unhealthy hearts

today i scheduled bella's cardiac consult appointment.  this is the second time i have had to schedule this.  last august i made the call thinking we would possibly have her by january 2010.  i had to cancel that one.  the day i called and told them we just wouldn't have her that early, my voice cracked. they were pleasant and sweet and told me to reschedule when we were closer to getting her.  so now with our LOA in hand,  i called.  i've never been particularly good at scheduling appointments for the four, healthy kids living in our home.  scheduling one for a daughter i have not yet held, was unbelievably strange.  we have a date though:  friday morning, july 16th.  it may be cutting it close...there's a chance i'll have to push it back again.  but not months...maybe just a week or two...not months.  i am sure.  i hung up the phone and prayed, "Lord, let this one be right."  let us walk into that cardiologist's office on a sunny, summer, friday morning.  let us Lord.  please, let us.  let this be the day when we finally have some information on our little girl.  right now we know so little.  sometimes i just cannot wrap my brain around the fact that we have a tiny girl waiting on the other side of the world.  a tiny girl who had open heart surgery last july.  a tiny girl with a serious medical condition but in an orphanage which hasn't allowed us even the most scant update.  all we know is "she hasn't had to go back to the doctor."  she wouldn't be taken unless there was something blatantly wrong.  well, that's a blessing....but in our country where well visits and specialists and preventive medicine is the norm...i realize how far apart our worlds really are. the nurse asked me to list the problems with her heart.  i started to recite words and terms which are now a part of my vocabulary.  i listed the three different conditions with her heart and when i asked her if she wanted more information, she paused and then answered, "umm...no...i've run out of room to write."  i faltered for a moment.  this IS a lot.  i looked at the file on the kitchen counter and at all the long, hard to pronounce names and i felt my own heart skip a beat.  i felt that breathlessness which sometimes hits me in small waves of anxiety.  we've had people ask us if we "really know what adopting a child from another country with special needs will look like."  our answer:  no.  we don't.   we've read articles and books. we've been counseled. we've done the coursework and  the videos and the etc... but truth be told,  we really don't know. we can't possibly know.  we've also had numerous people remark how eager we must be to get her to america so that she can have good medical care.  so that her heart can be monitored ...fixed...repaired...healed.   oh yes. of course we are eager.  of course we will want to seek out the best care available.  of course we are thrilled to be living in a city like atlanta which has all sorts of tremendous options.  but....i have to tell you, there's more to this picture.  bringing bella to america to fix her broken heart is part of it.  yes.   but here's the deal...if you ask us what really is most exciting about adopting this child and bringing her home, it is the chance she will have to hear someday about the eternal healing of her heart.   are you following?  yes, she will come and receive good medical care for her physical, earthly, temporary heart.  but even more so,  this child will come and hear about Jesus, the lover of her heart.  she will hear about Jesus, the healer of broken hearts.  she will hear about Jesus and have the chance to know Him and His eternal healing.  i have tried to put words to this in the past.  it is almost impossible.  adoption is such the picture of our relationship with Christ.  He adopts us into His kingdom.  we are absolutely helpless and hopeless without Him. we have no advocate, no means, nothing to bring, no thing to offer.  but He chooses us and brings us home.  as broken people, we are all in need of some good heart-fixing.  we are all in need of some major restoration and repair whether we live in china or america.   i am amazed that God chose for us this little girl with an unhealthy heart.   really these words are not sufficient to express the joy i feel when i think about the way our God works to show His great love and His great glory.  i have written about this passage - isaiah 61- in other posts, but it just keeps coming back to me.  it is the very picture of rescue....it is the picture of how God rescues us and tenderly places upon our heads a Crown of Beauty....how He covers our sad situations with the Oil of Gladness and a Garment of Praise....how he binds up our brokenness...and proclaims freedom and release....

"He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the captives

and release from darkness for the prisoners....

to comfort all who mourn...

to bestow on them a crown of beauty

instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness

instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise

instead of a spirit of despair." 

~ isaiah 61