Broken Hearts and Baby Birds

In my last post I shared my heart and the fact that, even though I am here, day in and day out, that I cannot heal my adopted children's hearts. If God does not show up, we won't make it. But there's not a chance that He's gonna bail on this. His heart is so for them, it makes my head spin. To think about how much He had to orchestrate to put these two little girls in our family blows my mind. And why He chose me to be their mother is a mystery still unraveling. Day after day I watch as He displays His strength to heal them in spite of my weaknesses.

Today I am not only awed, but wrecked. To tell this story, I will have to back up to May 1997....13 long years ago. My 3 1/2 year old daughter had begged us for a baby brother or sister, but God had not provided one for her and she was hands-on-hips incensed by this! But alas, God heard her prayers and at least was sending her a baby cousin who would live just around the corner from us. She anticipated Baby's arrival with the rest of us and had big plans for him. She talked to him through my sister's belly and waited - impatiently - for his arrival. Just days before Baby was due to be delivered into this world, he went to live with Jesus. My heart was so broken for my sister and her husband. In our own grief, my husband and I had the task of trying to explain to our daughter why the answer to her prayers would not be arriving to attend her tea parties. My heart broke as we tried the best we knew how to comfort her. At three she didn't get "dead". Three year olds do not think abstractly, and death is an abstract concept. She wanted to know why she still couldn't see him, hold him, play with him.....

While I was still making trips back and forth to the hospital, I came home one day and my little girl had found a baby bird that had fallen from his nest. I was really too tired to even think about caring for this little bird, but my daughter was delighted to take him in and insisted that we save him. I wrapped him up in a little box and explained to my daughter that when she got up from her nap we would take him to someone who knew how to feed and care for baby birds who have lost their mommies. Silently, I prayed he wouldn't die. I didn't think my heart - or hers - could take it. She named him Kik Kik and went to take her nap.

While she was napping, Kik Kik also went to be with Jesus.

Believe me, I had words with God. Seriously, Lord? You're kidding, right? Really? I sat there and tried to figure out how I would ever explain to my daughter why God would let this happen. How would I ever defend His character to my three year old when it was in question for me personally? I couldn't imagine what He was thinking.

When she got up from her nap, my daughter ran straight to the baby bird's box. I cringed and began to explain to her that he had died while she slept. I saw total disappointment begin to emerge and my own heart just screamed. But then something amazing happened. She picked him up. And she held death in her hands. She touched it, examined it and experienced it personally. What had been too abstract to resolve the confusion in her little heart over the death of her baby cousin, suddenly became concrete understanding. Slowly, (and God knows I can be really slow in getting His ways!) I began to realize what God had done for my daughter. This dead baby bird had been His gift to my three year old.

Today another little baby bird came into our lives to heal a hurting heart. My adopted daughter, the little one from Central America, had asked me a question out of the blue just as I was about to make dinner at the end of a busy day. It was one of those questions every adoptive parent knows is coming and plans to answer in a certain way and yet is still caught off guard when it happens.

"Why didn't I grow in your belly?"

For the first time ever, I explained to my little girl about her birth mom. I told her her name and how much she loved her, and how she couldn't care for her because she was too sick, and how she had gone to be with Jesus last year. I told her how Jesus knew that she needed a family and how He had allowed her to grow in mine and Daddy's heart so that she could grow up with a mom and dad who loved her and would always take care of her. I wanted her to know that God knew she would need a family and that He had lovingly provided that for her.

She sobbed.

In that moment, I was completely powerless to do anything to alleviate the pain in her heart. I cried out silently to God to come and heal her broken heart. Is this what justice looks like? Adoption itself is not just a story of gain for a child and a family. It doesn't exist without first being a story of profound loss in the life of a child. And here I am. Just sitting and holding this little broken heart....because He asked me to. Not because I can do anything to heal her. Not because I am capable of putting those pieces back together. I just sat and held and prayed.

In just that moment, one of my boys came running in to announce that he had just found a baby bird on the ground outside. My little girl wanted to see. As we got there, God was speaking to me. This baby bird was for her. I showed her how the baby had fallen from his nest way up high in the tree and how the momma bird was powerless to help him. I told her that God had sent us to save him so that he wouldn't die and so that we could get him to a safe place where he would be able to grow up into a fine, strong bird. I placed him in a box and put the box in my daughter's hands.

And this time, my hurting little girl was holding adoption in her hands.

She touched it, examined it and experienced it personally. What had been too abstract just minutes before to resolve the confusion in her little heart over the loss of her first mother, suddenly became concrete understanding. This baby bird was His gift to my broken-hearted five year old.

We located a wildlife rehabilitator just around the corner from us and all 7 of us...I mean, all 8 of us... piled into the van. My little girl held him in her lap the whole way and then delivered him herself into the hands of his new adoptive mommy.

Is she healed? No. Did God begin a healing work in her heart - something I am completely powerless to do - with a little baby bird, just as He did for my 16 year old all those years ago? Yes. And I stand in awe, once again, of His amazing ability to make all things new.