stolen moments

"mom....Mom....MOm....MOM!" the voice of my six year old grew louder and more demanding with each impatient utterance of my name. i had just stepped into the shower. connor sat with his lips pushed against the crack in the door and proceeded to unveil a muffled anecdote of injustice which had occurred with his older brother only moments before. he knew he had my undivided attention. i was trapped. i was going to hear all the dreadful details whether i wanted to or not.


why is it when we just step into the shower or just sit down with a coffee or just pick up the phone that we are needed so desperately? after parenting for almost 14 years...i know this is how it works. how it goes down. i could stand in the kitchen ready and waiting for The Beck and Call and there would be....nothing. but given the chance for a stolen moment, and a frantic summons is a sure thing. there are times right now where i could certainly do without this madness.


but as i stood in that non-relaxing shower, it occurred to me, i will someday miss this. i may someday glory in a silent shower or a hot cup of coffee, but there will come a day when i will, undoubtedly, wish someone was calling me mom. calling me loudly. calling me often. i know they will not always need me and, perhaps, not even always want me. that time feels quite distant, especially as we consider adding to the tail end of our family. that time seems impossibly far-flung this morning as i carefully avoid the stack of breakfast dishes, step around the dirty laundry, and contemplate the items on the grocery list.


earlier this week, after tucking all four children in for the night...i climbed into my bed with a book and a cup of earl grey. "ahhh..." was my only thought as i snuggled deep into the sheets. within minutes i felt a set of eyes staring at me.  sarah elizabeth. she stood quietly in my doorway.


"honey, what's wrong?" i asked.
"mom, are you sure you don't mind being alone tonight?" she replied.
i thought of my book and my cup of tea and my comfy sheets and my quiet...
"i feel bad that daddy is traveling and you have to be all alone. you must be so lonely. i am sad for you," she tenderly continued.
now any of you mothers of multiple children reading this are completely aware of what was passing through my mind at that moment: "um...no, i'm good...not lonely ...good...fine...happy...hot tea...good book...quiet. alone. good. really."


you know how after a day of being available to everyone for everything...we are practically giddy with the thought of crawling into our alone time. however, this looked quite different from my child's perspective. after assuring her that mommy was not in anyway lonely, but really quite content, i persuaded her down the hall into her own room. five minutes later, i settled, once again, back into my own bed. my cup of tea was a little cooler, but my thoughts ran a little deeper. i couldn't help but consider the perspective behind her words. i was embarrassed with how for granted i take my life. lonely is not a word on which i regularly reflect. but lonely is a very real thing - especially to children.


our adoption continues to change me - my perspective - maybe even change my heart. i may delight in the stolen moments of alone-ness, but that is only because they are indeed a rarity. loneliness must look very different for xue zhu, our bella. this little girl ...millions of little girls have no one to come to...no one to trap in the shower...no one to share in their injustices or listen to their stories. psalm 68:6 tells us how, "God sets the lonely in families."


i wait eagerly for the day when bella grace will push her lips to the crack in the door and complain about her older brother. i will know then that she is truly a mcnatt. if someday i can tuck her safely into her bed and happily retreat to my own room...if someday i am held captive in the shower by her complaint, i hope i will realize the great gift, the great blessing, even in this. as a mother, i never long for a grievance or a squabble or an outcry of injustice, but am sure i will have a moment of rejoicing when life has become that normal....someday.

"as father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing..." ~ psalm 68:6

a list of questions...

though we have been plenty busy filling out forms and providing information these past couple of months, we haven't really been able to get anything new on xue zhu. the last update we received was a post surgery report and 3 pictures from the first week in august. our agency explained that the orphanage director basically "shut down" all forms of communication regarding matched children in his orphanage. in late july there was some kind of major snafu with an american family adopting a child from this xue zhu's orphanage. something was botched. the government got involved. fingers were pointed. blame was cast. tempers flared. and because the director isn't obligated to provide information, he has chosen to halt all communication. believe it or not, he can do this. our agent spent 3 weeks in china during august...though he petitioned many times to visit with the children in this orphanage that were matched with families in his agency, he was never granted permission. he left china without ever seeing xue zhu.


