Family = Love

When I was a kid my family was a huge part of my life.  When there are five people living in a house with one bathroom, you can't help but be close!  I'm just saying.  It's hard not to be tight with the person who let you in the bathroom to go when you were desperate, even though they were in the shower at the time.  My Dad always says no one knows the misery of being the only man living with four women and only having one bathroom!  Poor Dad.  I'm pretty sure  he is still scarred by our teenage years.  We would all be in the car waiting to go somewhere and he would be in the bathroom.  He said he had to wait until we were all out of the house to get his turn! :)  Well, it gave us something fun to tease him about anyway. 

But it wasn't just my parents and my sisters who made up my world.  My grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins were a huge part of my growing up years as well.  We spent countless weekends having huge family dinners at my grandparents' house and us girls would usually talk our parents into letting us spend the night and then we would stay up half the night and giggle and wake up to eat bacon and toast with butter melted in the design of a smiley face made by my Poppaw.  Just thinking about it now makes me smile. 

I guess most kids assume other families are just like theirs; I know I did.  It wasn't until I was a grown up that my idea of family expanded.  As an adult I came to realize that family isn't about the blood that runs in your veins, but the love that fills your heart.  My first experience with this was when I adopted my son Jeremiah.  Jeremiah is from Romania and came home when he was two and a half.  I can't even begin to describe the love I felt for him even before I knew exactly which little boy God was going to make mine.  He didn't have a name or a face in my mind yet, but he most definitely had a place in my heart. That love only grew when I finally saw a picture of his sweet little face.  Even though we were thousands of miles apart, in that instant, we were family.  I worried about him the same way any Mom worries about their child.  Is he eating right?  Is he sleeping well?  Is he with people who love him while I can't be with him?  I miss him.  I want to hold him.  And then when I did...well, let's just say it was the best moment of my life.  He was beautiful.  He was perfect.  He was mine.  We might not be a traditional family, and we don't look anything alike, but we are a family nonetheless.

It was through Jeremiah's adoption that my concept of family expanded even further.  At the time we were attending Sherman Church of Christ and that church family embraced us with a circle of love from the moment we made our adoption plans public.  They gave us constant love and support and were nearly as excited as we were for Jeremiah to come home.  Generous gifts, home cooked meals, and most importantly prayer.  All offered without a second thought because we were all a part of the family of God.   Not connected by blood, but by the blessed ties that bind.

During the time that I was waiting for Jeremiah to come home, I was a new teacher at Grant County and while they were building a new school, the old one was way too small and I didn't have my own classroom.  Neither did another teacher named Jodi.  We ended up claiming a small storage closet off the library as our personal domain and stored our stuff there as well as making it our headquarters for work during after school hours. What seemed like a huge inconvenience turned out to be one of the biggest blessings of my life.  Through hours spent working in our tiny stolen space, Jodi and I forged a friendship that has shown me that friends can create a bond just as strong as family.  When Jeremiah's referral came, Jodi shared that joy with me.  When delays kept our case from passing court she was there to console me.  When I stepped off the plane carrying Jeremiah,  Jodi and her Dad were there to greet us.  Throughout the last eleven years she has shown her loving and generous spirit over and over again.  Need someone to keep Jeremiah?  Done.  Need me to stop at the store and pick up Jeremiah's prescription so you can stay home with him?  Done.  Need me to go with you when you get your wisdom teeth cut out and not make fun of you while you talk crazy because you are still under the influence of the gas?  Done.  (Ok. There was teasing, but it was all in good fun and only after I felt better!)  I could never have hoped to find a friend as good as Jodi.  We can even go on vacation together and still be talking to each other when we get back.  I've never done that once with my real sisters!  Once again, God showed me that family isn't about blood, it's about love.

I know that I have been inordinately blessed in the family department, but today I experienced the love of family again when I least expected it, but needed it very badly.  As you know, Jeremiah and I have started the process of adopting from Ethiopia.  We have our paperwork completed and have been on the waiting list for a little better than two months.  Things were cranking along in the everlastingly slow way international adoptions have a tendency of doing, and then came the bad news.  The Ethiopian government agency that provides letters of approval for adoption cases has decided to cut back from processing 30 to 50 letters a day to processing only 5.  The adoption community has been in an uproar since this announcement and many things are taking place to try to reverse this decision, but to be honest, at first I couldn't see farther than the end of my own nose.  This would mean that our adoption case might not be processed for years, if at all.  I was devastated.  Then I slowly began to realize the effect this would have on the children of Ethiopia.  Four million orphans would remain orphans and never have a hope of finding a family to love them.  My heart was broken and I felt so helpless to do anything that would matter. 

I prayed and then I prayed some more and then I felt moved to speak to the preacher at our church, Mt. Olivet.  Of course I cried when I explained the situation and asked him to bring the prayer request before the congregation.  He asked me to come forward at the end of the service and speak.  Doubtfully, I said ok and then spent the entire service discussing with myself how I could go up there and explain the situation without crying.  Ok.  Who do I think I'm kidding?  I cried like a baby, but managed to explain the gravity of the stuation and ask for their prayers.  As I took my seat,   I was worried that I had done nothing more than make a fool of myself and then the closing song was over and the most amazing thing happened.  People hugged me.  Lots of people.  With tears in their eyes.  Over and over again.  People I don't even know (because our church is growing so quickly!) took the time to come over and hug me and assure me they will be praying not only for us, but for the children of Ethiopia. The women's Sunday school class prayed with me and there was more crying.  And through all the crying, what I finally began to feel was peace.  Jeremiah and I aren't in this alone.  I am helpless to change things, but God is not.  God can and will move mountains through the power of prayer.  I've seen it happen before.  I've experienced it before,  and the idea that prayers for our adoption process and for the welfare of Ethiopian ophans will now be pouring out to God  from our church family gives me hope.  This outpouring of love was overwhelming and exactly what I needed.

I don't know what the outcome of this crisis will be, but I do know that once again I am blessed beyond compare.  I have more "families" than I can count. It doesn't get any luckier than that.