I’m a new woman today.
6 days post China and I finally feel myself again. 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep last night may have something to do with it. I woke up ready to jump up, open my curtains wide, and sing The Sound of Music or some Chinese equivalent. But, saying that I’m “feeling myself again” and finally getting back to “real life” just doesn’t seem totally fitting. I’ve been to China a few times now. And, I’ll be going there a few more times. And, every time I go, I feel like I come back changed. I can’t help but come back changed because while I’m there I encounter Him and experience the world in a way that demands a response, demands a change within me. I can’t come home and put my best pictures into a photo album that sits on our coffee table for guests to admire. I didn’t go to China to take neat pictures of a fog-covered Great Wall and meet cute kids.
I went to China to be a part of His story by entering into their story and allowing them to be a part of my own.
We blew a lot of bubbles and drew a lot of chalk sunshines.
We watched some serious dancing.
We told children who know they are different that they were beautiful.
Above else, we built relationships. We gave our hearts away. We fell in love…with them…with the ones He loves…with those He has called to care for them…with the One who made all things who we see more clearly and understand more deeply because He allowed us to see a glimpse of Him there.
Today marks 6 days after coming home from China, and I’m feeling myself not again but for today, right where He wants me to be, knowing that our God is sovereign over all things everywhere and that He is for the fatherless, that He is close to the brokenhearted, and that He redeems all things.
I’m feeling myself now.
Kelly has a passion for supporting adoptive families, specifically to encourage parents to be intentional and understand their own hearts more clearly as they seek to care for their hearts of their children. Kelly has a Master’s degree in counseling and has been working with adoptive families since she and her husband Mark founded the The Sparrow Fund. Married to Mark since 1998, they have 3 biological children and 1 daughter who was adopted as a toddler from China in 2010. You can learn more about their adoption story, how they’ve been changed by the experience of adoption, and what life for them looks like on Kelly’s personal blog, My Overthinking.