i had considered trying to go this fall and see her, but was told that the same would most likely happen to me. i could get all the way to guanzhou city, china and would get no further than the orphanage gate. how can this be? we have a pre-approval document from the government of china. they told us our name "is upon her." how could they possibly deny us information? a visit? an update? a picture? a tiny glimpse?


 just this week we received an email from our agent saying, "we have found a line of communicaton inside the orphanage. our source tells us that xue zhu is doing quite well since the surgery." our agent suggested we should make a list of questions we might have and he would forward them to this new source.


a list of questions? really? no guidelines? no number? no word limit? no boundaries? just an open ended list? yes, i suppose i could come up with just a few...i want to know Everything and when i am through knowing Everything, i want to know More. i want to know about her health, and her spirits, and her care...but i also want to know the sound of her laugh, the shape of toes, the feel of her hair. i am greedy in my wanting...in my knowing.
i am just a mother who wants to know her child. so i will ask..

is she happy?
is she held?
is she safe?
is she cared for?
is she comforted?

does she smile?
does she sing?
does she laugh?
does she cry?
does she call out?

is she crawling?
standing?
walking?
running?
skipping?
jumping?
dancing?

what did she wear today?
yesterday?
tomorrow?

has anyone read her a book?
tucked her in?
played a game with her?
rocked her gently?
tickled her tummy?
laughed with her?
smiled at her?
soothed her?
sung to her?
stroked her hair?
praised her?
corrected her?
noticed her?

what fills her days?
her hours?
her minutes?

has she felt the warmth of the sun?
the cool of the breeze?
the drops of gentle rain?
has she ever sat in the grass?
been pushed on a swing?
strolled through a park?
twirled around?
stepped in a puddle?
giggled?

is she warm enough?
is she full enough?
is she clean enough?
is she held enough?

does she like balls?
or books?
or dolls?
or trucks?
or animals?
or bubbles?

is there someone to call her by name?
whisper in her ear?
listen to her cry?
comfort her with touch?
wipe her face?
brush her hair?
wash her hands?
is she talking?
what does she say?
is there someone to listen?
is there someone to answer?
how soft is her skin?
her hair?
her voice?
her heart?


what does she wonder?
wish?
dream?
desire?
think?
know?
hope?
hold?


. . . just to mention a few.

waiting

and so we wait.  i have to confess, this is something i am not particularly good at. i mean i am really not good at it - at all.  i could tattoo the verse,"WAIT upon the Lord" across my forehead and am certain it would make little difference.  not to mention, my children would be ridiculously embarrassed if their mom showed up with a tattoo across her forehead, or in any other place, for that matter. 


september 9th we turned in our home study paperwork. was that only two weeks ago? we are waiting to have it reviewed so that we can begin the next step of applying to CIS for immigration. we are still very much at the beginning of this journey. perhaps that is the thing making me feel so restless this wednesday morning.  i know how much further we have to go. and no amount of my typical running or rushing will make much a difference. 


friends, i also know, that this is only one of the many lessons this adoption will be teaching us (okay...me). is it possible that God is using even this time of waiting to refine, polish and prepare our family for this next step? we have friends from college who are in china right now bringing home their 4th child. they have just wrapped their arms around their gracie. i woke this morning to find a facebook post and blog about their journey. i was so thankful for the reminder that at the end of all this paperwork and at the end of all this waiting is a little girl in china also waiting.  waiting for her family.

xue zhu's orphange...

this is xue zhu's home.  right now, that is.  we are fixing to change all that just as soon as we can. but for now she is living in the guangzhou city social welfare institute (orphanage) with 3000 other children.  this has been her home since july 2008.
 guangzhou city is in the province of guangdong in southeastern china.  it is also where the consulate offices are located. all china adoptions must go through this city.  when the day comes for us to bring our daughter home, we will spend approximately two weeks in this area.  someday we will walk through this gate.  we will walk into this building.  we will walk into a room where our daughter waits.  someday we walk out with her in our arms.   it seems impossible and incredible as i sit looking at these photos.  these pictures are not home, they are foreign and far.  but i am reminded...again and again...
"even the sparrow has found a home..."   and somehow, i know we will get there.   

