Choosing to SEE - Mary Beth Chapman [33]
Meanwhile, David Trask was in the hall with the video camera pointed toward the elevator, his finger ready to push the little red “record” button.
I was like a caged animal, pacing, frantic. If I could’ve jumped out the window and lived, I would have. Jet lag, anxiety, and the Enemy’s lies were skewing my brain. It was like Satan was whispering in my ear that I couldn’t be a good mom, I couldn’t do this, I couldn’t love this little girl the way she needed to be loved.
I grabbed Emily, Caleb, and Will and lined them up at the end of the bed. “Kids!” I struggled to say. “This is going to change our family forever! Whatever happens in the next twenty-four hours, just remember, I love you!” They stared at me, all in a row, their eyes big and their jaws wide open.
I heard in the distance the “ding” of the elevator. I heard our facilitator’s voice calling from the hall in Chinese/broken English, “They here! They here!”
Terrified, I walked slowly toward the door. Everything went into slow motion. I looked back over my shoulder one last time at my three little towheaded kids sitting in a row: the way things were. It was a kind of death to the familiar life I’d known. I took a deep breath, told God that I trusted Him, and walked through the door.
I saw a Chinese woman carrying a bundled baby. She was wrapped in a million layers, but the outside one was a pink, polka-dotted flannel blanket that I had made and sent from home.
I couldn’t get to her fast enough. I opened my arms, flew toward the woman, and took the baby. Tears poured down my face. I couldn’t believe that this was my child. I stared down at her, crying over and over, “This is my baby!” I wept and clutched her tightly as the nanny handed me everything I had ever sent her: a stuffed pig, a plastic photo album of her new family.
Steven had stepped back. He could see that something miraculous was unfolding. It was like I had walked out into the hall as one person, and now I was holding this baby as a new person altogether.
In that moment, time stopped. It was like God was speaking to me directly. “Mary Beth, you thickheaded woman, do you not understand now that this is the very way I see you? You are this orphan! I adopted you and you are Mine! I bought you for a price! Do you see how you love this baby? That’s just a faint reflection of how much I love you! You didn’t have a name, and I gave you a name. You did nothing to deserve my love, and I love you anyway. You had no hope, no future, and now you are the daughter of the King!”
I saw it. The second she was placed in my arms, I would have fought to the death to protect her. I loved her with everything inside of me.
“Do you get it now?” God was saying to me. Under the blanket, this baby was wrapped in rags. She was poor. She didn’t smell good. She was hungry. There was nothing about her that had “earned” my love. But I loved her powerfully, deeply, absolutely. Period.
I got it.
Steven saw the transformation in my spirit. David Trask saw it through the lens of the video camera. In an instant, God had bonded me forever to this little girl, and nothing would separate us. In doing so, He also showed me the forever fierceness of His unconditional love for me, doing a work of grace in my life that I’d never known before.
Then we heard three little voices from the hotel room. We had forgotten all about our three “natural” children. We had told them to wait because I had been afraid, and we weren’t sure what was going to happen out in the Hallway of Life.
“Hey! What about us?” they called. “You forgot us!”
Steven and I looked at each other through our tears of joy and began laughing. It scared Shaohannah and she puckered up and started to cry, which made it even funnier in a weird way.
“Come on out!” Steven shouted.
“When Love Takes You In”
Words and music by Steven Curtis Chapman
I know you’ve heard the stories
But they all sound too good to be true
You’ve heard about a place called home
But there doesn’t seem to be one for you
So one more night you cry yourself