But, in the meantime, I'm learning, whether I like it or not, I'm learning. I change my mind moment by moment whether I want to learn...and oftentimes, to be honest, I fight it. But, He has something for me in this. He teaches us through these times when we battle with what we think is best and surrender. And you know, as teacher myself, I am a terrible student. Constantly trying to take back this process and make it work the way I think it should. Needing to remind myself hourly, that God loves our girl in a way that is far more vast than I ever could. He is working and moving behind the scenes.
I have been studying the very beginning of the life of Moses, you know, the baby in the basket beginning. I've identified with Moses' mama in a way, honestly that I've never thought of before. We now know God's big picture plan for the life of Moses...it was a big, and very important, and vital part of God's plan for His people. A plan that I seriously doubt his Mama could have ever dreamed or imagined while standing on the river bank that day. All she knew was what she needed to do out of obedience, and surrender. Trusting her God with the life of her precious son. Believing in the big picture she could not see. Believing that in her surrender, the Lord would meet her. Believing that God, the One who created her son, loved him far more than even she could as his mama.
I also have been encouraged to see how she planned and prepared for what she knew she must do in order to save her son's life. She hid him carefully for months, and I'm sure had watched carefully for the schedule and routine of the Pharoah's daughter- to be there at just the right time so her sweet baby would be seen floating in the basket she must have so carefully and meticulously constructed. She did all she could to prepare. To plan. But, at that moment of placing that basket in the river- there was a depth of faith and surrender that was required.
So, as Mamas today...we have a lot in common with Jochebed (feel free to add that to your baby name list!). We have not a clue what God's big picture plan is for our babies. But, we do know He has one. We know that He loves them, even more than we do, because He created them. So, it's in many moments where we must choose to let go or worry, or to control, that we must make this almost impossibly difficult decision...surrender. Am I believing that He sees all of the plan...that He goes before us? Am I believing He will meet me in my surrender? Am I believing that,as their Creator, He loves them with a depth I can never reach? Have I planned and carefully prepared out of obedience, following His lead, or my own?
In all honesty,the moments when I can answer yes to those questions are out numbered by the times my actions answer no. These past few weeks of waiting for the next steps in our adoption process have been brutal. I have wrestled hourly wavering back and forth between control and surrender. Trying to manipulate and plan and control things that simply are not mine to control. Then, giving myself my own private pep talk about just letting go...I'm tired of letting go. Letting go is hard. Sometimes it hurts...
In a few quiet moments this afternoon, the Lord reminded me of another mama, standing on a river bank...struggling to let go. Struggling to see the bigger picture. Struggling to hope that the decision she was making was the right one. I'm sure she'd planned and prepared. She'd wept and fretted and questioned. Coming to the ultimate conclusion, this was what she had to do. This mama was standing by the Fuyang River in rural China. She was holding her baby girl, knowing that even the love that had rooted itself deeply in the 16 days since the baby's birth was not enough to take care of the special needs she had been born with. So, she laid her baby down. By the river. Hoping for better things...hoping for an escape from the fate that would have undoubtedly come had she tried to care for her on her own....hoping for a bigger picture.
This mama was our sweet daughter's birth mother.
It is quite possible that this woman was not well acquainted with the Author of the big picture...but, as her heart broke...our amazing and loving and redeeming Father was breaking the heart of another mama, on the other side of the world to be a part of this sweet baby's big picture.
That mama was me.
So, today, I am choosing surrender, again.
Trusting the same God who made a mighty leader for His people out a of baby floating in a basket his mama made, has a big picture plan for my children as well...He's already shown to be faithful in that with my 2 brown eyed boys- both gifts from Him after seasons of great loss. And our daughter, our daughter only by way of brokeness and pain...but He is the Maker of beauty from ashes...This plan of His is already more special and beautiful and sacred than any one I could have dreamed up on my own.
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