to stand beside an ocean

we spent this past labor day weekend at the beach. there is  nothing quite like standing next to the ocean. it has always given me immediate and unequivocal perspective on my size. i remember so well the awe i felt as a child when first discovering it. i quickly became nothing more than a speck. one of the trillions of sand grains underneath my feet.  


as an adult, everything in my world seems to have shrunk dramatically. but not the ocean. it still seems as majestic to me today as it did when i was six. i find great beauty in that constancy. i find it to even provide great comfort. there is reassurance in the knowledge that something is so big, so grand, so awesome it could in no way be diminished by my pseudo-sense of maturity and age.  the line, "i hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean," from the song I Hope You Dance, is well written. how can i not? no one can escape their smallness when confronted with its grandness.  and this is not only important, but it is great blessing.


perspective was exactly what i was in need of this weekend. as we battle through the tremendous check list of our adoption, we have, again, come face to face with our speck-hood. but even this frustrating fact has, in a strange way, brought a sense of comfort. again, we have encountered something so much larger than ourselves. 


i have learned in life that most things seem to have some kind of hidden crack - a minute opening waiting to be unearthed. if i keep prying, keep pushing, keep asking i can, willfully (sometimes), make advancements. i can chisel my way in. i can claw my way through. oh, not so in the daunting world of adoption. as the entire process has unfolded more and more clearly, it only makes the tiny-ness of my will and my size that much more obvious. there is no amount of prodding that will move this great beast along.  it is a great wall. it is a mountain. it is even an ocean. my parents, and especially my husband, would tell you that i have never responded particularly well to the word, "no." there is nothing like it to make me want something that much more desperately. i am certain this is not one of my better character traits....but, nonetheless, i must confess it sort of comes with my territory. i don't really remember the great battles of will my parents had with me as a child, but i have heard stories. they are not pretty stories. i cannot say that this gift of battle, is necessarily from God, but because He uses all things and wastes nothing, i do know He has used even this ugly nature for His good. it is part of what makes me want to push through this challenging mess.  


 rick and i have often felt hopeless, helpless and powerless in this pursuit of our little china girl. our size, even together, is stuck definitively in the realm of microscopic. again, it is just another way in which we are reminded that we can do nothing apart from Him. "...for apart from me you can do nothing." ~ john 15:5. this lesson doesn't come easily to my stubborn nature. i am forty years old and still want to stamp my foot and demand my way. i want to beat my fists on the table and plead my case. i want to assert my rights and present my wishes.  but then i walk down to the water's edge and i stand beside the ocean. as a believer in Christ i cannot even begin to look at His righteousness ....at His glory. even a glimpse of it exposes me in my diminished state. even the mere hint of God's awesomeness reveals my utter wretchedness. i can tell you i don't like it - not one little bit. but i trust God is using even this formidable (at times) adoption to reveal my rebelliousness as i attempt things without Him. 


i can go ahead and jump in the ocean and swim with all my might. i can store up all my energy. i can plan and prepare all i want. i can even use floaties and goggles, but i will be completely and utterly lost at sea if i think that i can in any way attempt this on my own. sure, i find that sometimes discouraging. but, i am learning to find it encouraging. i am learning to see myself as small and my God as big.  sometimes we just need to stand beside an ocean.

time

everything about xue zhu's situation screams, "hurry!" everything. her heart condition. her institutionalization. her age. her distance. her loneliness. our impatience. everything. 


so last week i did what seemed obvious: i began to push the agency on the timing. i asked questions like, "is there no way to move this along?" and "can't her medical needs be reason enough to expedite the adoption?"  they were reasonable questions and we asked them with great hope.   maybe no one had actually thought about going faster.  the answer we received, however, was not one of agreement and hope. we, instead, actually landed with our feet pointing in the opposite direction. it became clear that the timeline we were working from was not the same as the agency. this wasn't about faster, this was about slower.   all along we thought the process would take about 6 months from the time we started pursuing xue zhu in july. in our minds, that was clearly december...maybe january.  this is important considering we were told she needed another surgery before her 2nd birthday (february).  what became clear through all my pushing and questioning, however, was that we had 4-6 months once our dossier was "logged in" in china.  friends, our dossier won't be in china until (maybe) november . four to six months from november? are you kidding me? is this possible? how was this miscommunicated? why? why? why? where is God's perfect timing in that? 


