This is Worthy - much older and wiser. It's been a very tough 9 months with her. There has been a lot of anger, bitterness, and yuck coming out of her verbally. Things like, "I hate you Mommy!", "I don't want to play with you Mommy!" and other general yuck. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Why now? Why two years after her adoption? Then it hit me. Until this December, her longest sentence was three words. Let's just say her language has exploded this year and for the first time in her life, she was able to express herself. All those years where things didn't go her way and she didn't receive justice (she's very big on being treated fairly) came spilling out in what I could only call venom. Then, about 1 month ago, it stopped. She has been a very pleasant child in the past month (comparatively). She's finally figured out that Big B and I are in charge and that we will love her regardless. Whenever she told me how much she hated me, I responded with, "I'll always love you" when inside I was screaming, "Well you're no picnic either." She's figured out that dependence is OK and we will be faithful to her. She no longer has to watch out for herself.
It's been occurring to me that her path is much like our adoption to God's family when we choose Jesus. We choose to submit our lives to Jesus. That's all good and positive until God decides to do something in our lives that is not what we expected. His job is to love us and always do what is best for us, but we don't always see it like that. We just can't see the end of the story He is creating out of our lives. Worthy has not until recently seen much of how we are training her as love. For example, how is it loving to not let her outside whenever she wants to do so? She saw it as hate. I saw it as love because she couldn't handle the responsibility of being outside by herself without randomly running into the street. Even during one of her rants, she said she wanted to go back to China where she was happy (we've painted her a good picture of her life there - I have a feeling due to dreams and what she says, it was not all positive). I tried to explain to her that they couldn't take care of her there. She had no family - no identity - no hope of becoming what God has created her to be. But, to her limited view at that time, taking her here seemed like a bad idea and plan for her life. She couldn't see the big picture. Now, just so you know, she rarely says things like that, but I know every once in a while it will pop up. It's OK. I'm a big girl and can handle it. We are very narrowly focused people. We can only see our immediate present and try to project our future very poorly. God sees the big picture beyond our narrow focus and does everything in our lives out of love. He doesn't create suffering (that's a whole other post), but uses our broken world to make something beautifuly worthwhile.
When Praise was 2 years old, I had a real crisis of faith. I railed against God for giving me a child that was certainly not in my plan. How could He allow it? Why? Much in the same way Worthy railed against me, I railed against God. But, He loved me through it. He didn't withhold blessings or provision because I was mad. He waited for me to let go and trust that He was loving despite what I saw with my eyes. And isn't that the choice we all have? When things don't go our way, we can choose to trust that God is who He says He is or melt into a puddle of independence apart from God.
So, this is what I have been learning from a little spitfire of a girl.
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