A sticky July, sixteen years ago, I was in Romania, the first brush strokes of new life stirring in my belly.
Romania, 2000
The young street beggers followed our American entourage, hands outstretched and tugging at my heart.
We were told to ignore them, but this one little boy kept following me, hanging on when the others gave up discouraged. All these years later his face has been erased from my memory and all I can remember is dark brown eyes and dirty bare feet. I remember that he pleaded with me in a language I didn’t understand, and I in turn pleaded with my young husband, who was not about to buck orders and give me money for a street urchin. So I changed course and demanded to be fed. My pale, pregnant self suddenly required the only thing in sight. Everyone in our group watched our battle-Chris’ desire to follow our leaders’ protocol, and my outright rebellion. (Not the first, or last, time Chris was placed in this position by his strong willed wife.)
His love for me won, as it almost always did, and I handed over my ice cream cone to eager, waiting hands with a stubborn silent promise.
A few weeks ago, I sat in the psychologist’s office and completed a psychological evaluation. She asked why we thought about adopting, and I told her a story about a young couple in the streets of Bucharest, and my promise to myself that day-that I would keep room in my heart and my home for someday.
…I will love you and buy you shoes…I will bring you home…you will never have to sniff glue to drown out the hunger pains, or live in sewers to keep warm…or struggle to live on the streets…
Sometimes things work out the way that you think they will, and sometimes they don’t.
Almost exactly 16 years ago, a baby girl was born in Colombia. Dark brown hair, and huge liquid brown eyes. Full of life and armed with a promise, that God had plans for her, to give her a hope and a future.
This July or August, 16 years later, that baby girl-after spending much of her life in an orphanage, and almost grown up now, will finally come home to a family forever. Months away from aging out, but instead, she’s coming home to family that will love her, protect her, and fiercely call her their own.
Because today is her someday.
Maybe sometimes things are more connected than we ever dream, and nothing in our life is ever wasted.
