Anticipation

There is a lot of anticipation around here as we approach bringing the littlest Davis home. For months, Brian and I have cordoned off a part of our brain that experienced pain and grief whenever we thought about our “newborn to us” son and the conditions he is living in, literally half a world away. And now the longing, the waiting, the work, the great expense, the longing is about to be fulfilled in the adoption and reunion of ourselves with our precious son. I leave tomorrow.

There are two things happening here, however. Well, at least two. One is the reunion of a family to a son. The other is the disruption of a child from his world… into a family of strangers. This is a child who knows his life’s routine, who has a set point of all things familiar… being taken without explanation (he does not understand Bulgarian, much less English more than a few words) to a foreign place with people he doesn’t know. From his perspective, he is being kidnapped.

Please pray for him. Pray for us. We have studied how to best relate with him during these first days and years to create an environment where Daniel can begin to experience feeling safe. But we know so little about him that we don’t really know what it’s going to be like. I barely know what he looks and sounds like. I have very little insight into his thoughts, hopes and fears. But this is the only way: pick him up unannounced from his orphanage on Wednesday morning, change him into clothes we’re bringing for him and leave immediately in a car for a 6+ hour drive back to the country’s capital. He’s rarely been in a car. I’m not sure how the fear will set in – will he try to play and distract himself? Will he withdraw and be a little mouse? Will he protest and cry? Certainly, after some hours he will want to go back to his room, back to his bed, be tired and hungry.

So I know this is a “downer” post in the midst of the celebration of adoption. It’s suffering in the middle of great joy. But that’s the way of adoption. Brokenness and healing. Grief and new life. The joy is no less!

At the same time, I see this journey as an image of other parts of my life. Where joy and suffering are together. Love. Passion. Ambition. Loss. Emptiness. Failure. One goes with the other. When my faith is weak and I consider if God is real… then I realize that if God is not, then at the end of this life, there is no reward, no hope, no champion, no reunion. That is death! God is real and He knows my name! And at the end of this temporal struggle between the forces of light and darkness, there is a great reunion of all. And He will call my name, because He knows and loves me. What joy and hope at the end of the battle!

THAT, is anticipation. Can’t wait!