A night for sorrows

Almost six years ago my husband and I decided to start our journey to adopt from China.  I would like to think that mentally, I had been preparing myself for what that would look like as best I could.  Considering the length of the wait, I should have been well exercised in mind control.  All of us who adopt from China know there is a large chunk of our child's past that we will never know about.

Last night I decided I wanted to spend some time as best I could with Wei Gongzhe.  Maybe I just wanted to feel a little closer to him.  I snuggled myself into bed and combed through his paperwork, trying to put a visual image to the harsh black and white descriptive words and checkboxes I was reading.  I was trying to make them fit into some animated understanding of who he was, what he was like, and what he liked to do.  My eyes fell on his birthdate.  3/5/11.  I have known it by heart since our agency spoke it over the phone the day we received his referral.  I have mulled it around in my mind hoping that we would have him home long before his second birthdate.  I have read over it many times as I have read through his paperwork, as I was doing last evening.  For some reason, last night was different.  When my eyes fell on the day he was born, I felt a sorrow wash over me as I realized, I didn't know what I was doing on that day.  

Unfortunately, I have become much more organized since being a Mom.  I very quickly get rid of things when they have no "foreseeable" use any longer. After transferring any important information to 2012, I threw my 2011 calendar in the garbage.  It may be a bit antiquated in these days of modern technology but our entire family life goes on our paper flip calendar.  With deep regret I began to realize that I had thrown away a connection to our son when I threw away that part of our family's history.  How could I not know what I was doing the day he was born?  The day that would mark a huge change in my history?

To my surprise, this led to a massive display of sorrow into my pillow last night.  I felt so deeply the lost connection of these 17 months we have not been together.  I'm sure I join many adoptive parents in these same tears across the ages.  I always knew I would not know a portion of my child's history but now that I know that child, it suddenly seemed I could not bear this sorrow.  It seemed if only I could have been in the right place on that day, perhaps he could have been placed directly into my arms.  Ridiculous, really to be thinking this.  I've had so much time to prepare myself for this moment.  Shouldn't I be able to handle these emotions without this deep sense of loss?

As I lay there last night, my tears spent, God laid his word on my heart and brought it to my mind:

My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;
Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Psalm 139:15-17

There is a written record of all our days.  I may not be able to recapture all the pieces of Wei Gongzhe or my own history, but I know the One that can.  One who loves us even more than we will ever love each other.  More than my immoral, earthly and imperfect body can ever do.  I know these nights of sorrow into my pillow are far from over, but I know I can trust the one who gave me my history and my future!