by Jen Hatmaker
A mood accompanies the Sabbath dinner. It is festive and affectionate, expectant and joyful. My littles had happy faces; Sydney asked to do this every week forever. Relief surrounds the evening; the meal is special, the mood is light, and the next twenty-four hours are wrestled from the grip of stress and frenzy.
Brandon led us through the readings, as I lit two candles representing remembrance and observation: of creation and deliverance, of rest and Sabbath. We drank our wine and juice; we ate the bread. Communion belongs in the home as certainly as it belongs in the church. We prayed. We closed with “Shabbot shalom! Shabbot shalom!” Peace on the Sabbath.
Then commenced movie night with popcorn and hot chocolate. The rest of Sabbath involved our beloved church, lunch with friends, then home for naps. Brilliant. We wrapped up Sabbath at my parents’ house for dinner Sunday, feasting on homemade fried chicken and mashed potatoes for my brother-in-law’s birthday.
Delicious food, family, church, friends, rest, worship . . . thank you, God. You’re smart.
Day 14
During the first week of October, I suffered inexplicable sadness for our Ethiopian kids, yet unknown to us. I couldn’t quit crying. I couldn’t stop worrying. I felt heavy and dark without knowing why. With tears burning at the slightest provocation, I threw my emotions into the Facebook ring for some backup. From adopting friends a common thread rose up:
“God is prompting you to pray for your children for some reason. You don’t know them yet, but he knows they are yours. Intercede for them this week; then write these dates down. Once you receive your referral, check their paperwork, and you might discover divine timing.” A slew of similar stories were posted.
So Brandon and I prayed desperately for our kids. Were they losing a parent? Were they suffering? Were they tender and lonely? Were they especially hopeless? Their need was unknown, but the ache was acute. So I cried the tears I just knew they were crying, and I begged Jesus to be so near, so gentle in their young, tragic lives while they waited for us, wishing a family wanted them but too afraid to hope.
Sensitive to their fragility, I spent that week checking (obsessing over) the Waiting Children’s List on our adoption agency’s Web site. I’ve been drawn to these kids since the beginning of our adoption journey. These children have not been requested or matched, unwanted even within the adoption community. Their crimes: (1) too old—meaning over five; (2) too sick—HIV, TB, birth defects; or (3) too many—siblings.
This very week a new little face hit the WCL: a darling, bright and shiny seven-year-old boy. I instantly loved his personality. He looked like Gavin in an African way. He seemed ornery, which I adore. So I pulled him up every day. Every day. Every day. I sent the link to Brandon. I sent the link to friends. I checked back in. I watched other WCL kids move from “available” to “file under review” while his smiling face remained “available.” On a Wednesday I sent this to our family coordinator:
Hi Caitlin!
Sweet adorable Beniam is a healthy seven-year-old on the WCL. He totally falls within our request range; and since he’s on there, I’m assuming there are no other requests for a seven-year-old boy. Would AWAA consider placing him with an unrelated younger girl and allowing us to consider them together?
We were exactly hoping for a seven-year-old boy and a younger girl. We would be so happy to apply for unrelated kiddos if this is a possibility.
Thoughts?
Jen Hatmaker
For a week we e-mailed back and forth about unrelated kids (sweet, precious Caitlin—extra jewels in her crown for fielding my relentless e-mails). I cannot explain how drawn to Ben we were. Every time we looked at him, he became more beautiful, more precious, more Hatmaker-ish. Our social worker needed to approve us for an unrelated placement, as we were approved for siblings. That, friends, sounded like a formality, so we got our ducks in a row to speed that process up.
Exactly one week after that e-mail, my phone rang the following Wednesday with that heart-attack-inducing-breath-stealing caller ID: “AWAA—Caitlin” (America World Adoption Agency). Adopting parents with submitted dossiers wait for that with such anxiety and anticipation, that should we be on a conference call with the president of the United States, we would scream in his ear, “I GOTTA GO!!!!!” and click over. Parents call their agencies ten billion times; they call us never, but when they do, this is what they say:
“Jen? It’s Caitlin. Sit down . . . this is your referral call.”
The world stopped spinning.
Time froze.
Nothing else existed.
“SHUT UP!!!” is how I responded as a mature, emotionally controlled girl. Our dossier was submitted forty-eight days ago; this referral was fast. I couldn’t think straight. The referral call includes sitting at your computer while your family coordinator introduces your child with the highly anticipated e-mail file, including pictures.
I told Caitlin I’d call her back in ten minutes because I needed to get Brandon home. Ring-ring:
“Are you stalking me? I just left! You know you can’t live without me.”
“Brandon, zip it! We. Just. Got. Our. Referral. Call.”
(Insert screeching brakes.)
We called Caitlin back and discovered our referral was one gorgeous, unbelievably perfect five-year-old girl. She was beautiful in every way. Brandon fell especially hard. With her little chicklet teeth and her shy smile, it seemed we might finally get a “gentle child,” which required adoption since our gene pool squashed that characteristic.
