Angela, our Beautiful Thing

In the mad rush of the middle school cross country state meet taking place on the Saturday before we left at 4:00 the following morning for our cruise, then getting back the evening before school started, then enduring the most hectic and insane week possible at work last week, I haven’t really had time to reflect on the season. The state meet signified, not only the ending of the cross country season, but the official end of middle school cross country in this house. Although I look forward to many more years of high school cross country, it makes me so sad to close the door on this chapter because it brought such beauty to our lives. Emma decided kind of on a whim to give it a go in 7^thgrade and I was so proud of her for being so brave and strong to try a sport that was unfamiliar to all of us and one that she didn’t necessarily have other friends doing. Kelsey didn’t even think twice as a sixth grader, knowing from the start that she wanted to join the team and gave it three years of her life, three joyful years of hard work. The girls got to run together in 6^thand 8^thgrade, which was a lot of fun. Then cross country provided a people and a focus for Roman in his first year in America and public school, and he and Kelsey ran together last year, as 7^thand 8^thgraders. Finally, this year, cross country gifted Angela with friends and a physical confidence that she had not had before. It was a blast to see my two youngest as teammates, running together for their 8^thgrade seasons.

Tonight was the middle school cross country banquet. The first award presented was the Coach’s Award, and almost as soon as Coach Thomas started talking, I knew who the recipient was going to be. One of the things she said is that she can see this particular person one day becoming a coach herself, which is exactly what Angela wants to do. As I listened to that beautiful tribute to and description of my girl, I couldn’t help but look back on the journey we have taken and I could so clearly see God’s fingerprints all over it. 

Last year, I begged Angela to run. She absolutely and stoutly refused. So every single afternoon, I went to CMS and picked her up at regular school time while Roman and Kelsey had cross country practice, Francisco had cross country, and Emma had volleyball. Every single meet and game, she dutifully accompanied me to cheer for the rest of the crowd. It made me sad to see her on the sidelines of everything, as Roman and Francisco made friends and connections. I was so worried that she didn’t seem to have any desire to find her niche. 

Then in November, we went to Vanderbilt to the International Adoption Clinic for what I thought was a certain type of testing but ended up just being a sort of counseling eval for all three kids. They each talked independently with the psychologist, then the psychologist, me and each kid talked. Although I was highly irritated that we had taken the time and miles to drive that distance and hadn’t gotten what I had asked for, a few valuable tidbits came out of it and one was from Angela. The psychologist, who had talked alone with Angela MAYBE 15 minutes, told me, “She said that it was really good and important to her that she got to be by herself with you in the afternoons while her brothers and sisters had sports practices. She really enjoyed those days and it seems like it went a long way in building a bond between the two of you.” I almost teared up right then and there. I’m tearing up now, thinking about it. What I had seen as a failure to connect had actually resulted in Angela feeling closer to me and more secure in our relationship. God knew that she needed one-on-one time and would never ask for it, and so He arranged divinely appointed afternoons for the two of us. We didn’t do anything huge on those days, either! We went to Target, Dollar Tree, Walmart, got ice cream, sat in parking lots and waited. And talked. And, apparently almost accidentally and certainly without my realizing it, bonded. Look at God.

And that bond has grown and grown over the course of the year since those afternoons. This year when it was almost time for school to start, Angela told me, “I’m running cross country this year.” Of course I was elated, and this season has been incredible for her. She has found a friend group and increased self-confidence. She has found motivation and a strong determination. Watching her run, I see the strength and resilience in her that brought her this far in her life. And as many times in the past, I see the self-awareness that she has that goes so far beyond her years. Halfway through the season, as her times were better and better and she was consistently running in the fourth position, I said, “See how well you’re doing? You could have done this last year too.” 

Angela’s immediate response was, “But Mom, I wasn’t READY last year.” ……… UM. Ok. I guess I still have a lot to learn from you, my girl. How much wisdom is there in that, to do things in YOUR time rather than when others want you to, when it feels like makes the most sense, when it would be the most fun… to wait until you’re ready. How much frustration could we all avoid if we would wait to do things till we are ready? And I know that God had other important work for the two of us last year, the work of building a relationship. If she had let me push her, in all of my ignorance, not only would she not have been ready to run, but we would have missed the opportunities we had last year to connect. 

But this year, she was ready… so ready. And she exceled. And every word Coach Thomas said tonight about her was the truth. When I look at Angela, all I see is Gungor’s song, “Beautiful Things”.

