It's still fascinating to me how God knits our families together with other families!
Fake Friend: Amanda Botswana
I call her "Amanda Botswana" because I have too many adoptive friends named Amanda, according to Russ. Amanda was serving in Botswana when we initially connected. Funny thing is that after a short stint in Houston, God took her and her family back to Botswana. I never even got to meet her when we were in the same state. One day...
Remember how my friend Amanda (see? Too many Amanda's already) took a gift to Samuel before we ever held him. Yeah, God gave us that same opportunity for Wei Wei. We got to experience the same joy of sending pictures to another waiting family. We were able to pay it forward and it kinda paid it backwards to us too. Funny how that works! I wonder if Amanda knows that I sometimes I forget her last name because it's "Botswana" in our home!
Photo credit: Christopher Visuals
This Amanda has become a faithful friend too. We may go months between emails because we simply get too busy to reply to one another, but I know she's there. And when we do reconnect, it's like we just pick up where we left off. She has been a great encouragement to me. Her words of honesty have come back to ring in my ear often. God has definitely used her to heal my own heart while I've struggled to bond with Stella. Get this, she started a Facebook group to support the families adopting through our same agency. Yep!! She's all about adoption too. I love that she has taken it as a privilege and a responsibility to encourage other families along the way. I go weeks or months without looking at the FB group, yet Amanda somehow keeps up with each new family that is adopting. And she adds them. And then comments to welcome them. She's just being a vessel to encourage other adoptive families because God has given her that passion...all the way from another country!
We have real friends too. I Promise.
When you're in the adoption world and you literally walk the road of adoption with another family; you're just bonded for life. There's no other way around it. It's like being in the delivery room with a dear friend for the birth of your child. And their child. At the same time. Kinda weird, hu?
Shannon and I first connected when our older sons were in kindergarten together. Samuel had recently come home from China, but that wasn't yet the time Shannon's heart towards adoption started growing. Our friendship has changed over the years. I didn't realize until much later that God had used our adoption of Stella to spur Shannon and her family towards adoption. Looking back now, knowing how I've struggled so much with Stella, it's almost comical that God would use THAT adoption to encourage Shannon's family. If she could've only know my heart and my thoughts, it might've scared my friend away from adopting. For someone who struggles to keep her words to herself, it's kind of like a miracle that I didn't ruin what was about to transpire.
Shannon has been honest with her own struggles, again even those beyond adoption. She has calmed me and spoken truth more times than I can count. Our texts outnumber the stars in the sky, I think. And her kids, I love them like my own. Annika (her daughter from China) probably thinks I stalk her. I see her at school, at her house, at the park, pretty much anywhere. Perhaps when kids think moms have eyes in the back of their head, it could just be that there are mom spies everywhere with a full charged cell phone ready to text any mishap!
To think the God can use me in one of my ugliest times (while I struggled to love my own child), is humbling! The fact that I kept my mouth shut long enough so as not to scare Jay and Shannon away from adoption, is a miracle in itself! Our adoptions and honestly has just bonded us even tighter!
"One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there
is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."
Proverbs 18:24
No comments:
Post a Comment