a slow-mo miracle

A year ago today we stepped off of a plane holding our daughter and skipping hurriedly through mazes of halls, down an escalator and into the arms of our rascals.  Hazel and Anders had been without their mom and dad for 6 weeks and it almost killed us.  Lena had been in a crib within the walls of an orphanage for four years and having been immersed in that reality had left us staggered as well.  She refused to sleep a wink during our entire travels from Ukraine- over 24 hours in total; just a bit more stimulation in the world than she was accustomed to.  But we were all home together and she was ours and the chaos known as our family began a new chapter.  And what a chapter it has turned out to be.

I have often shut my computer in disgust as I have tried to articulate the things that this last year has brought with it.  The things that Lena brought into our family.  But I can’t quite make sense of it all yet; better yet, I can’t help you make sense of it all yet.  Much of my writing on the subject is distant and ambiguous because I am afraid that I will water down the miraculous wine that I have tasted this year.  Better that you don’t get a drink at all than a sip that does not truly represent the batch.

What a year!  I have made a point to write multiple times recently on how hard it has all been so that I could get to a post like this and also be honest with how amazing it all has been.  Lena and her story has shown me the gospel in ways I have not fathomed before.  She is a gift.  As with so much that the Lord brings my way, she looks nothing like what I thought His blessing would be.  O how He loves us; to give us more than we could ask or imagine.

From afar it must seem that the Jesus is so evident because we swooped in and brought love to a girl who had no hope.  And there is undeniable truth in that telling.  But flip the coin to find the hidden treasures of the gospel- the ones few receive as they seek happiness where their mind tells them it is located.

Lena has made us aware of our own weakness, our own vulnerability.  She has surfaced our sin as we cannot control things or lean on all that we know and all that has dutifully served us on earth up till now- ourselves.  In doing so, we are exposed.  And in being exposed, all reasons to love us flee.  And yet He does not.  His love is not measured by our worthiness to receive or our actions that deserve it.  He loves us in spite of us.

Lena taught us that; everything I have experienced this year has left me asking, how did I understand the gospel before I walked through this?

I love to read about miracles and I often just go ahead and ask for some.  But the truth is, I don’t see a lot of miracles happening around me these days.  Insert your cessationist theology here or reference my lack of faith- whatever allows you to move past my assertion that I just haven’t been witness to many miracles as of late.

But what is a miracle?  I want a fast one.  I want water-to-wine-at-the-party type of miracles.  However, through Lena, I have been witness to a slo-mo miracle.

In the last year she has awakened so much through love.
In the last year I have awakened so much through love.

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Here’s a video that Ginny made to commemorate this beloved gal’s year
(She didn’t know how to do videos, so she sat down and figured it out- cause momma wanted a video.)

Ginny & I decided to each write our own thoughts on the year- without reading each other’s. You can see what she had to say here.