I'm typing with one hand because Jewel is sick, again. To clarify, we are all sick, but those tiny microbes weigh heavy on her lungs. I wouldn't venture to say I'm bored by any measure, but I am stranded, so I'm documenting some thoughts blurring in my head.
Sin is horrible. Why do I forget that? Why don't I hate it as God does? Instead, I chase it, and it chases me. And then, I get those small divine glimpses of the depravity of it all.
Jewel was tortured at a doctor appointment yesterday. It was necessary, but torture nonetheless. She never catches a break there, sometimes we wonder about some manifestation of PTSD from all the medical interventions.
Today I've stopped everything to watch many struggled breaths of Jewel's- shoulders heaving concurrently with small grunts as she expends extraordinary energy to just make it to the next breath. Each breath is a physically heavy reminder of generational sin. There it occurred to me she may never be "ok" by medical standards because of the circumstances of her birth. How I managed to not fully process that nugget of truth until today I am unsure. I guess we were so focused on simple SAFETY in her permanency plan we became were short-sighted. It doesn't change how I feel anyways, other than it's another thing I have to regularly lay down on the altar each time reminding myself NOT to pick that burden back up again.
And in this moment she looks up at me expectantly, singing and bobbing her head between those grunts and fits of coughing to approximate the alphabet song she hears in the background. Here in the filth of it all, he makes some things phenomenal; eleven clear ultrasounds, one beautiful MRI, the ABC's, kind words, wise practitioners, prayer warriors, silent servants, and two deep prominent dimples that frame her pearly whites with clockwork timing.
Tomorrow we have our first post-adoption visit, on our own accord. I love her birth mother, truly. But the act of fleshing out that love in this mire of sin we live in, and because of, and with each day? It's messy. So messy.
I guess the purpose is to bring me back to the Gospel all throughout this present vapor of time.
By His grace she's here in my arms. She's always safe in His will, though she may never be "well".
By His grace, she labors on, and together in His will she and I make it another day, barely, but bountifully.
By His grace, tomorrow I will have the strength to walk in that room and speak muttered, stumbling words that only He can use as salve to BOTH of our hearts.
By His grace, I will trudge along, often blindly clinging to Him, as minutes and days grow into years and decades. My glimpses of His tapestry of grace will broaden.
And it will be enough.
