I’ve been called a lot of words I don’t deserve in the past week: beautiful and obedient and gracious and grace-filled and sweet and honorable and passionate and amazing and courageous and inspiring.

You want to know the word that best described me the night before I posted our adoption news?

Terrified.

The week before, I sat trembling in my Bible study group because I knew God was moving in us to do something about this orphan named Jesse who would be renamed Zoe Amanda. I just didn’t know how to tell anyone. I didn’t know how to explain myself.

I thought we would be called crazy. (And a little part of me thought that we’d deserve that.)

I thought our friends wouldn’t stand by us. (How I misjudged you!)

I thought our choice would be considered reckless, when we already had two young children and when I was still recovering from knee surgery and when I seem to collect chronic health problems. (No one brought up any of that.)

Friends knew we planned to adopt someday, but we had no homestudy started yet, we weren’t on any waitlist, and we hadn’t narrowed down a country or special need or age or anything else yet. We were caught by surprise, so we knew other people would be too.

I’m smiling in this picture, but I was so scared of how y’all would respond to the news.

A little blond girl who is wise beyond her years was the one who gave me the words, days after our announcement.

We sat with my brother-in-law’s family, and they asked why we were doing this. I tried to answer, and I stumbled over my words: “Well, this wasn’t the country we expected, or the special needs we expected, or the age of child we expected, or the timing we expected, but…” I couldn’t find the words to finish that sentence.

Jocelyn, who now dotes on her sister with more love than I thought she was capable of, jumped in.”But God said to do it, so we’re doing it.

I am in the process of thinking though all that God has been doing in our lives over the last few days.  As many of you know, I got a call one week ago that changed my life in a moment. It was the call from our adoption agency telling me the story of a little boy who suffered at the hands of his father. “He needs a special daddy, one who is good and kind and can be patient with him” she told me. “We read your file and thought that might be you.  Does that sound right? Can you be that Daddy to him?” What do you say to that?  Everything in me cried out “I want to be!” but at that same moment all my failings as a dad flashed in my mind. The times I let my exhaustion result in a sharp tone, the times when I”ve parented out of my own weakness or insecurity. All the mistakes and missed opportunities.

“He sounds like a really special boy who needs a family to love him.  I will talk to Amy and pray about it.  You will hear from us shortly”.  That was all I could muster.  I sat in my car shell shocked and sobbing.  Sobbing for this boy, my son, and from the weight of the question….Can you be that Daddy?

Every year I make a Christmas CD.  I know, it seems a bit weird, but it’s just one of those things I fell into over the years.  Amy is to blame.  I could fill a 10 volume book series on the amazing things about my wife.  Chief among her virtues is her kindness.  The way she loves those around her is startling and the most beautiful thing in the world to behold.  That being said, in that 10 volume “Ode to Amy”, you would be hard pressed to find a description of her love for GOOD music.  She does love music, it’s just that a lot of it is, well…. not great to listen to in my opinion.  I’m sure you’re thinking her kindness must be unending to live for so long with a jerk like me…you are correct.  If she controlled the play list Christmas music would start around Labor Day and end around the 4^th of July.  I decided if I was doomed to 6 months of Christmas music, I would do my best to find some that’s tolerable to listen to.  So that is how 10 years ago, I started making Christmas CD’s.

Now the process of scouring through thousands of Christmas songs is part of my holiday tradition.  No joke, I have well over 600 Christmas songs on my iPod right now.  Ridiculous… I know.  My favorite part of the tradition is that (while listening to Stryper Christmas Reunion Album) I get to refocus my mind on what Christmas is about.

This year, as our adoption is closer than has seemed possible, I reflect on the birth of Christ in a new way.  I can only imagine being in a field in the middle of the night, watching my animals as the most important moment in the history of the world is happening right over the next rise.  It is still now a thought that makes me fall on my knees.  That God would choose a frail and flawed race of people to bear his image.  That he would demonstrate his plan for humanity through a baby born to a young girl and an adoptive father who were in poverty.  You get a glimpse of the Fathers heart.

