Treasure

I was thinking today, as I often do, of something my friend Dana said in an email once. Norman and I had asked her to write a reference letter for us for our home study, and she was relaying to me the many hoops she had had to jump through just to get her letter notarized (oh, how I empathized). After thanking her profusely for her willingness to go through such trouble on our behalf, she said no problem, she understood about institutions and red tape and, in fact, believed there was probably a reason for such hassles. She went on to say that, "if any of these little inconveniences is enough to deter someone, then they shouldn't be trying to get no African treasure..."

African treasure... yes... that's what Kezia is to us (though an Ethiopian would kindly correct and say "Ethiopian treasure") and she is what I hold out in front of me every time I face another one of those "little inconveniences" (and some not-so-little ones). Kezia is what I think about when I get angry or irritated about the incessant red tape... the snail-like pace of things... the daily revisions to our ever-tender hope and expectations. Kezia is, after all, the Treasure we are working towards. She is the reason I can learn to live with and surrender such things. She is the reason I get up every morning and face another day hoping; the reason I can learn again to open my heart to another child; to stand with it wide-open and waiting for her to come and fill it in the way that only she can. The vulnerability of this terrifies me at times, but I don't care. She is worth it.

There is a freedom in that place, and a revelation: Only love can do that. I have not the courage for any of it apart from that-- of that I am most clear. But love can do it. Poured through and out of me, not of my own doing but His. Grace given if I let it. And every day that I can, I do.

(Thank you, Dana)

"Adoption is not a humanitarian act. It is a gift."

- Angelina Jolie