Redefining Lucky

Sad, withdrawn, eyes full of sorrow. This is how I would describe our newest little one. On Tuesday night, our 13th child arrived. She is just shy of two years old and has been through so much in her short life. Abandonment, grief, pain, and sorrow. She has lived in the orphanage for the last seven months and now she is transitioning to yet another new home. She has no idea that this is a very good change.

She is scared to trust, to smile, and to come to like her new home, because after all, it may be taken away from her. Just like everything else in her life. 

Last week I wrote this post stating that I am the "lucky one." Some may even consider Pearl lucky because she has come to our foster home. The last few days I have been thinking about that post as well as a conversation I had with my Mom and thinking, what does "lucky" really mean for these children? When someone says they are "lucky," what does that mean?

These kids were left, abandoned. They have have lived in good situations or terrible situations in China before they are adopted. They have gone through more pain and sorrow than many of us will ever go through in a lifetime. They have loved and lost. They have no idea of where they came from. And questions that will never be answered.

Did she get her smile from their Mom? 

Eyes from her Father? 

A shy personality like her sister? 

These are answers precious Pearl will never know the answer too. Same as my sister. No matter how incredible her story is and how God can take something as awful and painful as abandonment and turn it into something beautiful through adoption, there will still be a part of her heart missing. A piece that she will never know the answers too.

Don't get me wrong, adoption is amazing. It is something I am passionate about and plan to do all I can to bring hope to orphans and unite forever families. I am so thankful for the way the Lord brought my family together from different sides of the world. But don't think for a minute that it is this "happily ever after" story. For these children, no matter how loved and wanted they are, there is something that we can't give them.

Answers to their past. 



I don't know about you, but if these children are considered "lucky," then this makes me totally rethink the term lucky and what it means.

We live in a lost and fallen world where there is pain and suffering. Praise God that there is also redemption, hope, and joy.

As I think about my own sister's story, my heart aches for her birth mother. A mother who must have loved her daughter so much to let her go. My heart also aches for the answers that she will never have answered. Questions that she has already started to ask.

Blessing? Indeed, but lucky? I think not.