Twenty years ago this month in Seoul, Korea at the adoption center offices, I helped dress my new daughter in a soft green and white striped outfit. At 4 months old, she was embarking on a huge adjustment…leaving behind forever the foster mother who had cared for her since birth, her country, her culture, language, smells…all that had been a familiar part of her environment. I was thinking only about the moment though. I focused on her round soft cheeks, Asian eyes so different from mine, a fuzzy shock of black hair and her adorably squishy baby shape that made me want to cuddle her with her head on my shoulder.

My mother had come on the trip with me and together we piled into a taxi with our luggage and precious bundle then headed for the airport. I couldn’t take my eyes off of this baby and as I watched, she fell asleep. I marveled that she could fall asleep as we sped toward a new life. I remember thinking that maybe she should look around, see a last look at the country of her birth…but of course, she was only 4 months old and didn’t understand what was ahead of her.

When I think back to that afternoon now, I realize how little I knew about our family’s future with this baby. I was young and idealistic, I had two boys already and I thought I knew what was ahead. Another baby…how hard can it be? Never in my wildest imagination could I have thought I would be walking through vast, dark, emotionally pain filled years with her. Little did I know that I would spend sleep deprived nights filled with worry about her future, that I would grieve over her actions, that I would cry with gut wrenching grief until I threw up and was so exhausted that I was unable to cry anymore.

If somehow, my naive self had been told in the adoption offices what was in the future with this baby…attachment issues, horrendous lies, felony theft…would I have gotten into the taxi and left for the airport without her? I do not know the answer to that and I believe I am not supposed to know the answer to that quandary.

The pastor of my church said once during a sermon, “Nothing happens to you that doesn’t first pass through the sovereign will of God”. That thought comforts me. Also, a verse in the bible helps me…that tells me that God has known all along what was to happen.

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well. (Ps 139:13, 14 NIV)

On a spiritual level, there is a bigger picture here; bigger than “Why our family” or “Why me” and bigger than my daughter. I don’t understand it, don’t necessarily like it, but for now that knowledge has to be enough.