But besides “adopting” and “Ethiopia,” the other crystal-clear detail was “two children.” Back in December when adopting from Ethiopia was imminent, Brandon kept bringing up two kids. Normally the bleeding heart, I was reluctant (could also be defiant, obstinate, terrified) to consider two, knowing we are already a circus and doubting my ability to parent five kids. But Brandon couldn’t shake it; so we spent a week praying and fasting about one versus two.
On the final day of our fast, unknown to anyone but us, one of my dearest friends called: “Jen? I’ve been praying about your adoption. If this is irrelevant, just forget it; but every time I pray, I get the feeling you and Brandon are considering siblings . . .”
*Jen stops breathing.*
“. . . I don’t know why I keep getting this message. But if you are, we’ve prayed about it, and we want to pay for the second child. Whatever the cost increase is for adopting two instead of one, we’ll cover the entire amount.”
*Jen bawls eyes out.*
God? We’re fasting to hear from you: one or two kids?
Insert: The Most Obvious Answer Ever Received In Our Lives.
Without question we knew God had two kids for us, so this referral for just one was terribly confusing. We were starved for clarity, staring at each other like one of us had an explanation, the key to unlocking this baffling development. Our strategy has been, “Go back to what you know for sure. What was the last thing you heard?” The marching orders for two children was iron-clad, so I went three weeks back to those dark days full of prayer and sorrow. I confirmed the dates then searched this beautiful girl’s file:
It was the week she was brought to the orphanage.
Shipped twelve hours north of her village, her people, everything she knew to a crowded orphanage with children and workers who spoke a different language, it must’ve been devastating. She must’ve felt so alone. At age five. Except Jesus never leaves His little ones, His most vulnerable. He was there in the scary van ride north. He was there in her confusion and fear. He was there as she was assigned a bed and communal clothes and had her beautiful head shaved. He was there that first heartbreaking night. And He made sure we were there in spirit, too.
I am telling you, we felt her grief. We carried her turmoil. We cried her tears. Jesus made sure we sat watch with Him over her. He invited us into th
e vigil He was keeping on her behalf. Exactly three weeks after her first lonely night in the orphanage, we got her referral.
She was ours. We knew it.
She was the “younger unrelated girl” we asked for when pursuing Ben. It all locked into place. Within hours of the call, we asked for him too. For four agonizing days, we fought for his referral, this bright, shiny boy who’d seen hundreds of babies and toddlers come and go while he waited for someone to want him. For four days we pleaded our case against staunch resistance. For four days prayers and e-mails and calls flooded in as our Christian community rallied for this unwanted yet so wanted boy.
Enter The Great Silence, compline, the prayer of completion. Every Sunday night at 9:00 p.m., the parents adopting through our agency join in prayer all over the world. We pray for our children, the nannies, our paperwork, referrals, court dates, traveling mercies, approvals, and grace. I told my adoption community: “Please pray for our expanded referral. We want this boy so desperately, but the forces against his placement seem insurmountable.”
We were hanging on by a thread. We knew God said adopt two children from Ethiopia. We knew He connected us in prayer to our daughter’s traumatic abandonment. We knew He imprinted Ben on our hearts already, before we even had a referral. We knew these two children belonged to us, but the approval looked hopeless.
From nearly every state and several other countries, we prayed at 9:00 p.m., the hour of The Great Silence. We interceded for one another and begged God to move for the orphan. We voiced our impossible circumstances and trusted Him to work the common, everyday miracles that surround adoption. We acknowledged His sovereignty over bureaucracy, embassies, social workers, and poverty. We prayed for completion: Our children home. Hesitantly, timidly, I said, “I trust you, God.” At 9:27 p.m., our social worker sent this:
“I am going to approve this referral.”
No words can describe the rejoicing in our house and certainly in the heavens. Another orphan found his home, despite the odds, regardless of “the rules.” Yet again, God moved mountains for the very least. The day our Ethiopian children were born, the angels celebrated their immense value, the image of God they each bear. Their tragic circumstances didn’t lessen their worth but raised them to the highest level of divine attention:
•The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
•I love the Lord, for He heard my voice; He heard my cry for mercy.
•I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
•God sets the lonely in families.
•Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
•Our God is a God who saves; from the Sovereign Lord comes escape from death.
We’ve been invited into a beautiful story involving hundreds of saints in prayer for the redemption of two abandoned treasures. God captured an entire community with love for two children whose names were headed into the oblivion of poverty and despair. As selfish plans fail daily, and greedy dreams burn out as God removes His hand from endeavors we are using His name to endorse, Jesus gently placed two African orphans in the center of a faith community, restoring their names from a statistic back to the loved, precious, essential children they are.
I want you to know their names.
Our Beniam is seven, and we’ll call him Ben, the son we fought for. Our daughter’s name is Matawi, which means “Remembrance.” We will call her Remy because she was never forgotten—not by her Creator, not by her Savior, and not by us. God walked with our children through every sorrow; their plight was ever before Him. Though family and village and country and government and even the whole world turned from their distress, abdicating responsibility and ignoring their cries, God never forgot, never slept, never stopped working until His children were restored.
