A New Song

We attended church today for the first time as a family of eight - BTW, that's pretty much an entire row at our church.  Unsure how Meddie would respond, we proceeded cautiously awaiting a meltdown of unknown size and/or timing.  But to our delight, she responded quite well.  You could see the gears turning in her mind as she tried to process all that was going on around her - strange language, lots of people, many kind people approaching her closely with big smiles, etc.  She quietly took it all in.

Heather first took her to Eddie Joe's Sunday School class and sat with her.  After a short time, Meddie decided it would be good to rotate between Eddie Joe's Sunday School class, the adult Sunday School class, and the nursery.  Realizing that each one was somewhat boring after a few minutes, she would point to the door and turn to Heather and they were off to the next place in the rotation.  It's amazing how much can be communicated with eye contact, hand pointing, and small sounds.  I do think she enjoyed the ability to migrate and sample different parts of the church building.  I know that most eyes were following her as she was coming and going, rather than listening in Sunday School.

Once the worship service started, we were even more unsure how she would respond.  But we were surprised by her response to the singing.  We had a missionary speaking, a great man from Cameroon whom we have come to know quite well through his visits over the years.  The emphasis of the morning had a missions flavor and the songs that we sang also shared that message.  As Heather and I stood together, with Heather holding Meddie, we sang great songs of sharing God's love with the nations.  To our delight, we could hear our little African Princess humming along.  Though she didn't know the words or the melody, she was following our sounds in her own quiet little hum.  It was moving to consider our congregation singing together of taking the gospel to the nations while our little beauty who has come so recently from a faraway nation was singing in Heather's arms.  This, the very building where God had called us to adoption, was now where we were singing together as a family of eight, worshiping our great God, holding our beautiful girl.  It was a Selah moment to pause and remember God's goodness.

I often have to stop and take a moment to think of the work that God has done already in the life of this little girl.  And in our lives too.  We are challenged daily by the adjustments that are happening in our family, but not nearly as much as she is challenged by the changes that are happening to her.  She still has little to do with me during her sad or emotional times - leaving Heather as the single parent to work through the emotions with a sad or frightened heart.  It's understandable that she would reject one of us - after all, where have we been for the last 4.5 yrs of her life?  We enter her life, take her to a new world, and she's left to wonder, "what next?"  And it's in that wondering that we see the deep thoughts in her eyes and the pain in her little crying voice as she tries to process something that she can't understand or comprehend.  Even if we had language to share the words, the mind of a four year old is not able to grasp the depth of loss that has happened to her.

But the singing voice from this morning is a reminder that God is in control.  God called us to adopt, God led us to our little Peaches, and God can heal her.  This morning's song that she hummed was merely a repeating of the sounds she was hearing from us.  But, we long for the day when she sings a new song, a song that God places in her heart, a song of healing, a song of peace, a song of joy, a song of worship.

And they sang a new song, saying,

"Worthy are you to take the scroll

and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood 

you ransomed people for God 

from every tribe and language and people and nation."

Rev. 5:9