I can only scratch the surface of what Joseph must have been feeling.  Is this really God’s baby?  Was that really God’s angel who appeared to me in my dream?  How can I be a father to God’s son? The confusion and fear he must have felt would be paralyzing.  Would he even feel worthy to be Jesus’ father?

Truly we are not worthy to be God’s hands and feet to those around us.  To those that God has put in our care.  As I again reflect on that question “Can you be that Daddy?” I know that I cannot give my son or my other children the full measure of the love they deserve.  I know that the love I give is filtered through the broken and frail man that I am, BUT I know who can be that Daddy.  And I know that He loves me.  And when I press into His love, it can spill out of me and cover those around me.  It is a privilege that God uses us to share His heart with those around us.  In a new way I learned to say to God… “I will love your kids as best as I can.  Forgive me when I fail.  Thank you for the pleasure of letting me have them for a while.  They are yours to do with as you see fit, because I know you will be a better father than I can ever be.  Help me be more like you, Father.  Then I can be that Daddy.”

Amy is a business owner and adoptive mommy whose heart has been broken and expanded by loving orphans in Ethiopia.  She blogs at Love the Least of These because there is power and transformation in sharing our stories with each other.  She and her husband, Ben, and their three children make their home in Colorado Springs where Ben works in orphan advocacy for Children”s HopeChest.

I can remember just like it was yesterday walking into the decorated, empty room we had gotten ready for our soon to be adopted son. I remember curling up on the bed, hugging the stuffed monkey we’d bought him and wishing that it was my son. I remember wondering what he was doing at that very moment . . . wondering if he felt loved and safe. I thought about all the moments he had lived already that I would never fully know. As a mama, to not know all the answers to the questions that I’m sure I will be asked some day, is heart wrenching. I remember the ache of just longing for my precious little boy to be with me . . . wrapped up in my arms.

I remember that time seemed to stand still as we waited for phone calls, paperwork, travel dates. It felt like all the years of the adoption process and the waiting would never end.

Flash forward to a few weeks ago. I am sitting next to my son in his first grade class listening to him talk about how he used to live in Africa. He says it’s so sad that so many people have to drink dirty water just like he did. He tells about how his baby brother died from drinking dirty water. I fix my eyes on the floor as they well up with tears. All I can think is that it could have been him. It would have been him. My throat is thick as I say how blessed we are to live in a country where we likely don’t have to walk more than 20 feet in our houses to find clean, good drinking water. I sit and watch my son speak about his past . . . about HIS story. We take turns going back and forth talking and trying to help the kids understand what children just like them have to drink every day and what they must do to get it. I can see him remembering the very things he is speaking of as the words tumble out of his mouth. I think about how Tariku literally means “his story” and I smile   Aren”t all our lives stories?  Isn”t all the pain, the good, the struggle, the hope just begging to be told?

I remember crying many tears in his empty room just over two years ago, longing for my son to be home with me. And now the tears flow freely as I sit next to him and see how his story has shaped his heart so beautifully. It really is true – our pain, our mistakes . . . they don’t define us. They shape us. Tariku’s difficult past isn”t who he is. It’s a part of his story. Just like him being loved and treasured and valued is a part of his story. He inspires me. He shows me that we choose how we respond to the good, the bad and the ugly. He is choosing to take a terrible life circumstance and use it to help others. He is showing me what healthy vulnerability looks like even at age 7. No hiding. No fear. No shame. He is who he is. And that, my friends, is simply beautiful.

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Amy is a business owner and adoptive mommy whose heart has been broken and expanded by loving orphans in Ethiopia.  She blogs at Love the Least of These because there is power and transformation in sharing our stories with each other.  She and her husband, Ben, and their three children make their home in Colorado Springs where Ben works in orphan advocacy for Children”s HopeChest.