Choosing Hope

There are some things in life which just defy all human understanding or logic. Things which are truly unexplainable and impossible. Miracles, really. Right now, as I sit in Logan airport ready to depart for China, I realize that I have become part of something that is beyond my understanding. It is likely beyond many others' understanding.
This was not expected. At all. And to say that I am terrified would be an understatement. If I think about this too long, right now, the panic can become consuming. Because it is scary. Saying yes to a dying child who needs a mother is very scary.
I literally had to stop writing, because I was freaking myself out thinking of just how enormous this all is. Because it is huge and unfathomable to myself and likely most other people. But it isn’t huge to God. So now I am settled on the plane and realizing I have had it all wrong. Again. My perspective of fear and panic derived from thinking about the big picture and the impossibility of what is happening. Instead, I realized while sitting here next to my second and forth daughter, that I am to seize this moment and recognize it as a gift. And oh what a gift it is. I am heading back to the place where part of my heart always is. I am heading to the place where my daughters were born, and where my littlest dying daughter is waiting for me. This time not as an orphanage volunteer, but as her mother. I am heading back to the place where very special friends live, and where my Meimei lives. I am getting another chance to be back there, and to breathe in all of the amazing opportunities that I will be given. I will be able to soak in the beauty of holding a tiny baby again. I will be able to study her sweet face, and smell her baby breath. I will be able to be present on the first anniversary of Meimei’s son’ s death so that she does not need to go thought this day alone. I will be able to be in fellowship with my dear friends and share life with them. These things are not scary at all. They are life giving and energizing. I need to remember that each day, each moment, is a gift. Remembering that is still hard for me but I will try.
The fact that I am on this plane, in this place right now, is completely against all human rationale. It makes no sense that a baby who was given only 1 month to live is still alive 11 months later. It is incomprehensible that I have been granted permission to be her mother. The orphanage would not complete her paperwork for anyone else. Why me? I still do not know. But that really doesn’t matter. What matters is that I have a choice to respond. I can decide to look at this and think “no way it’s too hard”, “how could I possibly do it”, and/or “ I am too terrified to take the leap, fearing the what ifs”. Or I can choose hope. I can choose to say yes and try to live presently in each moment. I can choose to be assured that there is still beauty and mercy in this broken world. I can choose hope that only comes from knowing Him. I can choose to remind myself that this story has greater purposes than I can ever begin to understand. I choose hope.