When Your Soul is Stripped

I'm a Type-A person. I love to be in control. I love to have a plan and I love to make things work out. I hate it when something feels bigger than me. 

The adoption process is especially torturous for me. Everything is out of my control and nothing ever goes right. I am not patient, and I cry all the time whenever I think about my kids who are still stuck. 

About three weeks ago, I found out accidentally (thank you, God, and I know it wasn't an "accident" but bear with me) that Micah has been moved. He is no longer at the location that he has been at for so many years. He's gone, and no one told us. 

I can't even tell you what this did to me. I can't explain to you the kind of panic you feel when basically something the equivalent of a kidnapping happens to your child. Unbeknownst to you, they are physically removed from a "safe" place and disappear into thin air. A helpless child, who can't even communicate in the world around him. I wanted to die. 

Graciously, God allowed me to find out through a stranger, and only after the fact. A person was going overseas to Ethiopia and someone told me they would be stopping by Micah's orphanage. I almost didn't message them; after all, everything is so complicated and why keep reminding Micah about the family who hasn't come for him yet. Also, I had just gotten a few pictures a week or two before. I decided not to message the person....then immediately changed my mind. ANY contact with Micah is more precious than gold. I sent a message and the person responded that they would check on him for me. 

A couple of weeks later, I got a message. The person had seen Micah and showed him our pictures and he was overjoyed. I cried seeing the light in his beautiful face. 

A few days later, I got another message. Micah had been moved. Some other things I can't share were happening. And Micah was living somewhere else. 

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't pray. I was borderline hysterical. 

My child had literally disappeared. Any control I had was gone. We almost lost Levi a few times in the fight for him, and I remember being sick for months over it. And now it had happened. With my precious Micah. He was gone without a trace, and I was left with a gaping hole where my heart and lungs had been. 

Thank God for His mercies. I got a picture within a day from the person saying they had seen Micah. They didn't know where he was but they had been driven there. He was safe. He was doing well. He was still in Addis. 

I cried again. In thankfulness. In confusion. In desperation and heartbreak. I screamed at God. I questioned Him. I questioned everything about the hell that has been Micah's process. I demanded to know if we had not truly been called to this; had we forced  

And oddly enough, I feel calm right now. I feel like for soooooo long Go has been silent, but the past few weeks He keeps speaking through random people and events and verses. I keep rehashing everything about Micah in my mind. I remember finding out about him in October of 2011. Being denied the chance to go after him. Sobbing in my car for him. And then picking myself up and going after him anyway. 

I remember going to his orphanage in October of 2012. Subtly trying to find him in the masses of children. Asking directly for him, and the director bringing him out. I remember Micah sobbing hysterically in a corner, covered in streaks of tears and dirt, afraid to even look at us. I remember spending an hour just coaxing him to make eye contact and then finally throwing a ball with back and forth with him hours after that. 

I remember going back in June 2014 and being on a dirt floor with a boy with CP when they brought Micah in. I burst into tears. We sat in a car and he wouldn't look at us or respond to us. He was like a stone. And after a few hours, he began to respond a little. 

In July 2014, he would sit and let us read a book. He would make eye contact. He would flip through the toys we brought. He let the kids snuggle all around him. He took pictures with us and even cracked a few smiles. 

In March 2015 he hugged me of his own free will. In the two weeks I spent there, he turned into a different child. One who laughed and did stunts and wrote and signed with me. Played soccer and showed me his drawings and his treasures. Shared his kitten with me. Dragged me around showing me off and took hundreds of pictures on my phone. Played Subway surfer and gave me a picture of himself. Who cried and cried when I left and I am told has cried every day since. 

Going after this child, my SON was what we were called to do. We didn't make it up, and it isn't at too great a cost. And we will never stop. 

I've been wondering lately if this is God's way of making me fully depend on Him. I always try to, but I know I am bull-headed and prideful and sometimes I feel like whatever is happening is because of what I'M doing, even though it isn't. This is all God's. I don't know what will happen. I keep thinking, "He HAS to clear," but does He? People pray for terminally ill family members all the time but they don't always live. Good people get into tragic accidents. Kids all over the world are hurt every day. It isn't always a happy ending. I want it to be. It is literally killing me because I love this child more than life. But I don't hold the future. 

I know who does though. And I know we have been called to this. And because of that, I am not afraid.