All this pain
I wonder if I'll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change, at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found?
Could a garden come out from this ground, at all?
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us
All around,
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found, in you
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us
Oh, you make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us
You make me new,
You are making me new
You make me new,
You are making me new

When I think about that little 9 year old girl and all that she lost…. when I think about the pain… when I think about the chaos it must have felt like in the next couple of months… when I think about the walls she built, the ground of her heart that hardened, the dust of hopes and dreams she lost along the way…. And then I see this beautiful thing that He is creating, the hope, the smiles, the laughter, the silliness, the strength, the friendships, the joy…. I am so eternally grateful to have a Father who not only knit us together in our mothers’ wombs, but who will re-knit us together when the tragedies of this world tear us apart. He makes us new, and Angela is a living representation of how a loving Heavenly Father makes beautiful things out of us.

https://www.facebook.com/athena.b.davis/videos/10156758365374771/?l=2060203908736360991

Modern Day Prophet

On Sunday morning, our cruise ship docked in Tampa. I was wearing one of my favorite shirts, a shirt that was an adoption fundraiser for another family that says, "Be Brave". As we moved in a long line from ship to card check to passport check to customs check to passport check, an elderly customs official read it aloud and said, “I like that.” I smiled and nodded, kept moving. He took a couple of steps after me and called out, “I especially like it because it has mountains on it. I am a mountain climber.” I politely said, “Ooh, that’s really cool! Mountain climbing would be awesome!” and again, kept moving. There was a mad rush of humanity behind me who had been standing with luggage for 30 minutes, waiting on the doors to be opened and they did not have time for me to chat with the customs official. He reached out and grabbed my upper arm in an urgent sort of way and kind of turned me around to look at him. Then he looked deep into my eyes and said, “When I got to the top of every single mountain, do you know what I saw?” At this point, I realized this mattered, at least to him and me (probably still not to the hundreds of people behind me who were now stopped, waiting for me to continue dragging my million pound suitcase of dirty clothes that I have wrestled through the whole maze), and I came to a complete stop and looked back at him. “What?” I asked, expecting, “Beautiful views” or “Endless skies” or something. He pierced me with his gaze and said, “More mountains.” 

WHAT??? Are you kidding me right now? I stopped this entire line for, not something encouraging, but something PESSIMISTIC??? Come on, dude! I just kind of nodded and smiled and got a new death grip on my bag, shoving it ahead of me to the escalator. In the rush to get our bags to the shuttle, load everyone on the shuttle, hop off at the car and put the luggage rack on the back of the car, strap down all the luggage, argue over who was driving first, cool the car off, and assess how long it would be until we were home, his words kind of drifted out of my mind. 

{Also, ummmm…. MY PHONE WAS BACK ON. The world! Social media! Notifications! Texts! Emails! I had pictures to post and stories to tell!} 

It wasn’t until later when I was taking my turn to drive that his words stopped drifting and settled down in my consciousness like hailstones pelting from the sky. One at a time, sporadically,    

                    drop. 

                                                                          drop. 

                         drop.

It was then that I started to ask God, “What was that about? Did You send him with a negative message to me? Was he not from You at all, but from the enemy? Was it neither of the two, just an old lonely man who wanted to chat with someone? Show me what I am supposed to take from that.”

See, the night before had been an unexpectedly challenging night for me. Kraig had shared something with me in what he thought was just in passing but that had really shaken me up. Without sharing too much detail, I worry a lot about attachment and connection with our kids. It’s a serious fear in adoption, but especially in an adoption where you choose to love kids who are nearly grown. It’s another blog post entirely, but the link to this story here is that Kraig had told me something that made me realize that a connection one of our kids had to someone in the first country is still very present, even over a year after they have been home. And it spooked me. I had been in a real tailspin the night before, worrying about that and other issues that we have and are dealing with. God had given me a reassurance the night before (again, another post), so why on earth would He send this man to basically take that reassurance and throw it aside, instead emphasizing that, “And hey, once you get through this, there will just be something else. And something else. And something else. You’re never going to reach the top of the mountain just to enjoy the view.” What a discouraging word. 

So, in keeping with something I am trying to make more of a discipline in my life, I just asked God, “What am I supposed to take from that?” and sat quietly, waiting to hear an answer. I can’t say the answer was anywhere near as clear as the one I had gotten the previous night about a different situation, but I did feel that He was gently reminding my spirit that our journey in this world WON’T ever be easy, or complete, until we are passed from this world. And, also, that easy isn’t the point.

I think the message the sweet customs man was trying to share with me and the one that the Lord wanted me to take is that it’s not about the mountainous journey, the treacherous pathways, the rocks that tumble in front of us, the beautiful vistas along the way, the storms, the sun, the exhaustion, the peak, OR THE NEXT MOUNTAIN. It’s about being brave enough to carry on. It’s about the strength we find in Him through our weakness. It’s about the fellowship we share with Him when we are in the darkest place and no one could understand or maybe they could but you can’t even tell them anyway. It’s about His sweet whispering under the rock ledges as we wait out a rainstorm. It’s about the joy of creation spread out before us and taking such delight in what He has made while simultaneously knowing that He made us with the same care and delicacy that He made the canyons and the cliffs. It’s about sweating through your clothes as you wrestle an overweight suitcase (and an overweight 40 year old body but that’s another story) up and down ramps and escalators, only to be stopped in your tracks by a modern day prophet dressed in a US Customs uniform.