how could we ask these expectant questions only to end up traveling further away from this child. nothing about this makes sense to our desire to rush in and rescue...to make right...to solve...to soothe...to comfort... to control. we found out this information 8 days ago. i haven't been able to write one word about it until now.  somehow even typing it into this silly blog makes it real.  as i type this morning, i can feel the discouragement in my very fingertips. the pounding of each key seems to mock my plan, my way, my wishes. and yet as i write even these words, i can see before me, in black and white, the wrong way my heart is bent. "my plan? my way? my wishes?" all week long it has been a struggle surrendering to the fact that this is not my story. this is HIS story and HE is writing the next chapter.


i can attempt in my emotional and human and very shortsighted ways to believe i know what needs to happen when...i can formulate an outline and i can type up a timeline...but i cannot write the next chapter. this is for Your Glory O Lord. even this little, lonely, abandoned china baby is about Your Glory, Lord. i know that in my head. but my heart asks fearfully, 

"how far must i go to be stripped of myself in this process?  can we not just agree and accept our control issues and sign on a dotted line? can we not just work this out quickly and then head into china with all engines firing? O Jesus, we know time is in Your hands. You, are the Alpha and the Omega.You hold all things and all time in Your hands. You have even promised to 'make all things beautiful' in Your time. why is that so hard to trust?

"but i trust you, O Lord; i say, 'You are my God.' 

my times are in your hands."  ~ psalm 31:14-15

my times are in His hands. xue zhu's time is in His hands. the timing of our adoption is in His hands.  will we, tightlyscheduled-timedriven-clockoriented-impatientpersons-clockwatchers-calendarcontrolledhumans, will we ever really get it? can we get that he holds all time? that our God is not only the Keeper of Time, but the Creator and Author of Time?

"when i was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.

all the days ordained for me were

written in your book before one of them came to be."

~ psalm 139:16

yes, His story... told in His time...written in His book.

pApErWoRk PaNdEmOnIuM!

home study and dossier headquarters: our guest room this week....i guess no overnight visitors until this is all cleared up!

A Patient Nurse

"can you please spell for me your daughter's name?" the scheduling nurse asked.
"name?" i hesitated. "you want me to give you her name?"
"ah...yes," she efficiently responded. "her name and her birthdate, please."
all that raced through my mind was: but we don't have her yet. we've never seen her. i've never held her. she doesn't even know we exist. how can i assume the right to give anyone her name? my eyes welled up with tears. i just wasn't prepared for her to ask me my daughter's name. i wanted to explain all of this to her but i choked on my words.
"it is okay," she calmly answered. "we just need to start a chart on her in order to schedule her appointment with the cardiologist."
"oh, okay, " i stammered. "but you know we don't have her yet? she is still in china. nothing is official. you know that right?"
i had really only called to begin the process of interviewing local cardiologists that we will need when she gets home.
"yes, dear. it's really okay. i just need a name," continued this very patient nurse.
for just a moment i began to consider how best to describe all the different names of this child. i imagined what it might sound like if i started to list all of the chinese names by which we've called her...AND all their meanings... AND all their pronunciations - correct and incorrect - AND all of her nicknames... AND all of the names we've considered for her. oh my. thankfully, for once, I showed some restraint.  
"bella grace.  that will be her name.  bella grace xue mcnatt.  that is her name." my voice cracked at the end. i had never given anyone her name over the phone.  it felt big.  huge and amazing.  it felt right.  somehow, i think this kind nurse understood.


