Saturday simplicity

We begin each day, even Saturdays, with a bus trip to the hospital for shots.  Anna has now taken to not just covering her behind, but attempting to smack the nurses' hands away.  Even though I understand it, I can't allow it.  Poor Anna!  To her, I am a traitor, because I fully undertand what she is saying to me ("no more shots!"), but I bend her over and expose her hiney anyway.  I hope that someday this will all be a distant memory.  I know the other babies won't remember, but Anna is not a baby.  She will remember.  I hope these memories will be redeemed in time.  I hope Anna will know that I allowed these things in love, not to harm her.

As for the babies, their mothers were joking yesterday that they should surrender their children to China for a year or so -- since Anna can stand and sit and jump and walk and even talk.  I really don't know what Anna could or couldn't do when she was the same age as these little ones.  We do know that since Anna does not have her balance nerves, it's amazing that she walks as well as she does.  We also know, from the photos we were provided, that Anna always had life and light in her face.  That light is what God used to speak to us in the first place.  When we saw Anna's eyes, we knew she could not live out her days in an orphanage.  It's not okay for ANY child, but for a child with the kind of personality Anna appeared to have, it was especially not okay.  And so we said "yes," not really knowing then all that "yes" would entail.

 

 

 

In a way, it's not so very different from what any of you have experienced with your children.  You didn't know, and still don't, when you gave birth to your children or adopted them, what the future would bring.  None of us knows how many days we are given with our children, whether those days are ended by our own departure from this world, or by theirs.  We don't know what our children will or won't do when they grow up.  We don't know whom they will marry, or how they will choose to live their lives.  We can only, by faith, commit their lives to their Heavenly Father, and then, as best we know how, rear them up in the way they should go.  We place our wholehearted trust in the Lord that His promises are true, and that He will keep these that we have committed unto Him against the day of the Lord.  

 

When my faith gets small, I remember a song we often sang at church when I was a small child.  I dearly love all the new praise choruses, but the older hymns have a settled place in my heart.  This one has recently wrapped itself around me, and when I start to let my mind wander too far, it's a gentle reminder of where my heart should rest: 

 

"'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,

Just to take Him at his Word.

Just to rest upon His promise,

Just to know, 'thus saith the Lord,'

 

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him.

How I've proved Him o'er and o'er.

Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus,

Oh, for grace to trust Him more."

 

Love,

Amy