My Keegan,

Yesterday, as our family walked down Disney’s Boardwalk, you wrapped your arm around Mez and pulled her close. And she let you remain with her. If only onlookers knew the price you paid for that gift.

You couldn’t wait for the arrival of your new sisters. For 15 months, you waited. Anticipation growing. You’d seen their pictures. A short video. Been told their father needed to relinquish his rights as their father because he wasn’t able to care and provide for them. They lost their birth mom as two and four-year old little girls. They had two other mothers helping care for them. Step-moms in a polygamist family. That was all you knew. And you couldn’t wait to receive them.

We finally brought them home. January 27, 2012. And you surprised me. Your pursuit so purposeful. I don’t know what I expected from a 14 year-old teenage young man, but it wasn’t close to the reality you lived. I must’ve thought you wouldn’t be so interested in them. That their arrival would be novel, but your lives would remain somewhat separate. How small was my vision.

I remember vividly the day I was schooling Cole a few weeks after their arrival. I heard a low murmur coming from the Meseret and Kamise’s bedroom. Five minutes. 10 minutes. 15 minutes. 30 minutes later your voice still carried across the house. Terribly curious, I peeked through the doorway. You’d been reading to Meseret Defeating Darwinism, a school textbook. She didn’t understand a word, still only fluent in her native tongue. But you were “with” her. Pouring your presence into her. And I don’t know that she’d ever known that kind of withness.

For she didn’t know how to receive you. Neither of your sisters knew how to receive you, your tenderness, your strength. Weeks grew into months. You longing to connect with them. Moving toward them with determination. And you were rejected. Again and again and again. Your big heart met with a straight arm. We assumed they’d have issues with boys. Yet nothing can prepare the heart for how self-protection will manifest its fierce, determined fist. And your heart was unprepared. Our hearts were unprepared.

Over weeks and months, your determination morphed into anger. Rejection penetrating deep. Powerless. Hurt. Frustrated. Hope of connection fading. Anger was less costly to the heart. As I wrestled alongside you, I painted vision of a larger story our Father could be writing…in all of us. Sharing with you that you have the opportunity to love like few ever embrace. To continue to move toward sisters and seek to pour life into them when you’re unwanted, unloved, rejected. To love selflessly. To move into mystery. To pour into them life when the fierce, determined fist is your reward.

You wrestled. You raged. You withdrew.

Who could blame you. I know the wrestle too well. I prayed. My heart ached for your loss.

After seven long months, something shifted in you. Something only the Jesus who lives in you could produce. From the desolate space within, watered by rejection, flowed Living Water. Your withdrawal flowed into movement once again, this time with a strength which no longer feared rejection. With humor and determination, you found the cracks in the wall. Relentlessly you pursued, unafraid of the clenched fist. I watched in awe. To love without demanding a return. Most never choose “in” to love like that.

For the past eight months, you have playfully, relentlessly moved into the cracks. And the wall has not been able to withstand the filling of your love. Brick and mortar crumbling. We don’t yet know the stories of each brick. Someday we might. The miracle is that as your sisters are ready to share the stories, the bigger story will be how our Father, through your love, crumbled that wall, freeing them to enjoy spacious places of connection rather than the lonely isolation of brick and mortar.

Yesterday, as our family walked down Disney’s Boardwalk, you wrapped your arm around Mez and pulled her close. And she let you remain with her. It seems the only fist remaining clenched is the one you are holding in the face of Satan, who seeks to kill, steal and destroy. The one whose slimy grip has been loosed because you’ve chosen to love.

Meseret is 11

She sat at the dining table last night, face aglow. Enchiladas were her meal of choice for her 11th birthday dinner. She was alive and joy-filled. Open. Receiving. Invitational. As Dennis gave our Father thanks for our daughter, he thanked him for bringing Meseret to us from a little village in Ethiopia one year ago. Something deep within my soul was touched, moved. And I was very aware. Aware because for many months I’ve been numb.

Open and invitational was not her posture when she arrived. She was happy when she had her way, maintaining independence. Soft toward my friends. Hugs, embraces flowed to them. Her face lit at the sight of them. Months of three to five hour stand-offs/day was our reality. Just waiting for her to say, “Yes mom.” To surrender to me was death to her. How often my God must utter that about me. “To surrender to me is death to her.” She fought the dying. We spoke different languages. Different cultures. Different everything. She’d given up all familiar. Not by her choice. Her birth father had chosen. Dennis and I had chosen. Our God had chosen. And we battled our flesh minute-by-minute to say, “Yes, Father.” as she did to say, “Yes, mom.”

And we all grew tired. Weary. I wondered how I’d make it through another day, trusting that in my weakness, He’d perfect His strength. Clinging to the promise.

Then I awoke on May 23rd, and was greeted by a daughter whose petals were opening to me. Fully unexpected. Immeasurable gift. Only Mystery knew the secret to unlocking her heart. And He is mercy. And He poured forth grace. And I began to exhale. And my body, heart and soul discovered how tired they’d grown. Trust, when so much had been lost, must be hard-earned. He knows that, too.

Something moved deep within me last night as Dennis thanked our God for our now 11 year-old daughter. And it felt good. I was awe-filled at what a year can bring. We were strangers when we celebrated her 10th. Engaged in a tenuous dance. There she sat…open, invitational, receiving. Face aglow.

As each of us shared with Mez words of life, our words permeated deep. Eyes touching eyes, each offering heart words. Each one, with his or her own story of deep surrender written this year. Each of us choosing to adopt. And she is adopting us. In a mysterious wonder-filled way, an American woman’s story is intertwining with an Ethiopian girl’s story and we are becoming more of who our Author created us to be.

Opening. Inviting. Receiving.

This past week I took Cole, Mez and Kamise to south Florida to cram in the use of a timeshare week which was expiring. The resort’s main pool possessed a little loopy loop water slide. Nothing wild. However, you wouldn’t have known that by the passion with which Cole pursued me to ride that slide. Every day he begged me to ride the slide. And every day I told him to wait til the end of the week, dreading when the day would come for the water temperature is not very balmy this time of year. And now that I’m a Floridian, I prefer balmy.

Our final day at the resort arrived. After much coercing, I made my trek over to the slide, up the steep blue stairs, and onto the slide. With my body weight, I sort of pushed myself down the loops and plopped into the water. After three attempts, I had done my duty and waited for the kids to finish their 15-20 turns.

After the grand slide adventure, Cole swept me into his arms and took pride carrying me around the pool . With my arms around his neck, I asked if he was going to sweep his bride into his arms like that on his wedding night as he carried her across the threshold into wherever they happened to stay that night.

Silence.

He paused for a minute, smiled big and exclaimed, “Only if she rides the waterside first!”

I howled at the top of my lungs as we bantered about the necessity of his wedding being by a waterside.

Fun. Playful. Two of Cole’s most wonderful qualities. And it seems his wife may need to be fun and playful too!

That night as the four of us sat around the dinner table sharing our highs and lows for the day, Cole exclaimed his high without a thought…..

“Mom riding down the water slide!”

It’s mystery to me how my three trips down the waterslide could be my son’s highlight for the day. It sure doesn’t take much for me to deposit into his love tank.

So why is it so stinkin’ challenging to do those little things every day?