If you follow my blog (you must be a curious sort of person, first off), you might remember this post and this post about a little girl we were waiting to get the referral of. [I do not have the energy to fix that preposition. If you're offended, stew in it, not my problem.]
Just a few days after my hopeless post (it was Friday October 14th), we got her referral: several documents with info on her history, medical information, some personality traits, and two photos. I decided to call her Sweet P, because she is clearly sweet and precious. Stephen and I were unable to talk about it much because he was teaching that Sunday and was very busy preparing.
I spent the whole weekend and the first few days of the next week pretty sure we were going to adopt her. I wasn't elated like a lot of people talk about being when they get "the call," mostly because the decision to parent a person is a really big responsibility, and my legs always feel a little shaky under the weight of being someone's mom. But I was... glowy about it. I suppose I fell in love? I learned to want to know her and to have her smile at me. To cuddle her and be silly. To feed her and pray over her at night. I thought about how on earth we would handle doing the school thing for the first time, and how she would handle the boys, and how srsly how would Ezra handle her (smothering her with attention was my bet).
But as the week went on, as I thought about all of these things, I became more and more uneasy about her life with us. If God sets the lonely in families, would bringing her into our family change that? She has friends where she is, and caregivers to whom she's attached. A family is more than that, better, but not just any family.
Her file said she's shy and doesn't make friends easily. We don't have kids her age; our church doesn't have girls her age either. So school (and sports; she likes soccer) would be her only hope of making friends. But we're leaving for San Antonio in just a couple of years; she would have to start all over, and in MIDDLE SCHOOL.
No one deserves that.
So I cried. A lot. Because it's hard to acknowledge that a child you love is better off with other parents. And my selfish heart wants to claim her and keep her. But God gives us the Spirit so we can be moved to treat others with the unselfish love he has for us.
So I emailed our agency worker (because I couldn't bring myself to call her and sob to someone who hardly knows me) and told her we were choosing not to adopt her.
And I grieved.
[. . .to be continued tomorrow.]
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