A Love Story

After sharing my family’s adoption story, my dear friend and fellow mother Emma Rose, decided she’d like to share her story too.

To be loved, liked, noticed and wanted. These seem like basic human rights, yet we each yearn to feel them deeply and even sense them missing in our lives. With God they are freely given, though often the affections go unappreciated or rejected because we can’t bring ourselves to accept our belovedness. One truth we must face is that God loves his creation. He desires the best for us all and in our brokenness, he seeks to heal. For you, for me, for all people in all spaces of our sphere. Here is one of those great love stories:

When you wake up in the morning you never know what surprises the new day will have in store for you. Over two years ago, I experienced that sort of surprise twice! First and quite suddenly, I started to feel unwell and had to make a swift return to bed. Sadly, I had a nasty stomach bug. I was lying in bed, the room dark when my husband poked his head around the door. “It’s arrived,” he said excitedly and then showed me what had been delivered– our adoption certificate! What a surprise, it arrived earlier than expected. As we held the certificate in our hands we knew for certain that the long wait to meet our daughter would soon be over and that we could go and get her as soon as we could make all the necessary arrangements!

Ten days later we were traveling to a Chinese city in Gansu Province where our daughter had been living in an orphanage since she was seven days old. We were not allowed to meet her at the orphanage located in a rural village, but had to await her arrive in the capital city where the orphanage staff and government officials would meet us with our daugther in tow.

There would be three of us greeting her; me, my husband, our two-year-old daughter and my mom, who flew from the western side of the globe to be with us at this moment. My mom came to help care for our oldest child while we welcomed the newest addition, Lucy, to our family. We wanted Lucy’s first moment with her mom and dad to be special and just for her.

A guide service had been recommended to us by the adoption agency and so a driver had been arranged to pick us up from at the airport and take us to the hotel that would be our family’s first little home! As we checked in we asked the driver, “When and where will we meet Lucy tomorrow?” Our driver shrugged his shoulders and said, “Don’t know, but they have your number and someone will call you with further instructions.” At this point we felt that we were on some sort of secret mission. Later, while we were eating our evening meal we received a phone call from our guide. He told us to be in our hotel room at 2:30 pm the following day because Lucy would be brought to us there. We were ecstatic over the news.

Back in our hotel room, we sat fidgeting as we awaited Lucy’s arrival. We were not sure what to do while we waited, so of course, we prayed and prayed. The room was silent when suddenly in a flash the silence was broken as five people burst in through the door. My eyes were only looking for one person through the small group and suddenly there she was, Lucy, our daughter. Her Ayi (auntie) put her straight into my arms. Lucy didn’t cry, she just let me hold her close. All around us was mayhem as the Ayi talked me through Lucy’s daily routine. The guide produced a mountain of paperwork while a photographer began snapping away. All the while, my husband was brilliant as he carefully wrote down every detail and signed each document. All I could do was hold Lucy and look at her as a mother to a daughter. I was smitten.

Bizarrely, after the officials disappeared, our guide announced that we needed to go and have photos taken for our official file. So after only ten minutes alone with Lucy, we were whisked away to a professional photography studio for a family photo shoot to be filed in our adoption documents. Lucy clung tightly to me the whole time. She looked so tired, yet was in no way able to sleep.

Afterwards and finally alone, we could hold her and care for her and introduce her to her big sister. Lucy took it all in and remained calm and quiet, never crying.

The following morning, we signed the last of the paperwork and Lucy officially became a part of our family. As we said goodbye to the officials I felt relief wash over me, Lucy was ours and we were hers. Later that day she gave us the best present and my second surprise, her first smile!

Lucy has now been in our family for two years and although this sounds rather cliché she is like a little flower who blossoms more each day. When she arrived home she clung so tightly to me, but now she toddles around the house with great confidence. In fact, within weeks she’d already taken her first steps. She has an open heart and loves us as we love her. She is full of smiles and loves to play and especially to dance. She is gaining trust more each day and growing into a darling. She’s treasured by us and God and we are so grateful for her place with us.

This is a love story, and as I write this I see the love throughout our journey. First with my mother’s love as she flew to China on her own enduring a very long flight to be with our family during that time. I see our love for Lucy, who we had been praying for so long. I see a love for Lucy even before she was born. I can see that Lucy is beginning to understand that we love her and that we are her people. We feel love as she lets us love and care for her and is accepting us as her parents. As cross-cultural workers, our job boils down to telling of God’s love, but first, we need to know it ourselves. As I held a sleeping Lucy in my arms the evening she came home, I knew that God knew our family intimately in a way that only a creator could, how else could he have matched Lucy to our family in such a perfect way? She is a gift, and in the giving of this gift, I know I am loved.