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Laughter
I am, on most days, a very happy person. I wake up joyful. I go to sleep joyful and I am happy to get to live my blessed life. I love to laugh. I think it does your soul good. When you are filled with laughter, when you can laugh at yourself, when you can laugh at what life throws your way, you find contentment. Because little things don’t matter, some days are hard, people make mistakes, mean words get said, but love of family and friends is what truly matters. Trusting in a God that is in control frees you up to not worry about trivial things. To be truly content you can’t take things of this world all that seriously. I think God wants us to understand that. I think God gets humor. I think laughter is a form of praise. When we can look at a situation and find humor in it and not let it ruin our day, you are in fact saying, “God you are in control. God your way is right. Satan throw at me what you might, but I will still sing with joy to the Lord!” Richard Exley said it well. “We can hug our hurts and make a shrine out of our sorrows or we can offer them to God as a sacrifice of praise. The choice is ours.” Take that hurt or trial and offer it to God. It is a form of praise to laugh at what life throws your way and trust in what God has planned.
Which is why I truly think God laughs*. I know that is assigning human emotions to Him, and that simplifies it. I know that God is much more than that, but I think He has to think like a parent and I can tell you that I laugh daily at the things my children do. I believe God sees us trying to control our world or obey what He is calling us to do as we work frantically to put our own parameters around it. Little tiny yes, buts…. and He has to chuckle. He has to be saying, “Child, if you could only see what I have planned for you…but okay you just keep thinking that.”
Just the other day Dan and I drove around. We were having an in-depth conversation about how many more we were going to try to adopt. I have to add here that many people think I talked Dan into adopting. It was Dan that fell in love with Hope. It took a year from when he asked me to consider adopting again for me to say yes. Many have heard me say that it wasn’t until I read Mary Beth Chapman’s book “Choosing to See” and read her question-“Is it better for a child to have an older mother or no mother at all?”- that I finally agreed that God was indeed asking us to step out of our comfort zone and adopt again. Age had been the only thing holding me back.
When we were heading home from China, I knew we were supposed to go back again. It made no logical sense, but I knew it to the core of my being. Dan, however, looked at me and said, “No!”… and it was a pretty emphatic no. I never said another word about it because if there is anything I know about how God works it’s that if it is meant to be, God will work on Dan’s heart. I don’t need to say a thing. I trust and go about my business. A few weeks later Dan told me that he was thinking maybe we should adopt again, but only one this time. A few weeks later he casually mentioned in a conversation that “When we go back to China we should….” A few weeks after that he was talking about how good it was when we got two last time because they had each other and we should do it again. I laughed. God is so good.
We’ve been reading the blogs of many other very large families. Blogs that are so moving, many of which I’ve shared on my Facebook page. These blogs were sent to me when I needed them the most. I love how God does that. He sends you just the right tidbit of information that helps you move forward. Anyway, we were discussing the fact that we had to be careful about an older child because we had to protect our younger children. Unfortunately, many of the children that are older have had trauma. You have to be ready to deal with that hurt and sometimes they lash out at others. I’ve seen families have a fairly smooth transition, but I’ve heard about many who have had to really work through things. Not that I’m afraid to work at something. I just need to be sure I can be all that I need to be for someone.
We discussed how many more we could truly handle. We discussed how many is too many? Does anyone really know? I’ve heard people say one is the right number or two or ten. As a family, how do you decide? We decided to just follow where God leads. He’s done it 3 times before. I wish I could truly explain what it feels like when you see a picture of a child and have your heart just ripped out of your chest. You know it is your child. We have felt moved to pray for many, many a child. We have seen thousands of pictures of sweet, little faces and been moved, but there is something different about certain children. I’ve had to say no before. I’ve prayed about a child and known it wasn’t right. I’ve also felt a tugging and prayed and prayed for a forever family for a child and celebrated when that came to be even though it wasn’t us. But sometimes you see a child’s face and you know your life is going to change.
I was reading a Love Without Boundaries blog and saw a little girl’s face. As I said, I’ve seen many faces before but when I saw the sweet face on this little thirteen year old girl in a wheelchair, my heart just hurt. I read the blog as tears flowed down my face. I went to the bathroom and cried so no one else knew I was crying. I was so moved by her story. I was so touched by that sweet face, but I remembered Dan and my conversation. We had decided no older children so I prayed and prayed and prayed for her all day. I saw someone else ask about her on the Facebook page. I read about how everyone who had met her said she was just so sweet and they couldn’t believe she hadn’t been adopted yet. I wondered why some children with sweet souls don’t ever get chosen? But I didn’t say a word to Dan because we had made our decision.
That day was Dan’s birthday and I was on the computer. He walked up to me and had tears in his eyes. I asked him what was wrong. Why was he upset? He sees and hears many sad things with his job. It is not unusual for his heart to be touched by some story, but still for him to be visibly upset I knew something was really wrong. He said, “I need you to look at this article.” I figured it was going to be another story of heartbreak and I sat there as he pulled up the story on the same little girl. I asked him what was wrong and he said, “I know what we said, but I think we need to look into adopting this little girl.” And I laughed out loud. It was just so funny. Dan looked at me like I was crazy. He was upset and I laughed. I finally explained what had happened to me earlier in the day with the same little girl and we both laughed.
This is how I know God has a sense of humor. We say, “I’ll do this, this, and this, but not this” and God says, “No, my child you will do what I call you to do even when it doesn’t make sense.” He sends you these little things to test you. Now I don’t know if this little girl is supposed to be ours or if her story is supposed to make me tell it so that others pray so she finally does find a family or if God just laid her on my heart as a test to see what I would do. I’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out, but I’m telling you God says, “Don’t put limits on what I ask of you. Don’t tell me that this is not right. I will tell you what is right. I will lead you. Your job is to just trust and follow!”
*The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. Psalm 2:4
You can read about Lauren on the Love Without Boundaries page. http://www.lwbcommunity.org/laurens-last-chance-for-a-family
