El
simkhat gili —God, My Exceeding Joy
Psalm 43:4—Then I will go to the
altar of God, to God (El), my joy (Simchatch Gili) and my delight. I will
praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.
I stared at the picture
with such joy in my heart.
My husband had snapped a
quick photograph from behind of me, my six-year-old son, and two young Colombian
children overlooking a small pond of turtles. I treasured that picture as the
first and only one taken of me and my three
children together. I held it close as we passionately pursued adopting those
two precious Colombian siblings shortly after they returned to Colombia. They
had been in the United States for five weeks, living with a host family, giving
them a chance to find a forever family of their own. I couldn’t wait to
officially call them my son and my daughter.
After a long, tedious
process to adopt them, everything fell apart. Rather than bringing them home
and adding more family pictures to our photo album, I had to cease all
communication with them and leave the relationship I’d built with both of them
just hanging. I never got to say goodbye or explain why I stopped calling them
every week.
Despite all of our
preparations, no one prepared me to grieve a failed adoption.
Two and a half years
after we met them, Viviana moved to Europe with her new adoptive family, while
Juan David remained alone, back and forth between the orphanage and a local
family committed to helping him. Another two and a half years passed after that
until we finally succeeded to adopt Juan David and bring him home with us. Yet
a hole remained in all of our hearts, wondering why God did not allow us to
adopt them both together as planned. Why did He let us love his sister so
dearly only to lose her, and why did Juan David have to live the rest of life wondering
about her, since no one had heard a word from her since her adoption.
I’d asked God for
something, anything, even just a simple picture to know how she’d grown and
changed over the years, to know she was okay. I still prayed for her nearly
every day, now eight years after I’d met her.
No words can describe the
deep gratitude I felt when I looked down at my ipad to see an e-mail from their
birth country with two photographs attached to it.
There she was, the little
girl I thought I’d never see again. A picture and a letter for her older
brother, my son, Juan David. But no return e-mail address to reply to. Only a
slightly open door to send yet another e-mail back through her birth country,
hoping they’d get it to her promptly.
God had very specifically
answered my prayer. I quickly (and tearfully) forwarded the e-mail to Juan
David, typing, “It’s a miracle!”
My son responded to the
e-mail that very evening with a very short, simple letter, wondering how long
it might take to reach his sister or if it would ever even get to her. How many
people might read it in the meantime? How many channels would this one e-mail
go through? How many levels had been set up to protect his sisters’ family’s
privacy? We very nervously proceeded, joyful yet anxious about where this might
take us.
A month or two crept by
before another letter came through. Yet this one didn’t come from their birth
country. It came straight from her. Communication without the middle man. I
felt joy creep in my heart, seeing something miraculous take place through this
piece of technology sitting on my lap.
Yet my son still held back, knowing his
sister’s new mother and family likely screened everything they might say to one
another. Perhaps they just wanted to know about him, but they would not allow
them to rebuild the relationship they once had before she moved away, now
nearly six years ago.
How had she changed?
Where might this lead? Did she still love him or even want a relationship with
him? He maintained his distance, keeping that wall up around his heart,
demanding that things proceed slowly. Rebuilding a relationship the healthy way
could take a long time. It was all I could do to convince him to at least send
a picture from his birthday.
He refused to send it,
but he let me craft an e-mail from him and attach the picture of him sipping
his favorite fruit juice, a fruit they grew up with in their native country.
Though he wanted to take
his time, we quickly found that she wanted that contact with him more than we
ever expected. That one picture led her to send another picture of herself, and
soon they connected via social media. From there, the relationship progressed
so quickly that we could barely keep up. Soon we helped her reconnect with yet
another brother, also living on another continent, and they all three formed a
social media group where they began to communicate daily, sometimes several
times a day. They finally had that sibling bond with instant access to one
another that they had all longed for since the day she moved away.
“Can we do a video call?
I want to see you!” You could almost hear the longing in her voice as she typed
the words. Within a few hours, we opened up the computer and talked with her
face to face. They showed each other their rooms and the pictures they’d both
kept of one another. They shared milestones and special moments that they’d
missed in the other one’s life. They smiled and laughed constantly as they
reconnected over the next hour.
Oh, to hear her voice
fill my son’s room, a room once decorated and prepared for her. It melted my
heart. I thought I’d never hear that sweet voice again.
Less than a year later, I
stood in Madrid, Spain, with both my son and his sister by my side, overlooking
a pond filled with hundreds of turtles.
Nine years after we’d taken that first
picture of us all together. When I saw the turtles in the pond, I felt God
gently tap my shoulder and whisper to me, “A turtle may seem slow, but I am not
slow in keeping my promise.”
He didn’t ever let me
claim her as my daughter, but He did not take her away from me forever, either.
Two ponds of turtles on two different continents now stand as bookends to my
story, reminding me of God’s faithfulness. Though as times it seems slow, He is
always steadily working out His ultimate plan. Oh, how I’d missed that little
girl over the last nine years.
Ten days later, I lay
awake in that precious girl’s bedroom where I’d slept during our visit, as I
waited those last few hours for my alarm clock to go off. I hadn’t slept a wink
that night, nor did I want to. I felt God’s intimate love just wash all over me
when I realized the gift of those last ten days spent with her, her mother, her
aunt, and her grandparents.
They called us family. They embraced us and treated
us like honored guests at their table and in their home. Even me, the one who
loved her first.
Images danced in my head that
night as I replayed our trips to the park, our meals together every night, our
walks around the city, along with the hugs, kisses, and all the times she held
my hand as we walked down the street. She used one hand to hold mine, and the
other to hold her mom’s.
I thanked God for the
clear opportunity to share with her adoptive mother about my side of her
daughter’s story. Not only do I get to continue loving and be loved by that
sweet girl, I also gained a new friend, my partner in this task of raising two
siblings on two different continents. We are two moms with more in common than
we ever knew.
I welcomed the slow tick
of those last few hours as I lay awake, basking in the presence of a God who
loved me so intimately to give me such a priceless, intimate gift. I felt
nothing but joy, and I most definitely did not want to sleep through a wink of
it.
God fulfilled one my
greatest longings over those ten days, and in doing so, I experienced Him in a
new way as El simkhat gili, my
exceeding joy. I will never look at a turtle the same again.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12
The Lord has done great things for
us, and we are filled with joy. Psalm 126:3
Those who sow with tears will reap
with songs of joy. Psalm 126:5
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