it was a strangely defining moment for me.  reality and and wishing all wrapped up in one question.  "her name, please?" i suppose it isn't a hard question when your child is in her high chair in the kitchen, or in her crib up the back staircase, or asleep in her car seat just behind yours.  but, when you haven't yet laid eyes on your child...when you don't know the timber of her voice or her favorite food or her special toy. when you have no idea what her cry sounds like....well, then, i suppose it is only normal for even basic questions like these to be hard.
we did get through the rest of the phone call. an appointment was made. i am sure there were a few times when she considered transferring me to the pysch ward of the hospital. but, all in all, another step was taken in this new process of adopting. we set the appointment for january 6th. she began to tell me about what bella grace could eat prior to the appointment and how i should refrain from any type of lotions or powders on her chest area. oh boy. i knew it was time to end the call before i literally burst into tears. she was just doing her job....how was she to know she was speaking to a woman who couldn't wrap her mind around lotions and powders when she had yet to wrap her arms around child?


as emotional as this exchange was though, the phone call and scheduling actually provided a bit of hope. i am quite hopeful just to have a date.  will she really be home by january 6th?  will she really be in the backseat of my suv on her way to a cardiologist appointment. i know i won't, for one minute, remember anything about the lotion or powder...so, i would appreciate a friendly reminder from any of my detail oriented friends. i won't remember the instructions...but I most certainly will remember the phone call where i was first asked, "her name, please?"

reality check in the kitchen

this morning i had a reality check. 

it was the kids' first day back to school and it was that blessed time for all school age children: morning.  

kids, husband and woman were all scrambling around the kitchen....getting breakfast, packing lunchboxes, checking backpacks, arguing over socks, feeding animals -- yes, a typcial, blissful morning in the mcnatt home. 

as i stood there hovering over the assembly line of turkey and cheese sandwiches...i froze with the thought, "where in the world would an 18 month old child from china fit into all of this?" i pictured myself, for a moment, with a toddler on my hip in the midst of our morning mess. i wish i would have kept my panic to myself. instead, however, i voiced it out loud to rick. it was like that tube of toothpaste illustration. once it's out, it's out.  there's no taking it back. he looked at me, i looked at him.  he looked at me, again. 

umm....yeah, we could only imagine. 


okay. alright. i get it. that was a scary, but necessary, step in our process. i know for certain God gave me that image to keep my idealism in check, my head out of the clouds and my feet planted firmly on my (dirty) kitchen floor. just in case i was getting too far ahead with the "idea" of adopting, He, in His perfect timing, brought me face to face with what the "reality" of adopting just might look like. i don't necessarily want to see it like that. i'd prefer to doodle her name in my journal and imagine her hand in rick's hand...i want to wander through the toddler section at baby gap and pick out a pair of mary jane shoes for her tiny feet. BUT, the reality is we will most often have a chaotic kitchen, a hurried morning, a frantic exit... and in this mess, we will have a toddler. a little sister. a daughter. a child for whom we will never be enough. we will not be calm enough, capable enough or prepared enough. THAT is why we depend on Him. He is more than enough. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (~ 2 Corinthians 12:9) in the confusion of my morning madness i hear my Father's voice assuring me of His presence even in all this. especially in all this. 

and then i see her on my hip.

pictures from china!

pictures today!

18 months old...she is all eyes. so thankful to just see her sweet face.

the names of stars, sheep and sparrows...

her name. i know, we americans are all a little confused on what exactly is this little girl's name....let alone how to pronounce it. embarassingly enough, we were calling her by her last name all along - zhang. we found this out a few weeks ago, but by that point she was "baby zhang" to all of us...pronounced as western as possible (zhang rhyming with bang).  oh, how awful! here we are wanting desperately to adopt this child and we have her name all wrong. what can we say? this entire process has been new to us. we are probably doing many things backwards, upside down, inside out and just plain wrong. but, here's what we do know:


xue zhu: this is her first and middle name. it means snow bamboo. okay.  now, THAT is lovely. the wordy type of girl that i am just loves the translation. rick has recently started calling her baby bamboo-snow. we've been told by a friend that has some understanding of the language that "xue" is pronounced as "shu-eh". when we first saw her full name, we had guessed that xue zhu would be pronounced something like "zoo zoo"...(we had NO idea)...so, here again, we have Yet another option. can't you just imagine a "zoo-zoo mcnatt"?


