Just a thought.....

When I think about Mei Sims, I truly have such a strong conviction that she was created for our family.... not in a romantic sense of "oh how sweet, she was made for us" but in a literal sense that she was knit together in another womb to be our child.  I know there are people in the adoption world on both sides of the fence of this idea.... created for us or created for their birth parents who made a choice to not raise them thereby came to us.....

I wrote what follows, last october but never published it.... it was a jumbled mess of thoughts in my head.  But after reading a popular blog, I knew it was time to put my thoughts on the topic out as well and let you enter into the mess in my mind.  What I read on this blog was:

"We say, “God chose this child for me. She is mine. She was always meant to be mine.” No. Our children were meant for their birth families, the way every child ever born is. God did not intend these children for my wealthy home and accidentally put them in Ethiopian wombs."

I'm going to ask you to follow the rabbit trails in my mind for a brief moment... the comment above has such deep implications about the sovereignty of my Savior and MS's place in our family.

My disclaimer is that I cannot presume to perfectly know the mind of God (1 Cor. 13:12 for now we see only a reflection as in a mirror...)  BUT I can look at His past to have a better understanding....  Onto what I wrote last fall:

So I heard an interesting discussion at church last week that really made me pause and take a minute to digest it all in light of our adoption.  In the Bible, it is quite clear that children are a blessing from the Lord..... He says it over and over in many different ways.  they are a blessing. Period.  They may make you struggle with anger, they may make your hair turn gray, they may make you need to go to counseling..... but they are a blessing.  Being a blessing of course does not make them perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  that is obvious from the first two kiddos born in the world.... cain and abel.... where one killed the other..... yet somehow, even they are to be seen as a blessing to Adam and Eve.

I've read the story of creation too many times to count but it had never ever occurred to the the timing of when adam and eve were blessed with children.... it was after the fall of man... after Adam and "the woman" (who wasn't named eve until after the fall) ate the fruit from the tree that God had forbidden them to.  After sin entered the world and everything was "screwed up" in a sense, God brought forth the first children.... a blessing in the midst of a newly fallen world.

In a perfect world, where there is no sin, I've always thought that God would create children to be with their birth parents.... that seems fitting after all...  if a baby is growing in your tummy, of course it is meant to be yours.  But what struck me in the creation story that night was that there were no children in this perfect beginning.... so in a sense there was no perfect family unit at that time that went awry because of sin entering the scene.... we have no example that it was supposed to be one way and then sin messed it all up...   Instead the picture in the bible is this:  we have a sinful world.... God then enters something new into the family unit of husband and wife.... children.... a blessing.... No example of the way a family should be formed in a perfect world because it stopped at husband & wife.  I get it that in our minds the best case scenario would seem to be for you to give birth to a child who is actually yours....

BUT then I looked back at so many examples in the bible where God moves so "outside the box" that He obliterates the box altogether.... for example, take the creation of Adam... God decides he should not be alone and what does He do?   He creates a woman.  In the same way He just created man?  nope.  He takes the man's rib to form her--- He had just created adam out of the dust of the earth. in my finite mind, it would makes sense to create woman the same way but he moves unexpectedly.... He often moves in unexpected ways that confound our sense of reasoning......what about marching around the walls of jericho and blowing your trumpets to defeat a great enemy..... or what about using a child to defeat a giant that even the commanding officers were scared of.... or hanging with prostitutes or tax collectors... or parting the red sea for his people to cross and then closing it to swallow up an army....or what about the ultimate problem of sin separating me from God and the solution that God takes on flesh in the form of Jesus and dies for me...  Do you get where I'm going?  In light of all that... (God moving in crazy and unexpected ways)....  would it be that weird for God's plan to include another woman having my baby???

The obvious question is then why are there orphans?  I'll throw this out there.... could it be that orphans are one of the greatest gifts God could have give us?  Adoption is unlike any other worldly experience. Period.  Nothing else on earth more precisely parallels what it means to be grafted into Christ... into his family.... than to watch a child's life be transformed simply by being chosen to be a member of a family.... and in turn receiving all the benefits that come along with that.  God knew his rescue plan for creation all along and perhaps through the life of an orphan he is allowing us to experience on a small scale what He is doing for the entire world.... I wonder if this is why the Bible mentions over and over caring for orphans?  They are part of a beautiful master plan.... they are very much needed in this sinful world to point us to the beauty that is the gospel.   Yes, it is not as pretty and neat of a plan as some would like.... it can be messy and painful..... but so was the cross.

Perhaps the problem of sin is why there are so many orphans who will never know the love of a family..... so many orphans who are mistreated and abused and neglected.... in our state of brokeness, seflishness, and greed, we don't care for them the way He has called us to.... perhaps that is the real issue.

Why does this even matter??  it completely colors the way I convey to MS that she is mine & the confidence I have in believing what I say to her.  I am confidant that God created Mei Sims to be my child..... I am confident that both God was in control when He knit her together and she is where she should be... with her family.  God intended her to be mine just as he intended me to be His.  I was not born a jew and it was never his plan for me to be.  But rather his plan for both of us to be adopted by our rightful parent.  The implications of this path He chose for her are that she will experience hurt and pain because of it ......but won't all of my children experience that over and over in life??.... and yet they will also all experience God moving in hard situations to bring about such beauty.  She simply is experiencing it before they do..... And really is that even such a "tragic" thing?  To experience the providence of God at such a young age.... A providence where bitter and sweet are intermingled for His glory?

Bottom line is this..... I don't believe for a moment that God was watching, holding his breath..... hoping hoping hoping that MS's birth mom would keep her until the moment she let her go.... and then God was grieved that His perfect plan didn't work so He had to figure out plan B......  I hope and pray that Mei Sims never thinks that for a moment...... But rather, I believe He was cheering as her birth mom made that brave decision.... beaming and saying yes! yes!  my beautiful plan is set in action..... much the way He may have felt when He sent Jesus to earth... knowing it was painful but the beauty far outweighed the pain....  And while I can't prove that this was God's thought process, I only need to look to the scriptures to prove 2 key factors:

1.  He is sovereign to the tiniest detail  (Matthew 10:29 “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.)

2.   He is creative beyond measure.  (Psalm 104: 24 How many are your works, Lord!
    In wisdom you made them all) (Genesis 1)

Thanks for indulging me..... I'll step off my soap box now.