He remembered them.
For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.” Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me. . . .
See, I will beckon to the nations, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their hips. Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.
Can plunder be taken from warriors, or captives be rescued from the fierce? But this is what the LORD says: “Yes, captives will be taken from warriors, and plunder retrieved from the fierce; I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save.” (Isa. 49:13–16, 22–25)
This is our little Baby Love at her orphanage in Ethiopia, looking a mess. I promise to never, ever let her hair get this nappy, maybe.
This is the day we received Ben and Remy's referral . We'd been waiting to see those faces for a long time. (Also? Please note my oldest son's hair: This was a couple of months after "the infamous haircut." Bless it all.)
Day 16
*Yucky post ahead*
You’ve been warned.
You know what’s lame? Jealousy in a grown woman. I work in a weird industry/ministry hybrid. The subject is God, but it involves contracts, marketing budgets, cover designers, PR directors, publishers, and some hype. It takes fussing to get a book into your hands. Like me, most writers are neurotic and paranoid about this, certain everyone else is getting a better contract, better everything. They are probably all having secret dinners without me. I’m already self-conscious about my work, so add the success of other writers and perceived slights, and I’m like a melodramatic character on the CW. (I’m grossed out by myself, too. It’s not just you.)
Around 11:00 a.m., I heard about a friend’s massively wonderful book deal. It involves a team of committed experts and a lot of zeros. The word synergy was used and I threw up in my mouth. I became instantly furious with everyone who ever collaborated on my contracts. Publishers, editors, PR directors, my agent . . . they are all in on it. With complete certainty I knew they’d been at the secret dinners conspiring against me. Not only do they not believe in me, but now I know they despise me. They actually wish harm to me since none of my contracts ever matched this synergetic one.
I may have pulled up my Amazon reviews, which confirmed the freefall.
Icky ick ick. Oh ego, you ridiculously fragile ballast! I thought I’d banished you by now. I hate when you show up all insecure, trying to garnish credit and edge into the limelight. You ruin things. You steal honor and joy that rightfully belong to others. You turn beautiful tasks into garbage, and you wrestle glory from Jesus’ hands. I hate you. I mean, I really hate you. I wish you were dead. But you’re so hard to kill.
And the bell tolled at noon—The Hour of Illumination. Uh-oh. Written by Jen Hatmaker twenty-two days ago:
During the Hour of Illumination, we ask Jesus to send light into our hearts so intensely that they break wide open, so we can make the decisions that lead to peace—from death to life, deception to truth, despair to hope, hate to love. We self-inspect our hearts for violence we are choosing to harbor—toward ourselves, spouses or family members, coworkers, community, those who are different, toward any part of creation. We ask God’s love to illuminate the parts of our souls darkened with bitterness or anger or unforgiveness or apathy.
I walked outside with Lady Bird and turned my face to the sun, marveling at the ugly war that rages in me and God’s unfathomable patience with it all. I thought about Jesus, who never angled for credit, ever. In fact, He had the most perplexing habit of telling people not to talk about His awesomeness, how He healed and saved.
Jesus always deferred glory, redirecting people to one another and toward His Father and Spirit, who was to come. What Jesus didn’t do was complain the other rabbis got more temple time or had better synergy.
I am commissioned to be a light, but I can’t illuminate this world while competing with the lights of others. I mean, really? It isn’t possible to miss the point any worse. Together we are a city on a hill. When one of us shines, it is a community victory. If we all lived radiantly, we simply couldn’t be hidden any longer. This is not about individual wattage; our power is communal, or it is meaningless. “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” (Ps. 133:1).
God, this is the story you’ve given me to live. Write it with beauty and light. Banish the dark pockets of selfishness and jealousy with truth. Forgive me for choosing envy when I should have been thrilled your name will become even more famous. My gosh, I am a mess. Teach me peace in a violent world, already riddled with competition and greed. Give me a heart of flesh that contends for your glory through anyone, everyone, anywhere, everywhere. Reign over me until there is only you.
I am so grateful for this pause today because without it I would’ve continued the downward spiral, uninterrupted. I’m sure of it. I was four seconds away from Googling myself. This simple prayer stopped the hemorrhaging before I lost a whole day (week/weeks) nurturing my jealousy like a little pet. Maybe that’s one reason Paul told us to “pray continually” (1 Thess. 5:17). Constant prayer interrupts our ego trips and disrupts our toxic trajectories. It says, “Whoa, missy, stop right there. Really? You’re going to keep feeding this beast? Let’s count to ten and rethink this. You know, Jesus always said . . .”
Who can argue with that? It’s like seventh grade when mom let my sister get her ears pieced two years earlier than I did and extended her bedtime that same week, and when I was simply showing her the error of her parenting by yelling in her face about the injustice I lived with and the favoritism she was clearly showing Lindsay because obviously I was the most unloved yet high-achieving daughter in the house and maybe I should just go live with Gran . . . SLAP! Right across the face. Stunned us into silence until we both burst out crying.
