mine. Just because I didn't conceive and bear the child does not mean they weren't with me before we came here to Earth. They're mine. I just haven't found them yet."
I don't fault her those feelings. I had similar fears when I first found out that I had a uterine tumor. But little by little the longing (and panic and desperation and hope) for a child has lead me to some pretty serious growth in my soul. And I know now as I have never known with such a ferocity that we are all children of God and that He doesn't care how we got to the Earth. He cares only that we return to Him. He doesn't care if I physically bear a child. He doesn't care if that child is a baby or older. He doesn't care if they are black, white, or anywhere in between. He doesn't care. All that he cares is that I love them. That I teach them that HE loves them. And that I do my very best to put them on the path back to his heavenly arms.
I still mourn that I will never again feel the flutters of a growing baby in my belly; that I will never experience the sweet agony of childbirth; that I will never again see a child come out of my body a completly separate human being. Because those experiences were miraculous. The best of my life.
But I also look forward to the sweet assurance that will come to me when I hold a little child in my arms, look so deeply into their little eyes that I see their soul and can say without hesitation, "It's YOU! I've found you. I've been through agony and now you're here. Six billion people on the earth and somehow, here you are, perfect you. My needle in a haystack."
I probably won't love my adopted child like my bio children because I don't even love the two of them in the same way! Hailey and Libby are opposites, how could I love them the same? I love them in equal measure but differently. I am one hundred percent certain that however my next child comes into my life I will love them differently, but just as much.
In 2004 a friend gave me this little poem. I thought it was sweet. I was ignorant.
Not flesh of my flesh or bone of my bone
But somehow, miraculously my own.
Never forget for one single minute,
You didn't grow under my heart but in it.
That little verse means so much more to me now than it did in 2004. Each minute of every day my child is growing in my heart.
4 comments:
I love that poem, I don't understand how anyone can think of their children--natural born or discovered---as anything but their own.
xox
I love that poem and I adore the picture you chose for this post. Want another feel good? Listen to the Tarzan sound track.
Love you!
I have always tried to express to my children or other people how I love all my children and those who I have added to my family in situations, as if they were my own. i have never had the exact wording that i have wanted to use. YOU SAID IT in this post. You will love the children of the Lord and your tender heart will love them better than anyone else, as you accept them into your family.
i love this poem. you are in my prayers
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