When things get crazy around here (which happens alot lately!), I am praying and asking that God would help me to stop for a few minutes and just live in this miracle. Between laundry and doctor’s appointments and cleaning up messes of all sorts and smells…well, sometimes it is just too easy to let my focus stay there. To buy into the idea that I have to keep doing…cleaning, fixing, working…and I cannot stop and just be here and sit in wonder at this little miracle unfolding right here in my house.

Because it is a miracle. All this. This child who is coming alive and blossoming so beautifully right here in my messy home. Scott and I wondered about all this as we sat all weary on the couch the other night: How does this happen? How does a child who has been alive for two and a half years and really has no idea that two people on the other side of the world have been preparing their hearts and homes to become her parents…how does she become so very ours in such a short time? We are her parents! Just think of that. In her little mind, two months ago, she had no framework even for that. What is a parent anyway? For really she had only known nannies and orphanage life.

How does she come to embrace us, to know us as parents in such a short time, in just the way our other children do? How can that not be a miracle?

And then there’s the other miracle. The one that Scott and I know in our hearts but may just not be able to explain. Just that we get to be a part of all this.

Adoption has etched in our hearts such a deeper, more living understanding of what it means that God has adopted us…rescued us…redeemed us.

She has been redeemed and rescued. Outside of simply not having a family, Mei’s future without intervention was not looking good. Because of her medical condition and simply because she was an orphan – this is simply the reality.

Please do not hear me saying that we are heroes or rescuers or redeemers. Because with all my heart I know that I am the one being rescued. We know deep in our hearts that all of this was about God’s love for Mei and His amazing plan to care for this child. And Scott and I? We are just so grateful that He would let us be a part as His plan unfolds each day.

And, in being a part of all this, we are being rescued. No, our need for rescue was not as obvious as Mei’s…but we knew. And we have prayed for this very thing. Because here, with our lives and our blessings being so abundant, we know how easy it is for us to fall into lives that are mediocre, self-sufficient, complacent, unaware, and, frankly, selfish. We know the pull the American Dream has on us when, with all our hearts, what we really want is to know and serve God with radical abandon every day of our lives.

Today I am more desperate for God’s presence than ever before. I am more aware of the suffering that goes on all around me in the world, and by His grace, I am more willing to be used by Him for His kingdom’s purposes. Everyday, every hour, I see glimpses of Jesus’ work all around me and in me. Everyday, I am less and less satisfied with anything but knowing Him more and being a part of His purposes both here in my city and around the world.

So, yes, God, in His grace had a plan to rescue Mei. But this plan is my rescue too.

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I am a recipient of amazing grace. I’ve been married 11 years to my husband, Scott. We had 2 children, Isaac and Zoe. Then one day God met us both in the same moment and broke our hearts and filled them with love for orphan children. In 2008, we brought our son Beniam, now 3, home from Ethiopia. And, we recently added to our family again, welcoming home Mei from China. I am a Florida girl who loves sunshine, water, and sand. I enjoy almost anything you can do outdoors, especially in the mountains. When forced to stay inside, I love to read and write.