Beauty from Ashes

I'm exhausted.  A cold and jet lag are doing me in.

I'm also teary.  I am so blessed.  Emily is shouting, smiling, and making eye contact with me from the other room.  ( Of course, I had to go in and snuggle her and give her kisses.  She started to cry.)

Adoption is not easy.  It's hard.  We've spent a lot of hours over the last two weeks with her velcroed to my shoulder, crying softly or not so softly.  Sometimes she'll cry, "ma-ma" over and over.  I don't think she's talking to me.  At one point in the hospital she was sobbing inconsolably and one of the nurses swept in to rescue her.  She was passed ( and loved) from one nurse to another as each one tried to console her and distract her.  It didn't work.  she didn't want them either.  She just wanted to grieve.

Sometimes it's easy to see the beauty of adoption.  Sometimes it's not.  People often say of Kaitlyn, "she's so lucky."  That's difficult to hear.  First of all,WE'RE the lucky ones.  Second, adoption is born out of pain.  Nobody gets adopted unless they've experienced loss.

Lynsay at stinkytofuandotherthings.blogspot.com had this to say about it.

I am a huge supporter, promoter, believer, advocate and whatever else there is, of adoption. 

I see adoption as beautiful.  I see how amazing it is that God can turn something so broken into something so beautiful and amazing.  And I love that. 

In the past few months I have read articles, blogs, and posts from adoptive families talking about the brokenness of adoption. 

When I read them I agree with what is being said most of the time, but I just don't feel that same sense of brokenness and sadness.  I still see the beauty. . .

That is not to take away from the brokenness that is adoption.  The brokenness that must be in order for an adoption to happen.  There is and always will be brokenness.

Death.  Abandonment.  Rejection.  Pain.  Disease.  These are part of adoption.  This is the brokenness and the complete heartache that leads to adoption, by children, by birthfamilies, by adoptive parents. 

I get it, I really do, lets not sugarcoat the fact that horrible circumstances have led to adoption. 

Perhaps that is why I see the beauty, because only God can turn circumstances so terrible and make them beautiful.  From Ashes to Beauty.

So here we are, looking at God to bring beauty from ashes in Emily's life.  Looking at Him to fulfill the prophecy of her name, "Beautiful Hope".