I'm her mama!

I just read a recent article about the one-child policy in China and it made me sick.   This is not the first piece I've read about the controversial policy.  I've encountered several heart-wrenching books and articles about trash bags full of baby girls that were aborted against their mother's will.  I've read accounts of the infanticide and the sale of baby girls to gangs for sex trade.  And sadly...I know it goes on all over China today.

Maybe it is because Mother's Day is this weekend.  Maybe it is because I am an emotional creature.  Maybe it is because I can't get enough of my daughter's little personality.  But, I have a constant ache in my heart for the children of China that do not have a mama's arms around them right now.

I was running errands yesterday and it was naptime.  My daughter fell asleep in the car, so I transferred her into the carrier and put her up against my chest and carried her through the stores.  I was almost giddy with her warm sleepy body pressed against mine.  I waited so long for her...years, really.  The dream for her was a fourteen year pregnancy.  Don't get me wrong.  My boys are amazing.  I could write books about them.  But, they came from different circumstances.  They were born out of the love between my husband and me.  They have my eyes, his nose, and a history that stretches back to the womb.  They are special.  They are a gift.  I celebrate their awesomeness every day.  And I can't even tell you how amazing it is to have their little hands wrapped around my neck while they laugh, or try to avoid my fat kisses.

But her story is different.  I don't know the circumstances of her birth...or the people that brought her into existence.  But I know that she could have easily become a statistic.  She could have been killed, or  sold, or never discovered in her little box next to a cornfield.  Her life could have been over before it ever had the chance to start.

As I held her yesterday, I actually said out loud, "I love her more than I love myself!"  That kind of love is not even possible without Christ!  Especially if you know how rough our relationship was in the beginning.

The tragic stories that exist will always break my heart.  But, her adoption story will always give me hope.

She was born into a culture that does not value her gender.  But while biology made her a girl...Redemption made her a daughter.  And in that respect, we couldn't be more alike!