zhang: this is her last name. it means "government or state" ...probably the name given to her by the government when she was found. not at all lovely. but it is by what we first knew her...so, i am sure we will always think of her as "baby zhang" or "baby z" as the kids like to call her.


if you are not thoroughly confused yet, hold on....you will be soon.


so it was last night while having dinner with friends that my good friend, meritt, said in her all business-like tone, "okay, can we just figure this out...what are we calling her? what are you planning on naming her?" of course we've been thinking about this...writing combinations on scratch paper...just like we did with all four of our children while waiting for them to arrive.  it is our plan to give her an american name and keep a part of her chinese name. is it too soon to share our thoughts? oh, i don't know....we aren't exactly the type of people to keep all buttoned up about what is going on in our family. we Want you to be included. i can remember telling friends, family, even my high school students that we were pregnant...well before the time that it was "safe" to tell. i guess that is just a personality thing. cautious is clearly not my middle name. so...with that said, here is what we believe we have settled on: isabella grace xue mcnatt. we will call her bella grace. we will probably call her baby zhang, baby z, baby bamboo-snow...we will call her daughter, we will call her sister, we will call her God's gift.


in psalms it says that God knows the names of the stars....in john it tells us that Jesus calls His sheep by their names.....stars, sheep, sparrows...we are certain that God knows her name.

she is Yours

We just arrived home from a week in Ohio with my entire family. It was dad's 70th birthday...we, of course, surprised him in every way possible - our separate and dramatic arrivals and a big party. Such fun. While we were there we found out that Zhang was released from the hospital and is now back at the orphanage. We did get some medical information in a report - but it is limited. I am not sure if reading it gave encouragement or discouragement. It is good news knowing she was well enough to go back to the orphanage...but it also gave us more of the story about why she ended up in the hospital in the first place.


Apparently, she was in quite a bit of distress. I read that her vitals signs were not good, labored breathing and purple face...Lots of words, lots of numbers - again, I feel so limited in what I know and in what I can decipher. Each time I think about what all of this means or could mean or might mean....I end up with the same phrase tapping in my own heart: Lord, she is yours. Is this little girl with the broken heart meant for the McNatt family? We hope so...but right now we must Rest in knowing she is His.


Today we take another logistical step forward in the process. We begin our home study. Daniel Taylor, our social worker from Lifeline will spend the afternoon in our home. A social worker in our home for 2-3 hours....looking around....interviewing our four children - yeah, no stress there - a piece of cake for sure! Considering we are still in post-vacation chaos...I had better go and wrap up the laundry and suitcase parade!

an envelope on the door

we've never had the chance before to come home and find an envelope attached to our front door. last week, however, rick added that to his coolest-experiences-ever-list. now we cannot possibly include in our blog the generosity of every friend,  but we have to tell you about this one.  a family (another one with four kids) heading home from their own vacation had a moment, while in the car, to read out loud our letter about zhang. their children had the typical responses, "cool, mom" ..."that's neat for the mcnatts"....and the even more typical (and honest) response, "we aren't going to do that are we?" but it was their 13 year old who asked, "what can we do?"


so with this question riding in the car amongst them they decided as a family to give baby zhang an amount that would equal the sum of their own family's "want." they had recently decided to buy a new sofa sectional for their basement playroom. they already had a futon in that room and agreed that the futon was perfectly fine. the money that was going to go for a new sectional could go toward bringing home zhang.


Lord, have you really given us friends like these? how surrounded we feel. how uplifted. how humbled that a family would sacrifice something in their own life to help a little girl they have never before met. this is only because of you, Lord. we, as humans, are just not bent this way. this pure selflessness is from You, Jesus. and it is beautiful.  thank you, Lord.


my sweet friend closed her letter, promising the everyday prayers of her family and offering hand holding, coffee bringing, baby sitting and "whatever you need." THIS is how Jesus reveals Himself. THIS is how He provides . THIS is how He shows His love through a family of six driving home together from vacation...a family willing to ask, "what can we do?"