Four Years Ago ….

Four years ago this week ,every day was a count down for the big event.

And this week every morning I hear…”momma….3 days till I am on stage with my whole family there.”

Four years ago this week I was checking my bags and trying to make sure every last thing was accounted for.

And all week they look through their bags…”bobby pins-check, tap shoes-check.”

Four years ago yesterday I was all alone in a hotel room  with two little girls who liked to dance to every song….

And last night with tears in my eyes I remember how hard that Guatemala trip ,to pick up the girls, had been.

Little girls who had been shuffled about… not knowing who their momma was.  Now in a hotel room with rules like, “Don’t hit your sister” said in terrible Spanglish.  There is only so much you can do in a foreign country when your girls aren’t officially yours.  You can’t just go walking about.  You are stuck in the hotel, till the papers are signed.  Time went so slow in Guatemala.   I thought it would be just a great trip with a bit of formalities to tie up at the U.S. Embassy.  But you can’t just run into the enemys’ camp and take out two orphans without some backlash. And I am not calling Guatemala the enemys’ camp… I am calling taking children from orphan to a family.  Anytime you father the fatherless…wrap mothering hugs around the motherless you are waring.  There is a force that will try and squash the breath out of you… freeze you in your tracks…immobilize you.  But He always provides and one day when I felt it was all I could do to take them to the pool… a blond woman came up to me…she asked me if I was adopting…she went on to tell me she was a missionary whose van had broken down and they would be staying at my hotel.  She had adopted also in Guatemala…knew the language, the people, the area…and it had been much the same for her.   Never underestimate the power of a broken down van… we all have a Divine Itinerary.

So last night as I sat there in the pitch black of the recital center, taking it all in… I could not believe…. that even though we were up in the balcony…

She could see me.

Yen could look past all the stage lights and see me

She could find me in a crowd of parents…Her momma, cheering loudly…Yen’s face beamed big…and I thought, there is no way she can see me.

But just like four years ago… she knows her momma.

 She knows her crazy momma who WOOOOO’s embarrassingly loud from high up in the balcony.

~

I think back to that little girl jumping on the hotel  beds and dancing (now riding on a full dance scholarship) to every song on the children’s shows chippering away in Spanish … and tears well up. I think how hard it was to leave my husband with our four kids (wow only four?) and get on that plane all alone and cross country and oceans to get my daughters…. and how four years later ; I only had to cross a bridge to see them do this.
All my friends “in the know” were texting me during the dance ,sharing the same joy. So many “can you believe it” texts. It’s really a gift that He let’s us work with Him at all… but that He gives us His creation to raise? How can I not be proud of my daughter who has accomplished so much in just four years!?
He is so good….so very good.

You were snatched out of an enemys’ camp.

You right there are ransomed…

adopted…

How much more does HE love you?!

HE loves you so much. If last night was just a splinter of a splinter of how much HE loves us… let me tell you… HE smiles when HE sees you. No matter what, He is proud of you. You have accomplished so much in such a short time. Stay right here in that moment…make it your life…That moment when you begin to understand…to relate to just how much He really love you. You are His.

Let that moment bloom in you ….

be able to see Him past all the darkness of this world…look far up into the balcony and hear Him cheering for you. See how HE beams for you…see how His love is brighter then any stage lights.

All for you.

Let that fill every fiber of your being… You are His and He beams for you. Your Father is proud of you. Beam back thanks to Him. Everything you are doing is worth it…because at all times HE is your audience…the only One that matters. All of the other seats fall away when you recognize Him sitting there… enjoying you. Because you are worth it.

You are worth it all.