Challenging conversations...

Hi everyone--

For the most part now, I don't even think about us as anything different or special... When we first came home from China, I was so self-aware of the stares and silent questions. Now, something has to happen to disrupt our prevalent reality of nothing unusual, nothing worthy of a second glance. Ellie-Kate is our little girl, and even though she has brown hair and eyes, she's just the same as Emmy, Chelsea, and Britti-- at least in our hearts and minds and souls. She's just another one of the sisters...

Tonight, we had a disruption. I was reading "I Love You Like Crazy Cakes," a book that has attracted her attention more and more. Ellie-Kate has grown increasingly curious about the mama and baby and their journey, but, tonight, she asked a troubling question: "When is she going to give the baby back?"

"She's not going to give the baby back," I replied.

"When are you going to give me back," she probed.

"We're never going to give you back. You're one of us, just like Emmy, Chelsea, and Britti," I replied.

"When I get bigger, I'm going to make everything happy and never scream or yell or throw a fit," she noted, almost testing to see if that kind of existence would make a difference.

"Ellie-Kate, you're one of us," and I explained how God ordained her to be one of our family, how He drew us to her, and how He planned, from the beginning of time, for her to be part of us-- one of the BAP family sisters. She seemed convinced.

During our conversation, I realized that she has been fearful of going back to China, of not being one of us. I can't even imagine how such ideas would enter her mind, and I felt so horrible that her poor little head had to even entertain such images or thoughts. How long had she wondered such things? Why? Perhaps most importantly for me and for us, how could I convince her otherwise? I could say that families are forever, but she could easily retort that her birth family wasn't. Lord, please give me words to comfort and reassure her...

Ellie-Kate is so precious to us. We love her beyond words, and we treasure her as part of our family. She loves us too. She has been through so much in her life, and I guess that I considered that past to be distant and far removed from our lives now. However, our love cannot eliminate the past or the hurt or the memories or the fears... Yet, it can help us to move forward and to cement what we have now and can build for tomorrow.

Please pray that Ellie-Kate (and the rest of us, for that matter) return to that place where we take our family and our love for granted... a space where we can play and even where she allows herself to be tired or grumpy because four year olds aren't perfect and shouldn't expect themselves to be. Family can certainly be themselves with each other without fear-- the ultimate safely net.

God has blessed us so much! We pray that we're able to help Ellie-Kate in all of the ways that she needs and deserves as we move forward from this challenging evening...

Christie