Three Weeks With Emmie

Three weeks with Emmie……

I actually had to look at the calendar today to make sure that I was counting correctly…..three weeks since we first met our daughter! Three weeks since we watched her lay in the floor and scream, cry, and kick at the thought of being with us. It truly does not seem as if three weeks could have already passed since that day.

There is  no way that we could have imagined the current state of our life with Emmie three weeks ago.  Three weeks ago we were just wondering how to get through each minute with her, let alone hours, days or weeks. Three weeks ago we were laying on our bed in a hotel room in Nanningpraying for wisdom as Emmie had cried herself to sleep in front of our hotel door- this was the farthest she could get away from us. She would not allow us to provide any consolation or to even approach her.  

God has shown us what we thought was impossible is actually possible in a shorter amount of time than we ever thought possible! Here are just a few “impossible” things we have experienced in our short three weeks with Emmie:

-Emmie wants to be carried by “mama” several times each day!

-Emmie wakes up smiling and giggling

-Emmie is beginning to let “baba” and mama give her kisses and will even give us kisses (sometimes)

-Emmie loves her brothers to pieces, but they love her even more!

-Emmie is beginning to sit with us during storytime and is allowing us to read to her

-Emmie is beginning to be able to go into public places without any major “meltdowns"

-Emmie is telling us “good night” in English as bedtime (most of the time….we still have a couple tears some nights)

Yesterday a friend who is also in the adoption process and whom has already experienced much heartache while she and her family wait for their precious daughter posted this on her Facebook page: God often waits until conditions appear impossible in order to remind us that nothing is impossible for Him- Dr. Tj Betts

For our family, this sums up our adoption experience not only with Emmie’s adoption, but also with Caleb and Noah’s adoption, albeit in different ways. God brings us to a place where we can only exist in and through Him. Where each hour of each day we must seek Him to continue to press on. Somehow I think that this must be how God desires for our entire lives to be. Not that he wants us to experience constant hardships, but rather that no matter what we are experiencing, valleys or mountain tops, we experience it with Him as the Lord of our lives.

I will end this post with two pictures. The first is Emmie the first day we met her, after she had cried herself to sleep by our motel door. The second is Emmie tonight, sleeping peacefully in her own bed, in her own room. She went to bed tonight willingly and with no tears. As I left her room, she said in her very best English/Chinese, “Good night. Love you”.

I know that in the big scheme of things, we still have many issues to work on. I know there will be more sleepless nights, more breakdowns in public , more attachment issues- I know that, and we are continuing to grow, pray and learn. But for now, for three weeks with our girl, we are feeling pretty blessed. We are in a good place. God has done great things in all our lives and hearts. Grace has been shown mightily to us.