But you don't know how remarkable that is for us. Its like hearing your baby's first word!
Our little girl has not been vocalizing at all (even crying) since we've met her but know that she has for others in the past. Whether her strength has not been there as she has been struggling to breath or whether the ventilator gave her a sore throat she wasn't making any sounds but rattly breathing.
But today...today, she spoke. Two times she made a sound and it wasn't sad. I don't know if there will be degrees of happy but I think she was content.
Today poppa or papa held her and her nurse (who is in medical school and speaks some English) made him wear a lab coat over his clothes. Of course I never thought to take a picture, sorry.
We learned that all of the children in this end of this wing of the hospital are orphans who are sick from our little girl's orphanage. When we arrived today, we were stopped in the hall and asked to wait. When they took us to her, there were 2 people bending over her. I think they had been quickly dressing her up again. She had on a pretty pink dress and matching tights again. We don't care what she is wearing and rushing to dress her can't feel good. I got to tube feed her today which I loved because I did it slowly for her tummy's sake.
While there, she needed suctioning again and I got to take her to the room again. Once inside closed doors, her nurse suctioned her and then turned to me and said "Okay, why K ? I said "We heard about her from another family that visited her orphanage and that she needs a family" (the short version). She said "Yes, but why her? There are so many more healthy children that need a family too?" "Yes," I replied, "but there are some other families who want them. No-one wants her" She nodded. I went on, "When we first heard about her, I thought it was too hard but God was talking to our hearts that He wants us to take her. This is the way He loves us! It is normal to like a cute little baby, its easy. But God's kind of love for us is different. We are like her. But He loves her and loves us so much that Jesus, His Son came to earth to die for us to pay for our sins so we could be His children. We can't love like that. Only He can and so it is His love not ours that wants her." (And He teaches us to love like Him when we've experienced His love.) She nodded again. I hope she tells all of the staff that may wonder as well. We can't love our little girl out of our own fleshly, selfish hearts. And we will need His strength to love her in the hard days ahead. But we have been loved! So undeservedly.
I John 4: 7-10
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Don't read anymore unless you want the truth. Now that I've shared the above with you, I can share something else. I love our little girl! Not as much today as the weeks and months and we pray years go by and we invest our lives in hers. But I do love her...much because I choose to. Because I am making her my daughter.
In the room next door, there is a sweet, wistful looking little girl. I think she has cerebral palsy too but not so severe and is not malformed that I can see. We see her in a little walker in her doorway and when she is tired of holding up her head, she lays it down on the tray. She awakens in me, a strong desire to mother her. She is an orphan too. I have found myself...get ready...wishing it was her that we were taking home. Are you shocked?
This is me. I am also drawn to the cute and pretty and everyday I am making a choice to love our little girl who is not pretty but infinitely precious and it brings home the message to me everyday of the love of God for me. He knows all of the ugly parts of me, the past and even the thoughts and attitudes that I entertain or embrace that are not beautiful, loving, like Him. But He loves me, has chosen to adopt me as His child, has forgiven me those uglies and is making me new and beautiful like His Son Jesus Christ. Read about Him! He is beautiful. He is pure. He is wise. He doesn't do what we expect but does the unexpected.
So, in case anyone thought I/we are so good, we aren't. We are doing this because God has asked us to. We have feet of clay but a God of amazing grace and we are being blessed beyond measure to be asked to demonstrate His love by loving her for Him.
Galatians 4:4-7
4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
1 John 3
3 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.